The swirls in the air became instantly more apparent to him when they suddenly rose sharply in front of his Hoth, passing very closely over top of him, between him and wing one. The severe turbulence pushed his craft downwards the fifteen feet that separated him from the street. His Normal Space drive reacted quickly, at least enough to prevent a nose down impact with the road, but it couldn’t stop the bone jarring impact of the Hoth’s belly with the pavement, and the drive was stressed to the maximum to slow his three hundred mile per hour sparking skid along the street. He was painfully thrown into his seat restraints by the bruising deceleration and impact with the street.
Dazed, and not sure what had happened, he called to the Flight Leader, just as the debris from that higher flying Hoth smashed into the building to his right. Lacking any flammable fuel onboard, there were sparks, and sprays of debris, but no explosion. The craft’s fusion bottle core wasn’t ruptured, and that dense item ripped free of the wreckage and spun down the pedestrian walkway at the base of the building. He saw colorfully dressed humans, standing oddly still, looking out of the building’s wide windows at the violence and destruction outside, apparently unconcerned for their safety. The mannequins were completely indifferent to the events outside.
Lieutenant Kranfa, the pilot of wing two answered his radio call. “Derkat, get out and run towards the Pillagers. Jastal is dead, and the enemy gun cart survived. It will be hunting for you. Move fast, and I’ll cover you if they expose themselves. I’m looping back towards you, over the top of the buildings.” He knew his wing mate’s visor could see his craft’s silhouette, even with its stealth activated. “I’ll come back down the street from the same direction, slow and quiet from behind you, and wait for them.”
Blowing his canopy free, and bashing the central release disk on his chest, his multi-point seat restraints retracted, and Derkat leaped from the cockpit, only a body length above the pavement. The higher than typical gravity hurt his feet when his boots smacked harder than expected on the pavement.
Using his visor’s com system, as he drew a laser side arm and started running towards their advancing line of Pillagers, he asked, “What happened to Captain Jastal? What was that swirl of air that forced me down?”
“His Hoth disintegrated. I don't know what happened to him since the gun cart wasn’t firing at us anymore. What swirl of air do you mean?”
Looking over his shoulder, back where he could hear scraping and clattering sounds, well behind where his crashed Hoth had slid to a halt, he saw motion as the human gun cart appeared and paused, just inside the shelter of the smashed entry way. If he could see them, the gunner could see him. He quickly angled to his left to put his wrecked Hoth between him and the gun cart. Not that this solved his long-term problem. He couldn’t keep moving down the street and keep his Hoth between them, and they could easily blast away the cover his wrecked Hoth offered anyway. He explained his predicament to wing one.
“I’m slowing to a hover behind and above them. Link your visor to mine, so I’ll be able to triangulate and site them through the building and fire my laser at them. I can burn through the walls and levels above them if they don’t back away.”
“Understood. But watch out for that same turbulence. I see it above and well behind you, coming our way.” As he watched it move in the empty sky, he zoomed his visor’s view towards the disturbance. His experience in watching Hoth flight training suddenly told him what it was, and what he wasn’t seeing.
“Kranfa, that’s a pair of atmospheric wing tip vorticities, they have better stealth than we do. Climb and get out of here.” What was missing was the stealthed enemy aircraft that was making the twin horizontal vortices.
It was almost in time. Rather than try to flee, accelerating from a near motionless hover with an enemy already on his tail, the Hoth spun in place, and fired his laser wildly, as he strove to see what the linked visor image of his wing mate saw. The incoming plasma bolts, originating just in front of and below the twin tornadoes, blew the tail off the hovering Hoth as it pivoted in place. The craft started to drop tail first from less than fifty feet, and luck accomplished what skill had failed to do. The laser beam cut along the bottom of the fuselage of the incoming Shadow, hitting one of the Trap emitters, opening its single Trap and freeing the tachyon back into Tachyon Space, killing the power source for the gravitational Normal Space Drive.
The Shadow suddenly popped into view, since its stealth also relied on that power source, and revealed itself as a silvery reflective and aerodynamic dart of a space plane. Its large fusion bottle, which provided power to weapons and electrical systems, instantly switched to supply a short burst of energy to the Normal Space Drive. It wasn’t enough to fly the plane, but the craft slowed almost impossibly fast to a crawl and settled roughly to the pavement. It came to rest less than fifty feet behind where wing two fell, which had stuck the roadway rear end first, which absorbed some of the impact as it crumpled, and then flopping flat as the nose came down hard. A series of less than graceful landings for such agile birds.
Derkat, torn between his survival urge, and a desire to try to pull his comrade from the cockpit, compromised and ran back towards his own plane, using it as a shield from the gun cart. All he had was his laser pistol, but he’d do his best to cover his wing mate if he was able to exit his wrecked craft. “Kranfa, are you able to get out?” A helmet icon showed he was alive.
“I hurt my back, but I can move well enough. I released my restraints. Where’s that falgrat that shot me down, and that stinking gun cart. At least I have some protection from its plasma bolts for a short time, until the enemy fighter returns.”
“You didn’t see? You hit and damaged it as you fell out of the sky. It lost stealth and power and crash landed in the street just beyond you. I can see you both.”
Looking out the side of his canopy, Kranfa expressed his surprise. “Hoot!” The pant-hoot was his reaction to seeing movement from the sleek enemy craft. “You’re right, but the pilot’s not dead, the canopy just opened.”
Derkat saw that as well, but there appeared to be no one inside the cockpit. Then a black and white set of body armor rippled into view standing next to the plane, with a helmet spotted with blue glowing spots on its front. It was truly alien looking, but had the approximate proportions of a human. The Hoth pilots wore slimmed down versions of standard Ragoon body armor, with less thick armor, and no stealth coating. The two Ragnar looked twice as large as did the alien pilot. Neither of them understood why it had deactivated suit stealth, which was as effective as that of its space plane. It seemed a needless loss of advantage, as if it didn’t need the help.
Derkat said, “It’s walking towards you, and I don't see a weapon in either hand. I’ll see how well its suit holds up against a laser pistol.” From partial concealment at the side of his Hoth, he brought up his laser pistol, which had electronic sights linked to his visor. He never managed to bring the gun level with his target, who’s helmeted head was facing directly at him.
His pistol suddenly became impossibly too hot to hold, even with his pilot’s gauntlets for protection. In fact, his Debilitater radiation shielded gauntlets were also burning hot. He dropped the weapon, then twisted and ripped off the hot wire mesh glove with his other hand, shaking his burned hand rapidly, as he frantically tried to cool his fingers and knuckles.
The small armored figure had never moved its hands from its sides. The heated hand cooled instantly with the glove off, and he looked down at the dropped weapon, thinking to pick it up again. Abruptly, a green colored laser shot from one of the blue circles on the helmeted head, and turned the pistol into slag as he leaped back. Other than a survival knife strapped to his leg and a long bladed slashing or chopping tool in a survival kit, just inside a panel on the other side of his Hoth, he was unarmed. He’d have to expose himself to the gun cart to get to the survival kit. He was truly doomed if the human, if that’s what it was, used that same laser to see how well his light pilot’s armor
could protect him.
The strange figure made a waving gesture towards where the gun crew must be, probably speaking to them by radio. Then it walked quickly towards wing one’s wreckage.
“It’s coming your way.” Derkat warned. “It has a medium power laser mounted in its helmet, and it used some energy beam I couldn’t see, to burn my hand and force me to drop my side arm. It could have killed me, but it didn’t. It fused my pistol instead.”
“I saw the trace of the green beam. It doesn’t have to use its hands to shoot. I’m not opening my canopy. I set it for vacuum seal status and the outside release won’t work. I have my pistol out and if it takes a look inside, I’ll put a beam right in the center of its helmet, and see how tough it is.”
When the figure reached the side of the Damaged Hoth, it seemed to be reading the simple guides printed there in Ragnar script. As evidence it could read what it saw, it reached up and pressed in, to reveal a recessed release where the manual canopy catch was placed. Then it pressed inward and up so hard with its right hand that, incredibly, the extremely heavy fuselage rocked more than a foot to the side. It didn’t work of course, since the canopy seal was set to protect the pilot from vacuum or noxious fumes.
Without trying that release again, it didn’t attempt to climb up, by using the small door panel that concealed a foot insert, which would let it peek over the lower rim of the canopy. Instead, it raised its right hand, forming a fist, and smashed down at the midpoint of the right side of the canopy. It couldn’t shatter the transparent armor, but incredibly, it did crack. That form fitting slender body armor certainly had considerably greater powered assist than even Ragoon heavy battle armor, and the material of the gauntleted knuckles must be extremely hard to crack the canopy on the first blow. A second blow was answered with a red laser beam that shot through the canopy, only slightly attenuated and dispersed by the expanded web of cracks.
The beam had hit the armored forearm, but there was no reaction other than the figure stepping back and appearing to study the situation. It walked to where the lump of a small actuator motor housing had scattered from the rear of the craft, when it fell onto its tail. It picked up the hunk, easily tore some control cables away, and tested its solid heft with a slight one handed toss. Walking back to the side of the cockpit, standing several body lengths away, it leaned back slightly, cocked its right arm, and in a blur of motion too fast to follow, hurled the motor casing at the side of the canopy, striking it exactly where the star of cracks was from its fist blow. The canopy shattered, and the motor continued on, only slightly deflected, as it passed all the way through the spray of armored canopy debris.
The figure then moved forward and ducked below the curvature of the cabin section, where the pilot couldn’t aim his laser pistol without being extremely exposed. For the first time, it spoke loudly enough for both pilots to hear, using an external suit speaker. Incredibly, the words were in somewhat stilted and overly formal words, but easily understandable Fotrol, the Ragnar language,
“You are brave and skilled opponents, and I have no desire to cause your needless deaths. If we can speak together, and if you will listen to what I have to say, I offer you my life vow that I will guard your return to your Ground Force Commander unharmed. My leaders want you to take an offer of an honorable truce back to him, with additional details to be discussed and negotiated while that truce is in effect.
“If no agreement can be reached, our combat will resume. As a token of our good faith and sincerity, I am authorized to demonstrate to you two how we destroyed your twenty-one lead Pillagers of each of your columns. We could have destroyed many more of them, but that would not serve what we believe is of mutual benefit to both of our species. My craft, called a Shadow, is a similar atmospheric capable spacecraft like your Hoths, and I was able to win against a flight of three of you, even though I fought alone. Similar fights are now being conducted against nearly the entire one hundred Hoths that accompanied the infantry and Pillagers attacking this city. We cannot permit you to destroy our allies, who live on this world.
“I am not from here, and my people are a variation of the human species, called the Kobani. Our ability should not be underestimated by you. We are the people that drove your fleet away. Returning to your Ground Force Commander with word of our equivalent fighters, having better stealth than yours, is at least worth the value of listening to me.
From the cockpit above, Kranfa proved he had been listening so far. “Why would you have anything to discuss with us under a truce. We came here to conquer your world.”
“Because the Galactic Federation and the Ragnar each want to see the Thandol removed as leaders of the Empire. The Ragnar could be one of the victors in that fight, with our help, and rule the sector of space where you now provide security for them. And I repeat, this is not my world, and it is not part of the Galactic Federation, although it is a human settled world with its own free government. My people came here to help them resist an attack by the Empire, but we did not expect it to be entirely conducted by the Ragnar. We had hoped to destroy one of the Thandol Fleets, not yours.”
“You did not destroy our fleet, it withdrew.”
“We held back to allow it to escape largely intact, and we let it send down supplies for the Ground Forces. Without that fleet, your people could not oppose the Emperor when the time comes. May I speak with you face to face? You will not be more at risk than you are now. I could ask the crew of the ladybug you were trying to destroy to kill you both. They are citizens of this world, and they would cheerfully send plasma bolts through your charred remains. They do not understand what we are saying, and I’m sure they wish I would move away so they could kill you both.”
Kranfa didn’t want his next words to be misunderstood. “My speaking with you here is not a truce with my Group commander or with our Force Commander, and I cannot speak for my wing mate.” He shouted to be heard. “Derkat, have you heard what we have said?”
“Yes.”
“I offer to speak with it, and take what is learned to our two commanders. Do you agree to listen to the proposal with me? If you refuse this offer, I will stand with you and we will die fighting together.” It sounded noble, but he knew the rookie wanted to live to fight another day, as did he, and that Derkat had nothing but a knife for waging a hopeless gunfight.
His reply was expected. “I think we should take what we learn back with us. How can we do that?”
Carol Slobovic grinned inside her helmet. They had already told her something Maggi very much wanted to know. He’d mentioned two commanders. Force Commander Thond, the head of the Ragnar security forces, was still here!
She removed her helmet so the unarmed pilot could see her face. With him reporting what she had done, she shouted to the ladybug crew in Standard, telling them to complete their escape, and using hand motions to support that. She told them she was holding an opening negotiation to meet with their leaders, to call for a truce. When they were safely around the corner up the street, she worked out the details of how they could come face to face for a talk. Perhaps Maggi would let her participate in the full discussions, if those happened.
****
Even while the first steps were initiated to start a discussion, which might or might not lead to a truce, Tanner’s PDF used some of the smart mortar shells they had acquired after the Krall war, from surplus stockpiles removed from Poldark. These were a smaller variation of anti-personnel artillery rounds used against the Krall, fired from long-range guns in that war.
At between four and six feet above ground, the mortar bombs would blast apart a ten-inch-high cylinder, containing one hundred tungsten-carbide sabot style slugs, stacked in a circular pattern, ten rings high with ten short rifled tubes per ring. The slugs would be violently launched down the rifled tubes by a core explosive creating a blast wave when the shell detonated, which rapidly destroyed the cylinder of tubes behind the escaping slugs, forming added shrapnel. A thin plastic sheath spun the slugs as
they passed through the rifled tubes propelled by the blast, then the miniature sabots fell away as the now spin stabilized, and nearly diamond hard slender slugs tore through nearly anything they hit, followed by the shrapnel that came behind.
The bulk of the foot Ragoons advanced with the Pillagers, and stayed close to the buildings for cover. They guarded against any effort by an enemy force to get behind or to the sides of a pillager unnoticed, for conducting an attack on the weaker points of the tanks. They were unprepared for PDF forces that simply hand dropped the mortar bombs on the infantry, from windows in the high buildings, located many stories above them. There was no sound to warn them the rounds were coming. The PDF troops had removed the explosive charges that normally launched them out of their tubes. They hand activated the ground detection sensors, normally done by the acceleration when the shell was fired from a tube, which triggered detonation when they neared the ground.
Ragnar body armor was a bit superior to the best Krall armor at deflecting slugs and shrapnel, but it wasn’t impervious to a sabot that struck the armor straight on. And the Ragnar troopers lacked the Krall ability to ignore pain and injury, or quickly self-heal and halt blood flow. Their suits did have limited medical capability for that, but they relied on the equivalent of a corpsman, driving a mechanized ambulance equipped with automated emergency surgery bots, and a system of artificial hibernation pods to sedate ten stabilized wounded troopers, for later medical treatment aboard a Pounder, where a full medical suite and doctors would be available.
When the small bombs started exploding above sidewalks by the dozens, near buildings next to Pillagers, the uninjured troops guarding the Pillagers were forced to enter the buildings to try to root out the bomb droppers, which slowed the progress of the columns. The PDF made use of an emergency evacuation system for all of the tall buildings, which wouldn’t be evident to the aliens. They opened marked panels and slid into one of the many angled shafts in every corridor, which spaced and fed them into multiple freefall vertical tubes. A computer used gravity control to slow and spread them out, routing them into multiple deceleration tubes under the buildings, where gravity reversal and air cushions slowed them to a stop, well below street level. There, they entered automated people mover trains, or used fast moving slidewalks to move on to other buildings, blocks ahead of the Pillager columns, where other modified mortar bombs were being prepositioned. They were bleeding and slowing the movement of all of the columns.
Koban 6: Conflict and Empire Page 29