by Aer-ki Jyr
As she zoomed in on the infantry formations with her helmet HUD she noticed a faint dot passing between the buildings on the other side of the city. It wasn’t moving like a flying Nestafar and she wondered if the enemy fighters had finally come back after heavy infantry fire from the Calavari had damaged the previous craft and forced a retreat.
Morgan raised an eyebrow when her helmet zoomed in on the dot, having to catch it at multiple points between buildings. Using her wrist interface she adjusted her comm settings and scanned for other Star Force signals…
One popped up on her HUD, with a tiny ID tag displaying over top the dot with the numerical identification of the warship along with its class. The corvette wasn’t coming directly to the city, but it might just be close enough for her to get a signal relay through to the Red Ranger.
“This is Morgan-063, requesting comm transfer to Captain Wilkinson.”
She paused a moment, then was about to repeat her request when the remote pilot controlling the corvette answered her hail.
“Signal request confirmed, Archon. Your signal is patchy, so I’ll hold position as relay until you say otherwise.”
“Thank you…and as long as you’re here, mind trashing a walker for me?”
“Roger that. Location?”
“Wandering the city streets somewhere in the southwest, maybe near city center now. You’ll need precision fire to avoid the buildings, a lot of which are still inhabited.”
“We’ll take care of it. Patching you through to the Captain now.”
“Wilkinson here,” a familiar voice said in his typical, all business tone.
“Mind telling me how a warship happened to wander by my position?”
“I was just looking into that…it’s redeploying from one engagement to another. I didn’t send it your way on purpose.”
“I won’t hold it up long. I need a dropship with ammunition and another jump pack sent down, I’m almost out of both.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, can you tell me where the fighters went that were harassing us yesterday?”
“You don’t have to worry about them, the base they returned to was destroyed in an air raid a few hours ago.”
Morgan blew out a relieved breath. “Anything else headed my way? There were some infantry transports earlier.”
“Two separate Nestafar camps have been dribbling reinforcements your way, but nothing appears to be moving up at the moment. Are you still a go for pickup tomorrow?”
“Send a dropship down to establish a comm link, but I think I’m staying another day. If they don’t get reinforced and the corvette takes out the last walker, I think we can finish off their troops in the city…and I don’t want to leave before the party’s over.”
“I take it you don’t want a transmitter sent down?”
“Nope, just more ammo. I still plan to stay on the move.”
“Very well. Coordinate drop or landing?”
“Drop. Sending coordinates,” she said, tagging a position on her battlemap and relaying it through the system via her forearm controls.
“Received. I’ll have it out the bay doors inside of 10 minutes.”
“Status on the jumpships?”
“Internal sabotage on the remaining two was followed by a simultaneous surrender. I think they preferred blowing up their key systems rather than us doing it randomly and venting their atmosphere. Removal of the prisoners is slated to begin in a couple of hours, or as soon as the Calavari get the necessary transports up here.”
“Good. Once that’s done see to the recovery of our people and the armor, especially mine. This set is getting banged up pretty good.”
“Can I assume there’s tech in your armor that you’d prefer our allies not get their hands on?”
“Some small truth in that, but mainly I want all bodies accounted for.”
“Understood,” Wilkinson said in her helmet as the grey block of a corvette slid overtop the city buildings like a monolith.
“Carry on,” she said, ending the conversation as the warship fired down into the city twice, then just floated silently in position.
“Enemy contact terminated,” the remote pilot said. “We don’t detect any others on sensors. Is there anything else you’d like us to hit, Archon?”
“Negative, that was the last one. Continue with your previous mission.”
“Copy that,” he said a few seconds before the ship began moving forward, gaining both altitude and speed as it raced west over the city then turned more to the north as it passed the outskirts, gradually shrinking to a dot on the horizon.
Morgan turned her attention back to the infantry staging area and saw that one group had already deployed, with the others seemingly frantic over the appearance of the warship. When the second group began to move out Morgan jumped up onto her feet, shaking out a bit of numbness in her ankles, and ran along the wall to the right before cutting back and heading across the park.
She might not have much ammunition left, but she was determined to get the jump on them from behind and use what she had to disrupt the attack on the Calavari lines. Within an hour or so she’d have plenty more to use, so no point in conserving now.
By the middle of her third day on the planet Morgan and the Calavari surrounded and slaughtered what was left of the Nestafar infantry in what had been their staging area in the southwestern section of the city. Numerous individuals scattered, both along the ground and into the sky, which the Calavari quickly pursued, along with organizing cleanup teams to sweep the city looking for others. Morgan passed on that duty and milled about the city, conferring with the Calavari leaders, both military and civilian, and gathering what information she could on the city and what else they knew about the ongoing war spreading across the planet as she waited for pickup.
The Calavari were more than grateful, as well as curious as to who this alien was and how it had killed so many of the enemy. By now her armor was pot marked and her mostly empty pack had two separate holes in it. She took a bit of her spare time to roam around, consuming the rations and ambrosia that hadn’t been roasted by the plasma impacts, and taking a moment to soak in the war torn landscape, mindful that not all of the fighting was over.
She let the past day’s events roll through her mind, then the debacle on the jumpship resurfaced and she didn’t push it away, trying instead to let the Calavari city give her some new perspective as she waited impatiently for her dropship to arrive.
Morgan admitted to herself that the Calavari should have known more about the Nestafar than she did, given that they were long-time enemies, and that the gravity trap had surprised them as much as her. Apparently they didn’t have much experience taking Nestafar jumpships or maybe this one was special in some way. Now that it had surrendered she’d get a chance to send her techs over and find out what had happened, notably how they’d been able to produce that much gravity, of which she was still curious.
Part of her didn’t like losing, and never would, but the part that felt responsible for the Calavari being there at her request started to die out. Looking out over the city, it was clear that this war was much bigger than one battle, whether here or on the jumpship, and their allies were fighting the Nestafar anywhere and everywhere they could. They’d been suckered into a trap, but they wouldn’t be able to pull it twice. With both Star Force and the Calavari aware of the danger and spreading the information out to every ship and command in the system, including the Kvash, any future boarding efforts would be wary of the risk and plan accordingly…or just blow the ships up and not worry about it.
Star Force wouldn’t do that, but she wouldn’t put it past the others in the Alliance. Part of her didn’t blame them, given that they shouldn’t be concerned about the wellbeing of those that were trying to kill them, but neither she nor the Archons could ever think that way. When they were in survival mode, for sure, they lashed out and did what it took to survive…but the moment when they had the upper hand and time to think
they had to consider the enemy as a collection of individuals and not just a mindless hoard of blood thirsty enemies.
How many of them, after all, got a chance to decide whether or not they’d fight in this war? Morgan didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to judge all the Nestafar based on assumptions, so when she had the option she’d keep as many of them alive as possible…she just needed to be more careful that that decision didn’t come back to bite her again like it recently had.
Live and learn…and because of her some of the Nestafar would have that chance. Would they use it? That she couldn’t say, and probably would never find out, but she was one of the good guys and she was going to give them that chance, whether they deserved it or not.
She didn’t like, and resisted, the idea that they’d been traded for the lives of the Archons. That was stupid. She’d never sacrifice anyone in a trade of lives, especially not her brothers and sisters. They’d been killed in combat, losing a challenge that she alone had barely survived…and unlike their training, this was one challenge you didn’t get a second chance at.
Morgan still didn’t know how she’d made it, and her mind kept going back to the weight of the gravity crushing her into the floor and the blurry memories of her getting through the shield. Her pistol shouldn’t have been powerful enough to bring it down, not on its own, and she honestly had no idea what she had shot to kill the gravity field…that more than anything gnawed at her. The idea that she was alive, not because she’d won, but because she’d gotten insanely lucky.
Part of her wanted to say that was bad news for the enemy, because they should have killed her when they had the chance, but she honestly didn’t like feeling out of control. The idea of being stuck in a situation where death was certain and you didn’t even have a small chance of victory, or even a means to fight back, unnerved her considerably. A one in a billion shot was workable. No chance…well, that was something her mind simply didn’t want to acknowledge existed…yet she’d faced it head on…and survived?
Such logic loops kept her occupied until her dropship finally arrived. Without any fanfare or goodbyes she slipped aboard and left the city behind, not knowing how long it would be before the Nestafar returned, but for the moment it was still in Calavari hands.
Mission accomplished.
When she got back onboard the Red Ranger she commed Wilkinson and got an update on recent events, as well as telling him she’d be unavailable for the indefinite future. He said he’d forward any necessary information through the computer logs and keep her incommunicado as long as she wished, then the Archon disappeared into the sanctum for a brief run outside her armor, a series of agility drills, and the object-toting lifting challenges that made up her core workouts…along with a hefty dose of stretching that her body had sorely missed after 3 days on the planet.
All of which she did pushing back the fatigue of having almost no sleep during the fighting. She was running high on ambrosia, enough to carry a stiff headache, but the workouts helped to center her and get her back into the rhythmic training mode of an Archon.
Morgan, soaked in blissful sweat and glad no one was around to smell her, downed two bottles of water and multiple prepackaged foodstuffs from the sanctum kitchen, foregoing the hot meals in the ship’s cafeteria. She guestimated how much additional ambrosia to ingest, then finished up her plateful of pastries and what Paul jokingly referred to as ‘Jedi rations’ and then headed herself over to the shower in one of the quarters, stripped down for a lengthy scrubbing session, toweled off, then slipped into bed nude and fell asleep a few seconds after her head hit the pillow.
A few minutes later, in a dream-like haze, she felt her body prickle with goose bumps, but locked into a motionless state she didn’t move beneath the covers…however the covers did as the ripple of tingly energy dissipated, causing fluttery waves that briefly lifted the material up off her body an inch or two.
Four more times it would happen during the course of her sleep, none of which she would remember upon waking.
4
Over the next two days Morgan spent her time isolated within the sanctum, a mixture of training, sleep, and introspection…as most days were for her. In her downtime she monitored the progress of the capture of the two remaining Nestafar jumpships, noted the arrival of a Kvash cruiser to offload their guests onto as it assisted with the repairs to the gigantic battleship, and kept up to date with the surface activity on Sri’ka and the other 6 inhabited planets in the system, all of which were under some sort of duress.
After the first day requests started coming in from different Calavari commanders, asking if Star Force could provide one or more of their super soldiers to reinforce their own troops…some for offensive action, others for defensive holds such as she had helped orchestrate earlier. Word seemed to spread quickly, because by the end of the second day the list had grown exponentially and Morgan knew she had to respond to at least some of them. While their mission in the system had originally been naval-only in scope, she couldn’t just sit up inside a warship while their allies fought tooth and nail for survival on the ground.
She was a commando, first and foremost, and needed to get in the fight in a way that mattered. She might have been the only Archon left in the strikeforce, but the warship Captains were more than capable of handling the naval affairs alone if need be, even though she admitted that the fleet would be better off if she was around to direct the battles if and when they resumed. So far the Nestafar fleet had kept well clear of lower orbit, but continued to lurk around the higher zones…those that hadn’t outright left the planetary microsystem and strengthened the fleets assaulting the other Calavari planets.
Morgan knew they needed to hit at least one of them before they left the system, but she also didn’t want to leave with only a few drone warships remaining. Repairs were continuing on several damaged in the preliminary fighting, while the wreckage of the others was being harvested and recycled as much as possible to boost the raw materials carried in storage. Even if she got all those damaged ships repaired it was going to be a slug fest with all the other Nestafar ships in the system, and she was half expecting them to show up on her doorstep at any time now looking for revenge.
But the tactical training her mind had absorbed told her otherwise. If the Nestafar pulled ships away from their current deployments they’d leave openings that the Calavari and Kvash fleets could exploit. Even now both sides were dug in defending key installations in orbit and trying to interfere with each other’s reinforcement efforts on the ground. 2 of the 7 planets were nominally held by the Nestafar, with the other 5 still largely in Calavari hands. Sri’ka counted amongst the 5, and had been providing troops and resources to armies seeking to reclaim a larger foothold on the embattled worlds before the recent Nestafar jumpship drop.
Those troops and walkers deployed had put Sri’ka up for grabs, albeit after a very long campaign, for the planet was huge, but the point was Sri’ka was no longer bolstering the other worlds and had become heavily contended itself. This took pressure off the Nestafar in other locations throughout the system, and if they came hunting Morgan’s fleet they’d forfeit that advantage…which the keen strategist would never do.
Alien minds, though, the trailblazer reminded herself, did not always see ‘logic’ the same way, which was probably why she had the feeling the Nestafar were going to jump them at any time now.
As she sat and scrolled down through the list of new requests one jumped out at her…timestamped 2 minutes ago. A series of Calavari building/cities in the mountains were being overrun, with the Calavari requesting any and all units in the area to assist…nothing specific about Star Force in there, so it must have gone out on all Alliance channels in order to have become imbedded in the data stream.
Morgan followed a link to the coordinates, as well as the most recent intelligence reports that the Red Ranger’s crew were gathering from all sources in the system, cataloging the ongoing activity into a rolling brief for the Captain
and her to monitor as they chose…as well as for filing purposes, documenting the war for further analysis of enemy tactics at a later date.
According to the data, which was being updated every few seconds, there was a cluster of 8 cities in various valleys interconnected by tunnels and walkways over and through the mountains separating them. Each city was a massive structure, similar in the way they had constructed the Alliance base on Daka, and housed millions of civilians that had nowhere to evacuate to other than the desolate mountain terrain that consisted of little more than dusty rocks and patches of snow.
Growing more interested by the moment, Morgan typed in an active request for live surveillance data…with one of the drone warships in orbit being nearby enough to pull line of sight sensor recordings on the location. Fortunately there was little cloud cover on the planet and the location was currently on the day side, for Morgan got back a morphable image prompt on her command screen, linked through to the random set of quarters in the sanctum that she was currently bunking in.
She adjusted the map and had it zoom in on one of the cities tagged with the highest level of enemy activity, with the drone warship responding and adjusting its telescopic sensors accordingly. An image of what looked like a giant orange rose half buried in between two mountain ridges filled the screen. Zooming in further the top of the rose became elevated rings of walkways, landing pads, and massive walls, all of which tiered around a central dome that was opaque.
Asking the cameras to move in further, Morgan enlarged the rings, seeing dozens of tiny specs spread out on them…then realized that those specs were protomechs and fully grasped the size of the facility. A quick move around the live streaming map and she tagged the landing zones that held Nestafar dropships, some of which already had ID tags assigned as the Red Ranger’s crew processed the tactical applications.