Spinward Fringe Broadcast 14

by Randolph Lalonde

  "All right, there isn't much security," Stephanie said. "My C-Tech got the link up and running and he's passing it over to you. We're rushing back up the beach now."

  "Covering fire on my target area!" Frost called out, and thirty soldiers turned, moved a little so they didn't break their own cover but got a straight shot at a spot little more than a hundred metres down the beach. There was a burned-out Citadel lifeboat on its side there, and half a dozen soldiers who were using it for cover as they used powerful rifles and shield generators to fire at Haven forces.

  Seconds after Frost gave the order, they were driven behind thick chunks of hull and portable shields, giving Stephanie's people a chance at running straight up the beach. Her people fired at another bunker further down the beach as they took their chance, and for the ten seconds it took them to rush at inhuman speed, the sands were lit up by the flickers and flares of energy rounds. The instant they were far enough from the intense interference caused by so many portable shields and high energy shots, they cloaked, disappearing up onto an earthy shelf thick with bamboo and ancient trees that weren't alight yet.

  The middle portion of Jake's helmet display turned into an interface for piloting the hotwired lifeboat, and after a few seconds of looking it over, he piloted it straight up. It was marked as an allied ship, so Haven forces left it alone as it made a rapid ascent that was made even more extreme with most of the internal dampening turned off. The only passengers were blasted corpses, their framework systems fried thanks to electromagnetically charged rounds. At ten thousand feet, Jake turned the ship around and aimed it at the very entrance of the fortified cave. "All right, everyone cover, get back if you can. This lifeboat isn't fusion. There's fuel aboard."

  "You heard the Admiral!" Frost said, sounding more excited than alarmed. "Hunker down, crank your shields, and make sure whatever you're hiding behind is good and heavy."

  As Jake turned the throttle up to full there was a distant boom overhead followed by a scream that grew louder quickly. He opened the interior fuel cell door, overriding a warning that said; THE FUEL CELL DOOR IS ONLY INTENDED FOR EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE. DETONATION MAY OCCUR.

  To Jake, it may as well have said; IF YOU OPEN THAT THING, THE FUEL GEL WILL LEAK INTO THE CABIN AND TURN THE SHIP INTO A HUGE BOMB. It was exactly what he was going for.

  The turrets at the mouth of the cave only had enough time for a few shots at the ship before it came down on the emplacement in a blur of white and yellow thruster flame. The sound of the crash was so loud that the audio in his helmet cut out, and the ground jumped underfoot. A wave of sand and stone blasted them, and when the dust cleared, there was a crater with a few flames, a chunk of metal that was once a piece of the dorsal hull, and a shield emitter that was flickering near the bottom of the crater. "I think I overdid it," Jake said, in awe of the destruction. There was no evidence of a cave or the soldiers that were inside left.

  Frost laughed so hard, he ran out of breath, took a deep inhale then laughed it out too. He wasn't the only one. No one on their side was harmed, though several of his people's shields took a major hit, but they'd recharge.

  As his tactical computer marked hundreds of spots on the map were debris was still falling, Jake realized that all the firing in the cove stopped on both sides. Then, without a second thought, he sent a simple order out to everyone in armour. "Charge! Charge while they're still wondering if they survived! Use everything you've got!"

  He leapt up, ran across the dense stone he used for cover, and jumped again, activating his thrusters while he took two fully charged rockets from where they hung, charging on his back, and targeted the next shielded position, one over from the crater he'd made. They were still taking refuge in a lifeboat, but its shields were almost completely drained after it was sent rolling several times down the beach. The rockets took flight after he released them, their paths tight corkscrews ahead of him.

  To Jake's surprise, Frost was only a few metres behind him, still snickering but opening fire with his rifle on its highest setting. The rockets struck the shields, electromagnetic pulse blasts taking them down. In frenzied seconds, Jake and Frost's squads made it to the lifeboat before anyone could resist and gave no quarter as they blasted the soldiers within with explosive rapid fire. A dozen such victories took place up and down the beach. It was over in minutes, and a hundred fifty-three Haven troops turned their attention to the lifeboats that were coming in for a landing, setting up Citadel turrets to make the whole cove a place where none of the enemy soldiers could survive.

  Twenty-Four

  Army Ants

  * * *

  The heavy tripod turrets Jake's Haven forces took from the Citadel troops saved them thousands of rounds of ammunition as they took down dozens of lifeboats headed for the beach. Flaming craft and the flashes of explosions lit the cove. Every one of their gun emplacements were surrounded by Haven soldiers who watched the edge of the water for surviving framework troops. The synthetic human enemies were short, fast, well-armed and small groups of them tried to outflank the force, escaping the wreckages of their landing craft and swimming for the mouths of the cove instead of the inner beach.

  They were supported by the ones - hundreds - that sacrificed themselves by running directly for the Haven defenders in an obvious ploy to distract them enough so a few frameworks could get around them. Jake scanned a few of the lifeboats in more detail as they were fired on, and discovered that these, hopefully the last wave of landers, were different. They were from a ship no one saw, it must have been near Tamber, and they were all loaded with cylinders with a framework skeleton in each. As soon as they hit the water, the lifeboat's hatches would burst open, the cylinders would push themselves out using simple collapsible arms, then a framework soldier would emerge, self-fabricating, materializing. Their weapons were stowed in the same case they landed in, standard heavy Order of Eden rifles and boots.

  "What are they doing? They could land anywhere else on the moon. There wouldn't be any resistance," Stephanie asked as she joined him and Frost on the beach. They weren't idle from where they commanded the troops, but held their rifles ready, checking long range for enemies that were trying to avoid the main defence along the shore.

  "It has to be the bunker," Jake replied. "Inventory doesn't show anything that they'd want in the levels that survived the blast, but we could be wrong. There could be something off the books or something they stole and stored themselves." He thought for a moment, looked over his shoulder at the ruins.

  "We'll have to blast it from space," Stephanie said. "None of my eyes and ears around Haven Shore saw the Order move more than people into the bunker, but I could be wrong. My coverage wasn't exactly perfect."

  "We're coming down like an anvil, making landfall in twelve seconds," Traveller said over the Fleet channel. He spotted them; three sleek Clever Class Corvettes decelerating, the Jester in the lead, perfectly visible as its turrets turned this way and that, finding targets in the water, blasting landers and frameworks with white-blue bolts of supercharged bolts. The upper guns of all three turned and unleashed a torrent of deadly light at an armoured drop ship that didn't make it to the ground. There was a load of tall armoured encounter suits inside, mechanized soldiers, and they were targeted by the barrage next.

  * * *

  It felt strange flying the Jester without a real co-pilot. "Well daaaaamn! It's like a goddamned shooting gallery down here!" Tagger laughed from his turret. There were two groups of fighters chasing them, they'd have a clear line of sight in less than a minute, but until then his group of gunships would provide the cover the ground forces needed.

  It was a crazy, slap-dash effort, getting three Clever Class Corvettes free and crewed so Admiral Valent's ground forces could get the support they needed. The fighting was furious in orbit, as the Haven fighter screen helped keep powerful torpedoes, small boarding craft and enemy interceptors away from the Triton, Rassaaga and the five Sunspire class capitol vessels. It was a battle unlike he
'd ever seen, with every kind of fighting ship he could have imagined, including several types of Order of Eden drones that no one had time to capture and try to hack.

  The Crow and Laura were the only Clever Class Corvettes that they could get their hands on. The Crow had its gun crew and a pilot, while the Laura was heavily damaged. It was missing two gun emplacements, and they had to replace a section of armoured panels on the dorsal side, where the small bridge was almost exposed. Crews got the holes patched and ran through a check with Pixie volunteering as the ship's new Captain. The former was killed while trying to rescue one of his gunners from where they were stuck in a turret. The turret was hit, and everyone who was drawn through the hole was obliterated as enemy fighters sighted them, defenceless in their vacsuits then picked them off. The Laura already had a tragic history, but Pixie took it on, grabbing volunteers for her gunnery crew from the hangars of the Triton. Most of them were shuttle and fighter pilots whose ships had returned in too poor a state to reload and redeploy.

  On one side, the Laura was a mess, with two turrets patched over, and a third dark, but the crew of the Laura was eager to prove themselves, including Pixie and that meant fulfilling her primary roles; taking civilian passengers aboard, then ascending to the Triton or whichever ship was ready to receive them.

  Regardless of what condition one of the three ships were in, the mission that Admiral Terry Ozark McPatrick gave Hal was carried out. He got just enough firepower and cargo space together to save the last civilians on Haven Shore, and judging from the ruins, it looked like he'd done it just in time.

  Hal opened a direct channel as he touched down; "Admiral Valent, your ride's here. Get your people into orbit, we'll take the civilians aboard and cover you through your low altitude ascent. It's gotta be soon, next thirty seconds or so, though." He cringed at the last, adding; "With respect, Sir."

  * * *

  "We're on our way," Jake replied. "All forces; we're leaving!" He marked the launch point for the armoured troops on the tactical map. Most of them would fly under their own power. The rest were ordered to board one of the corvettes as soon as the civilians were aboard. Everyone started falling back, firing at anything that looked like it gave chase or would land between them and the corvettes along the way.

  It was quick, all of them used their thrusters to hop over large portions of the three kilometres between them and the pickup site. When they arrived, the civilians were already aboard. The corvettes landed as close to the ruins of the bunker as possible, and Alaka's team got the civilians there fast.

  "Oh, no," Stephanie said in a sinking tone.

  From out of nowhere thirty-five Sol Defence Encounter suits appeared above them, seconds away from touching down in a box formation five wide and seven long. They didn’t make the mistake of dropping in an armoured landing craft. The last one was still in flames, nearly three kilometres distant, the wreckage a twisted mass of devastated mechanized walkers trapped under heavy armour plating. "What the hell is it about this island that makes them want it so bloody much?" Frost asked, irritated.

  Shields protected each of the enemy heavy suits from the turret fire of the corvettes just long enough for them to finish their controlled fall to the stony ground. "Traveller! Get your corvettes up and off the moon while we take care of these!" Jake said, looking into the back of the Jester, where several civilians looked back at him. Some were terrified, others seemed numb, dull-eyed, and a few were weeping gripping whatever hand was near as their own shook.

  "I'm getting into one of those bastard's suits this time," Frost said.

  The ground shook as several of the mechanized soldiers made contact with the stony ground. "Aye, aye, Admiral," Traveller replied. All three of his ships were off the ground and accelerating skyward at incredible speed.

  "Tear the mechs down! Don't give them a chance to target the corvettes!" Jake said, taking a line of recharged electromagnetic grenades from where they were affixed to his back and hurling them at the nearest group of mechanized soldiers. They were over twice his height, loaded with more modern versions of familiar Sol Defence weaponry. Their arms turned from where they were starting to point skyward to him and his people. "Blast their shields down, give 'em everything you've got!"

  He avoided an encounter suit's barrage of shard shaped energy bolts, paying no attention to the white-hot grooves they left in the metal plates and stone where he had just been standing. Alaka's team was free to fight, and they turned their heavy beam weapons on the nearest, lighting the front of the field more than any of the thousands of rounds that over a hundred seventy Haven heavy troops sent at the new group of mechanized soldiers who were twice their height.

  "Let's see if Haven's designers are right!" Frost said as he caught up with Jake, rushing the front row of the robotic looking Citadel soldiers.

  "About what?" Stephanie asked as she passed them both, deftly dodging a barrage of white fire with her squad of fourteen following her lead.

  "Whether or not our best armour can stand up to these big mechanized buggers!" Frost said, throwing two hand rockets up. They spiralled towards the mechs in the second line, bursting as soon as they were close enough to the enemy shields sending an invisible electromagnetic blast at them. The nearest ones switched modes, readying sparking, spinning cutters in their hands so they could be ready to fend off attacks at extreme close range. That was new, and Jake didn't like the sight, finding him distracted as Stephanie activated the thrusters on her suit, turned her shields up, and too flight. Her trajectory took her right between the arms of the mech in the middle, past its deadly hands so she smashed into the armour just below the cockpit. It rocked onto its back foot and she affixed to the thing's chest. She turned, blasting the thing's arm with her rifle as it raised to slash at her.

  Her squads split into two groups; one blasted at the legs of the one she was harassing with her rifle, the other went headlong into the mech beside it, firing at close range, staying away from those cutting hands. One of her soldiers got too close. A cutting hand grabbed her, popping her shields like a bubble after less than three seconds as the other hand - this one held a broader, circular energy blade - pressed against her head. Nancy Fergeson, a soldier with Haven Fleet for two months, was killed when the blade cut through her faceplate.

  Jake fired at an untouched mechanized unit, leading two of his squads in burning its shields down with electromagnetic pulses from their intense fire. Tufts of grass and other plant life around them was starting to catch fire, the waste heat around their weapons raising the temperature around them rapidly. Anything not in armour would burn if it came too close. The mechanized soldier tried to reinforce its shields, but it only bought him a few more seconds of protection as it fired back.

  The problem with the tall armour's hand launchers was that everyone could see where it was pointing as it fired shards of light at them, and Jake's soldiers had little trouble dodging most of it. When a soldier was hit, they took refuge behind someone else in his squad while his shields recharged. So many of them had trained for this or other, similarly deadly scenarios, and the big mechanized units were starting to look slow as they tried to fan out.

  The units Jake's four squads were firing at found themselves in real trouble as their shields failed and everyone switched to heavy armour piercing explosive rounds that would also deliver an electromagnetic burst an instant after impact. As soon as they broke through their enemies' armour, it started to fail, internal systems faltering thanks to shocks and terrible shredding.

  A burst of white shards struck Jake's shields from his left, and he slipped back behind his fellow soldiers, draining his power reserves to force his shields to recharge from three to thirty three percent. It would take time to generate more energy, so Jake moved with the squads, fired along with them as he double checked the status of the Sky Queen's quad drives and remote systems. The drives were melted down, it was procedure when the ship was marked as lost. There was no way to turn them into even a low-yield bomb
that would wipe out everything on the island. The remote systems were still running, though, and the auto-repair systems almost had two turrets running. He set the system to alert him when they were ready to fire. They wouldn't get many shots out of them, but that could come in handy.

  Frost leapt straight between the arms of a mech on their far right, two of his squad followed behind, and they planted their feet on the thing's chest and shoulders. They were following Stephanie's example. She'd taken out her target's arms then blasted through the armoured canopy protecting the pilot. "This one was piloted by someone who looked like Spin, too," she announced as her squad focused on the next mech, which was already stumbling. They used it and the first one down as cover against the rest as they unloaded round after round of their heaviest ammunition on them.

  "Kill now, details later!" Frost called back.

  "I agree," Alaka said as he and two other Nafalli rushed into the second line of mechs. Jake's shields were up to fifty percent, and his squads were working together without his leadership, so he joined them. It looked like the Nafalli moved with little effort, but it took everything Jake had to keep up, his legs pumping harder and faster than he imagined they could. They were charging right into an expanding half circle of deadly mechanized encounter suits, allowing themselves to get outflanked.

  Alaka had a good grasp on strategy, so it had to be on purpose. For some reason, the Nafalli wanted to be surrounded. "Koluun Miiru!" Alaka cried, slinging his heavy beam weapon, drawing a staff that telescoped to his height. The Nafalli to his right and left did the same, each of the tall, powerful tree tribe descendants brandishing staves of their own. One end glowed with a reinforced nanoblade while the other had a kinetic multiplier. Jake had tried a staff with a kinetic multiplier emitter at each end before, they were deadly, and incredible fun. He wanted to properly train with one, he was tall enough for the shortest length the Nafalli had, but he never seemed to get around to it.