by Aer-ki Jyr
“What’s the status of the battle?” she asked, with her elongated head putting her considerably taller than Esna but not even close to the other three as she crossed both sets of arms in front over her black/red Star Force uniform. Her legs were covered though by the high white boots of her contracted envirosuit.
“Anti-orbital guns destroyed, Zen’zat and Per’tal in the base with an enlarging foothold, but we still control the key areas. The shield generators are still intact and operational.”
“Good,” she said, referring to the last point. “We’ve got time then. I just need to know where to start drilling.”
“I was only sent here to hold this location. I haven’t been information of any evacuation plans,” Rammak admitted.
“The plan is to stay alive as long as possible,” the Calavari said as she worked a control board and plugged in a tiny datachip. A hologram of the entire tunnel network extending out as far as 1,700 miles appeared, but she zoomed it down to the area around their present location, “but these tunnels are easy to follow once the Viks find them. We’re going to have to seal them off and dig new ones to confuse them. We’ve got equipment stowed here to start that, but the bigger pieces are further down the line. Has there been any word on how deep their sensors can penetrate?”
“The mech tunnels seem to be adequately camouflaged, based on combat reactions. The Viks are shutting them down now, but the mechs have been moving freely through them and ambushing at will.”
The mining tech rubbed her chin. “They’re shallow and constructed differently, but that’s a good sign. We’re deeper but we don’t have much in the way of materiel to work with. These tunnels have diffusing residue injected into the sidewalls that should keep them hidden except for close range. If they can scan them from the surface then there’s no point in digging laterally. We’ll have to go lower and I don’t want to do that without knowing how low to go.”
“Are we setting up an ambush?” Rammak asked.
“Yes,” the Bsidd said before the tech could answer. “Both to diminish their numbers and to delay them. We have to keep the techs moving ahead of any pursuit.”
“Which is why I have to start digging as soon as possible.”
“What do you need?”
“A preferred engagement zone,” she said, glancing at all three Commandos and even Esna, as if she were one of them. “How do you want to play this?”
“Multiple passes,” Rammak said without hesitation, “mined with remote explosives that will allow us to move through but force the Zen’zat to either turn back or walk through them. They should not be hidden from Pefbar.”
“Good, because we don’t have equipment for that anyway. Do you want tunnels or chambers?”
Rammak looked at the Bsidd.
“Pit entrance on one off a wide chamber.”
“And thin supports under loose material we can collapse in others,” the other one added. “We need as much CC as possible.”
“I assume we’re digging past the outpost?” Rammak wondered.
“That was my assumption. We’ve already got defenses leading up to it on all sides. How far away do you want the engagement zone erected?”
“Just on the far side,” the Bsidd said.
“Can you scavenge the equipment and explosives in the other three approaches?”
The tech looked up at him for a moment, not understanding.
“We know which way they’re coming from,” Rammak added.
“And we’ll lose control of the other defenses when this structure falls,” she finished. “We can if we have time, but this ice is more compact than up near the surface and we only have small coring models here. We can use them to do pretty much anything, but if you want some major excavations done we need larger equipment and the nearest depot is some 24 miles further on.”
“Take the speeders and go get it,” the Bsidd ordered.
“Have the tunnels been secured?”
“Not beyond this point,” Rammak answered. “I’ve been watching the battlemap and there hasn’t been any activity beyond the base, but I’ll go with you just in case.”
“Thank you. I assume there are small arms here for us?”
“And shield generators.”
“Both will slow down our work, so the more escorts we have the better.”
“Esna?” he asked.
“I’ll go. Just tell me what to do.”
“Get your pack and full weapons rack.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Going,” she said, scampering out of the room and leaving the Star Force veterans by themselves.
“Is she…” the tech asked.
“The Human survivor from Mace. I’m keeping her under my personal protection. She’s eager, but not trained to handle this.”
“I assume you’re Rammak then?” the tech asked, not having her suit on to see his ID.
“I am.”
“Have you gotten caught up on everything?”
“My fitness is lacking, but I’ve been studying nonstop since I got here. What is it you worry I’m unaware of?”
“Nothing in particular. But if anyone knows how to survive a V’kit’no’sat invasion it’s you. Any suggestions?”
“Is it possible to cut a tunnel and backfill as we progress so we can’t be followed?”
“Yes, but travel will be slow. What are you thinking?”
“Hopping between tunnels.”
The tech studied her charts again, measuring the distance between the widely expanding spokes this far out from the base.
“It’d take days to cross to the nearest one, but it’s possible.”
“I’m also concerned about depth. If they identify the tunnel entrances and do a deep scan following them, how deep do we have to get to lose the trace?”
“I wish I could tell you for sure, but this base was built with a considerable margin for error. Unless they’ve made some wild advancements they shouldn’t be able to track us this far down with the diffusers in place, and the cloaks should make it even harder to spot us.”
“We’ve split up for a reason,” the Bsidd reminded him.
“Do they have a way of knowing how many of us there are?”
“Unlikely,” the tech answered.
“Then scattering is our best chance.”
“Agreed,” the Bsidd echoed, “but after we hold here. More evacuees will be coming to this outpost soon.”
“Are there more speeders somewhere?” Rammak asked.
“Not many, but a few further on. We’ll have to shuttle people out in stages,” it said as Esna came back fully decked out.
“Let’s get moving then,” Rammak said to the tech, who nodded in agreement and redeployed her envirosuit as they headed for the garage.
9
Esna rode out through the tunnel on the back of Rammak’s speeder, but rather than the seat she’d grown accustomed to back on Forso this one was a standing bike that had footholds to keep her onboard as it whipped through the tunnel. The speeder didn’t take up the full width, barely half of it, but it was centered with the ice flashing past on either side, above, and below thanks to spacing shields that she could see. They were almost invisible but with just enough of a blue tint to let her know where they were. She’d touched one at the beginning of their quick trip out, finding it resisted her armored finger as if it was gel, but since then had kept her hands inside the wind shield that was diverting the air around the passengers.
It was another form of energy shield and covered the top of the elongated speeder like a roof and sidewalls while the physical bottom curled up on both sides to about knee height. Standing behind her were several techs, all in single file, then another speeder was trailing them bringing even more. After so many hours spent running these tunnels she’d really wished she’d had one of these speeders at the beginning.
When she asked Rammak about it he pointed out the obvious. That if the base was taken the Zen’zat could use any speed
ers left behind, but they wouldn’t think to bring any vehicles of their own if they didn’t know the tunnels were here. That meant they’d be on foot too and so long as none of the speeders out here were left behind the Zen’zat would be left running while the evacuees were zipping off at a rate the enemy would never catch.
In hindsight that made perfect sense, but she still thought it was partly biased on Star Force’s love of running, because what would it have hurt to keep a handful of speeders in the base for scouts or whatever?
She didn’t have long to think about it before they arrived at another minor outpost, this one little more than several large rooms with the digging craft parked in them. They weren’t big, more or less a fat speeder with a lot of stuff on the front and back, and the techs hopped off and mounted them immediately, leaving Rammak and Esna alone with the two bikes.
“You’ve got the other one.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Just watch the map and don’t slam into the outpost. Other than that the controls are simple.”
Esna pulled her feet out of the restraints and jumped across the gap to the other bike, free floating longer than normal due to the reduced gravity, but landing on top of it and spinning herself around into the pilot’s slot that was little more than a control board rising up from the nosecone.
“Head on back now. I’ll bring up the rear,” he said as the techs already had the diggers powered up and drifting towards the tunnel entrance.
“Heading out,” she said, then realizing that there wasn’t room to turn around in the tunnel. “Rammak, how do I get pointed the other way?”
“You don’t. The control bar slides to the other end. Release switch underneath.”
Esna knelt and looked underneath, finding the single button easy enough that loosened the base so she could drag it down the center stripe of the passenger area and all the way back to the rear where an identical nosecone clicked it in.
“Ok,” she said, powering it up and easing off down the tunnel with the blue energy fields acting as bumpers on the walls. “Here we go.”
32 hours later…
A Star Force Ma’kri jumped into the system, exiting far away from the star and cloaking immediately as it picked up the emergency beacon from the base and a V’kit’no’sat vessel in low orbit around the star. The first was more surprising than the second, for V’kit’no’sat ships randomly patrolled the Devastation Zone looking for Star Force vessels or anything else that wasn’t supposed to be here, but the fact that the base had been discovered and was currently under attack meant that security had been penetrated somehow.
“Take us there,” Captain Bivandi said, not having planned on stopping in this system as they passed through but now there was no question of where their priorities lay. “Quietly.”
“Shall we buzz him or take the long way around?” the helmsman asked.
“Go offline slightly, then feel free to press the sensor limits of the cloak. They might not have time to wait.”
“Think someone messed up?” the Protovic’s second in command asked.
She shook her glowing head. “I wish it were that simple, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Let’s hope there’s someone left to rescue that can tell us.”
When the Ma’kri eventually entered orbit of Tautaun it came in high and well away from the V’kit’no’sat fleet with its cloaking shield apparently holding against their sensors. There was no way that the Ma’kri could fight that fleet, for they were extremely outnumbered and outmassed. The Ma’kri was only 4.2 miles long and thin like a knife blade, built for scouting and high speed intercepts, whereas the V’kit’no’sat ships were all larger, with the Kafcha measuring in at around 18 miles long and being very wide and very thick warships.
All V’kit’no’sat ships were huge in order to accommodate their usually large crews, though the design parameters still held true for their smaller races. There was nothing Bivandi could do in fleet combat here to be helpful, but it looked like the base hadn’t fallen yet, for its defense shield was still active.
“Straight line comm if they’re able,” she ordered while tapping a glowing finger on the armrest of her command chair. If the base still had the equipment operational they could pinpoint the angle that the transmission was coming in on and reply with a beam back along that trajectory, meaning that the ship and base could talk without it having to lower its cloak or letting the Viks know where they were…except that there might be enough atmospheric disruption to give it away, for this little planet had a very dense atmosphere for its size.
Still, the risk was worth it. And if they were discovered they had sufficient engine power to run straight out of the system if need be. The two ships in stellar orbit weren’t going to be able to stop them, so the Ma’kri pretty much had the run of the place so long as they kept out of firing range.
An image of a head appeared in front of the Captain, with her realizing it was being transmitted from inside an Archon’s helmet. Jared-11924 to be specific, judging from the ID tag.
“Welcome to Tauntaun,” he said sarcastically. “How many of you are there?”
“Just one Ma’kri. We were passing through when we picked up your distress beacon. What’s your status?”
“Losing ground, but we’ve still got the shield generators secured. They’re not trying to get at them from the outside, so we’re buying as much time as we can. We’ve already got people evacuating through subterranean tunnels and will continue to do so as we fall back, but they’ve got both Zen’zat and Per’tal in here. We can’t hold out forever.”
“If you’ve still got shield control we can run to the surface and pick you up.”
“Negative on that, I’m afraid. Our surface exits are no longer an option.”
“What can we do then?”
“A little payback. The V’kit’no’sat have troops camped on the surface waiting for the shield to go down to be retrieved.”
“Orbital bombardment is out. Their fleet is parked right over you.”
“They’ve got a Deo’mat Ultra down here.”
The Captain blinked in surprise, with her eyelids glowing only slightly less than her neon blue orbs. “What the hell is an Ultra doing out here?”
“Good question. I’ve got about 20 seconds left to talk. If we elevate the shield can you scratch it and run?”
“Yes.”
“Do it then get clear. We’ll hold out down here as long as we can then scatter underground.”
“We’ll decloak as late as possible. Time the shield right.”
“Get that bastard,” the Archon said, then cut the comm as sounds of weaponsfire around him increased.
“We have a priority target,” Bivandi announced to her bridge crew. “Deo’mat Ultra on the surface. We’re going down to kill it and anything else Vik within range, but we’re not landing. They can’t get out topside, so they’re retreating to underground evacuation tunnels. This is a vengeance mission, pure and simple, and that fleet is going to be really pissed so let’s make this as quick as possible.”
Esna and Rammak were back inside the outpost when word of the Ma’kri arriving came through the landline while the techs were busy adding tunnels and setting up additional traps. Another four groups of evacuees had come in to increase their numbers along with a few wounded but still fighting capable Commandos who were out covering them. Rammak had been woken up during a sleep cycle and Esna was about to take one of her own, but there was no way she was going to miss whatever the Star Force ship was going to do.
So she and a dozen other people watched the battlemap waiting for the ship to appear on it, and when it finally did everyone was a little shocked, for it was hitting the atmosphere so hard it was setting it on fire despite its knife blade shape. The overhead V’kit’no’sat fleet moved immediately, firing its long range weapons at the fireball as it plowed down through the atmosphere but not towards the base. It was descending towards the surface beyond the shield as the techs whispered
about either a troop drop or a pickup of one of the other evacuation groups that had gotten to a surface exit through the tunnels.
But rather than letting the ship through the edge of the protective energy shield it looked to be coming down outside it altogether. That didn’t make any sense to Esna, because wouldn’t that mean the Vik fleet could just shoot it and whoever else was on the surface? It wasn’t until the Ma’kri had nearly hit the ground and pulled a hard turn to start flying level to it did she realize that it was actually headed for the base as it took several weapon strikes from range against its own weak shields.
But then something Esna hadn’t though was possible happened…the base shield suddenly rose up several miles and the Ma’kri slid underneath the giant flat circle as the Vik fleet’s weapons hit it rather than the Star Force ship.
“Yeessss,” a pilot said gratuitously as the Urik’kadel stood on the rim of the table that otherwise the rabbit-like race couldn’t have seen over the edge of.
“Holy crap that was ballsy,” a Human tech said.
“It’ll be worse on the way out, but hopefully they’ll get some people picked up.”
“They’re not on an evac run,” the pilot corrected them. “They’re going in hot then going to run out the far side before the fleet can pin them down.”
“Why can’t they evacuate anyone?” Esna asked the Urik’kadel.
A little furry finger pointed to the battlemap images inside the base that were being displayed next to the outside view of the ship decelerating hard and kicking up a hurricane of snow and ice thanks to the atmospheric distortion it was dragging along with it.
“The Zen’zat have cut them off from the surface. They can’t get to the ship,” it said as the 4 mile long knife came to a hard stop over top the base and opened fire on the V’kit’no’sat troops from pointblank range even before the snow wall blew in and covered everything. “So they’re killing the troops caught out in the open. Naval beats everything.”
Esna watched in a mix of relief and horror as the battlemap compensated for the snow by creating artificial silhouettes based on the sensor images that could see through it along with the data flowing out from the Ma’kri that was linked into the base’s systems. A horrific downpour of energy weapons, some of which were so large they killed Per’tal in single shots, vaporized the snowstorm it was falling through and blasted apart the V’kit’no’sat that had nowhere to run…and even the Tavi’lo couldn’t fly fast or far enough to escape, for they were slow compared to the anti-missile batteries’ normal targets.