by Aer-ki Jyr
In truth, she had nowhere to be given her lack of skills, but felt honored to be able to tag along with the warriors and was watching over one of their shoulders when the first of the Zen’zat got within the outpost’s defenses…which did not fire. The Commando controlling them waited until they got much closer before popping concealed turrets out of the ice walls and opening fire in the enclosed space, but rather than retreat the Zen’zat charged the turrets, sharing the damage against shields as they altered positions and got close enough to shoot back.
But the turrets were shielded too and the Zen’zat weren’t able to destroy them until they got up close. Several went down from ranged weaponsfire before they got to hand to hand range, but the last of the four deployed was physically battered into submission. None of the Zen’zat were killed, but several had damage to their armor in addition to breached shields…which was when Esna saw the Commando press another button and that whole section of tunnel exploded from the hidden mines.
The Protovic glanced up at her and raised a glowing eye ridge. “Think we got a few of them there, plus the tunnel is blocked until they dig it out.”
“And then?” Esna asked.
“Then they look in the ice for more mines and eliminate them as they go, which will slow them down even more.”
“They can do that?”
“Unless they’re very well hidden. In fact we’re counting on it when they get to the other side of the outpost. We can move through the corridors but they can’t unless they want to risk getting blown up. It’s called strategy.”
“What if the ship just decides to shoot us?”
“The Viks are only bloodthirsty with their enemies. They don’t waste their personnel. Takes too long to train new ones when they’re tens of thousands of years old. They might try something else tricky though, so keep your eyes open.”
“Will do. How long before they start digging out?”
“I’d guess they came prepared to move ice, which means they’re probably digging out their wounded right now.”
12
July 4, 4812
Orlero System (Devastation Zone)
Tauntaun
Esna left the outpost along with Rammak, his bulk shielding her as they ran out into the tunnel on the back side with only a few other Commandos between them and the Zen’zat that were breaking their way through the sealed door on the other side after already having fought their way through the perimeter defenses. It’d taken them nearly 18 hours to do so and the outpost was now fully evacuated thanks to multiple speeder runs in and out and the Zen’zat growing more cautious. Nevertheless they were pushing forward and herding the Star Force survivors back even further.
Perhaps they didn’t know there were more tunnels out the back side, or they just figured that they’d catch them eventually, but there didn’t seem to be an insane hurry to take them down in light of the explosives lining the tunnels that the Zen’zat were carefully disarming from a distance with their telekinesis or forcing the Commandos to blow them early to try and do some damage or collapse more tunnel.
The turrets on the near side tunnel were all destroyed now, but those in the exiting tunnels had been previously severed from the outpost control and reconfigured so that if the outpost fell the Zen’zat wouldn’t be able to commandeer them, and as Esna and Rammak ran by their positions they all started popping out along the main tunnel while the pair took a hard left turn and went into one of the newly dug additions before they got to an ice block ahead. It had been created to wall off the main tunnel and force the Zen’zat into the new ones that had even more explosives, and if things went as planned they’d be busy deactivating those while the group got to the last two speeders on the far side and fell back to their next outpost.
But when Esna and Rammak got through the maze of tunnels and up to the speeders they waited, as did the other Commandos and Archon when they eventually caught up to them. None of them boarded the craft, rather using their battlemap to remotely control the defense turrets, shield generators, and mines that they’d laid out behind them as the Zen’zat claimed the outpost that was now bare of any useful equipment for them.
It only took a few minutes before they found the single exit tunnel, for the others had been sealed over with ice previously. That probably wouldn’t stop them from digging them out eventually, but when they saw the Commandos retreating…and the Archon had made sure they had…there was only one place that they could have gone and that was into the maze where the Zen’zat soon followed.
But they didn’t have an easy time of it, having to fight through the main tunnel turrets first. They stopped after destroying those to let their shields recharge and to start disabling more mines when the Archon and two other Commandos suddenly took off running back into the maze.
“Stay here,” one of those remaining said. “They’re going to try and bait them in.”
Tyrenk-1482995 ran up into view of the Zen’zat down a slightly curving tunnel in the maze, but not within firing range, for the wall blocked normal vision of the enemy. He could see them and them him thanks to the Pefbar sight that both Zen’zat and Archons possessed that allowed them grainy black/white vision of everything in a 360 degree sphere and that also allowed them to see through most materials, of which ice was easy so long as it was within their range. Tyrenk could easily see the through the 46 meters ahead and he assumed they had equal if not greater sight range, but they didn’t come charging for him.
There were mines set up in between them and the Zen’zat, including under the Archon’s feet right now. Thankfully Star Force controlled the detonation triggers, otherwise they’d be in a world of trouble. If the Zen’zat chased after them all they’d have to do was fall back and start popping the mines using the controls in their helmets, but the enemy wasn’t going to be that stupid, unfortunately, so Tyrenk was going to make it harder on them.
The Archon pulled a grenade out of the pack he’d acquired in the outpost and threw it down the tunnel, using both his Pefbar and corresponding Lachka to guide it like a missile around the curve. His vision let him steer it and his telekinesis kept it aloft as it came into range of the Zen’zat who immediately tried to shoot it, but Tyrenk sent it into a spiral that made the first few shots miss.
Then suddenly he felt his control of it slipping as the Zen’zat used their own Lachka to grab it and hold it more or less still, then a Dre’mo’don shot from their forearm gauntlets blew apart the grenade before it could detonate.
“Nuts,” the Archon said as he hefted his own Dre’mo’don rifle, which was a bit more powerful but a lot bulkier. Star Force had caught up with V’kit’no’sat technology over the past millennia in most cases, but the Viks still made some things better and, in this case, smaller. The Zen’zat wore their weaponry on their forearms save for special circumstances and today wasn’t one of them. Tyrenk got a good look with his Pefbar at the 4 in the tunnel ahead and guessed there were more back in the outpost, but these didn’t have any auxiliary weaponry.
“Come out shooting when able,” he told the pair of Commando/Soldiers behind him. “I’m going to try and take these.”
“Careful,” the Bsidd said.
“I’ll try and send one your way,” Tyrenk added as he sprinted ahead, quickly coming into view of the Zen’zat who opened fire…but the Archon simply absorbed the shots on his shields and bioshields, a useful psionic that allowed his body to create its own defense shields without need of armor. Some Zen’zat had the Nakane as well but most didn’t, and one of the big reasons why the Viks hated Star Force so much was that they possessed psionics that they hadn’t earned under their rules, which were ingrained into their genetic code rather than being some academic mantra.
But Star Force had stumbled upon a way for one Archon to share a psionic they had earned and activated naturally with another, and thus any Archon of Titan rank or higher possessed more psionics than any Zen’zat in recorded history…and Tyrenk was using them to get up to the four Zen’zat bef
ore they could blow him away.
He could feel his bioshields taking hits as his mechanical ones failed, but the second layer of protection held up for the handful of seconds it took him to get to the taller Zen’zat, all of whom were in the 7-8 ft range. Archons had chosen to retain their original size rather than take the augments that they gave their own Knights, but unfortunately none of the Knights from the base had made it into this evac group, so there was a size disadvantage here.
But their smaller size allowed them to be faster on average, though there were plenty of Knights faster than Tyrenk. Training allowed one to enhance in amazing ways over the centuries and the Archon didn’t know what level these four Zen’zat were at. For all he knew they were 10,000 years old and going to kick his ass within seconds, so he played it safe and dove into their midst while charging a Jumat blast, pooling the invisible energy around his body as he dropped his bioshields, then throwing it off him with such concussive force that all 4 Zen’zat were knocked off their feet.
Two went into the walls, one went back down the tunnel towards the outpost, but the fourth went the other way towards the Commandos. Tyrenk dug his feet into the ice ridges on the floor and ran backwards, punching the Zen’zat with another Jumat blast and pushing with his telekinesis to get the bigger opponent closer to the Commandos and inside the mine field as they fired expertly and hit their enemy while avoiding friendly fire on the Archon.
The Zen’zat flipped over and dug his feet into the ground while firing back and hitting a hasty bioshield thrown up as the other three Zen’zat fired from range. They hesitated a moment, knowing the mine field was still there, but now that one of their own was in the same place as the Star Force troops they knew they wouldn’t detonate the mines and kill their own, so they took off sprinting to join the displaced one who was getting his own shields hammered.
Tyrenk hit him again, this time physically with a headbutt to the abdomen. The Zen’zat held position and tried to wrap the Archon up in a grapple hold until the others could catch up, but another Jumat blast threw the Zen’zat into the ceiling and Tyrenk grabbed him by the arm as he fell slowly in the low gravity, throwing him towards the Commandos.
That got him on the other side of a buried shield generator that the Archon activated with a thought to his helmet controls. The light blue colored barrier popped up and caught the next few shots from the approaching Zen’zat as the Star Force troops had a brief 3v1 to fight.
The Bsidd immediately tried to grapple the Zen’zat as it fell through the air, but the lesser strength of its mandibles were not able to match the enemy muscle push for pull, but there were so many mandibles that the Bsidd managed to trip up and partially subdue the Zen’zat even as it shot the Commando at pointblank range from its forearm gauntlets.
But the Bsidd’s shield were at full strength, which allowed him to continue to grapple with the Zen’zat as the Protovic Commando and the Archon fired into him at pointblank range, busting through what was left of his shields and beginning to tear through his armor.
In his helmet the Archon was also monitoring the status of the barrier shield behind them, and just before it fell to the other three Zen’zat he slipped his rifle onto a latch on his back and dove towards the tangle of Bsidd as the insect-like alien had its armor break on one of its mandibles. Tyrenk could telepathically feel its mental shout of pain, but it continued to hold on as well as it could as the other Commando kept pouring shots into the enemy until the Archon got in the way, grabbed the Zen’zat by the foot, and hurled both it and the Bsidd further down the tunnel…not once, but three different times like some sort of game that the low gravity made almost comical.
Then as the other Zen’zat were breaching the shield and starting to come after them, the Archon triggered a single mine at the edge of the field and brought the tunnel down on top of them.
It didn’t kill them, probably not even damaging their armor as their shields took the brunt of the attack, but the falling ice pinned them under it and gave the Star Force trio enough time to deal with their captured Zen’zat and finally shoot through a few spots on his armor to deliver the fatal blows to his Human flesh beneath, after which his helmet was blasted off and a couple of headshots were delivered, ensuring that he wouldn’t be revived later.
With another dead Zen’zat on the scoreboard, the trio retreated deeper into the mines before the other Zen’zat could push their way free of the ice, at which point they had to retreat unless they wanted more mines triggered under their feet as they pursued.
“How you doing?” the Archon asked the Bsidd as it scurried along with them, though at least two of its mandibles were hanging limp and broken, with the shattered bits of armor attesting to the sheer physical strength of that now dead Zen’zat.
“I can keep up,” it said, clawing its way at speed with multiple other mandibles. Fortunately it could rely on any of them for movement, and was thus leaning slightly forward in an odd position as it ran, though it could maintain the same speed upside down if it wanted to, for it was sprouting mandibles in all directions from its root-like central body.
“Good work keeping him down.”
“I’ll heal, he won’t.”
“One less bad guy to deal with,” the Protovic added as they came to a stop well down the tunnel but far from the speeders.
“Take one of the speeders and head on out. I’ll stay and make sure they honor the mines,” the Archon told the Bsidd as he got a warning from one of the other Commandos. “Shit. Run…”
Esna was watching the battle through the helmet links and getting dizzy from the Archon’s perspective, so she switched to the Protovic Commando and got a good display of their fighting skills. This Archon didn’t rank as high as those that had rescued her on Forso, but he was still a badass so far beyond her she didn’t even know how to measure him…and the way that Bsidd had tangled up the Zen’zat was scary. She was really glad they were on her side.
Esna saw that the Zen’zat weren’t coming after them, then all of a sudden Rammak grabbed her by the arm and easily picked her up in the low gravity, swinging her over to and onboard one of the speeders as he and several others climbed on rapidly.
“What?” she asked, trying to clear her head while also turning off the view from the Protovic that was covering a good chunk of her HUD.
“We’re being targeted,” Rammak said as their speeder took off in a hurry down the main tunnel, accelerating up to maximum speed and putting as much distance as they could between them and the Zen’zat.
“By who?” she asked, finally getting her normal helmet view restored as she was wedged between Rammak and another Bsidd that was helping hold her in the standing position with a mandible pressed across her right shoulder as the acceleration tried to throw her off.
“The ship,” Rammak answered. “It’s moving out to our position.”
“Baju,” she swore, glancing back over her shoulder but realizing the others were too far away to see now. “Won’t they hit their own guys?”
“If they pull back to the outpost and their naval gunners place a precise shot, they can target all the mines and any of us near them,” he said as the battlemap signals from the others winked out. Esna thought that meant they were dead, then realized it was just them getting out of range, for there were no transmitters placed down the length of this tunnel. And if there was going to be an attack from the surface, she was sure they would feel the impact.
The blast vibration got to them some 40 seconds later, shaking all the ice around them and dropping little bits of mist but nothing more serious than that. There was only the one hit and whatever concussion wave might have followed couldn’t catch up to them in time as they continued to race on, not waiting for the others until they were several more miles away, at which point they stopped in the tunnel and waited.
No one said anything, they just stood on the speeder and watched their battlemap, which at the moment showed nothing but the 7 of them. Esna stayed silent as well, followi
ng their lead, but just when she’d had about enough of it and was going to open a private comm to Rammak the other speeder popped up behind them racing forward.
“Yes!” she said, seeing that there were icons for all the other Commandos and the Archon onboard.
“How close?” a Bsidd asked over open comm.
“We had a good four second head start,” the Archon answered sarcastically, “and the mess they just made will keep them busy for a while, but it’s clear we can’t dig in. Not at this depth anyway. They’ll just pull back whenever they hit a bottleneck and call in fire support. This ice melts too damn easy. We’re going to have to slow them down when we can, but the only way we’re surviving this is to keep moving and there’s no reason to delay the techs. They have to get as far ahead as possible.”
“Understood. Hope the other groups are running like hell too.”
“Same here. Get moving so we don’t run into you,” the Archon said as they were approaching the stopped speeder’s position. “Savakni is hurt pretty bad.”
“How bad?” Rammak asked as their speeder started moving again.
“I’ll live,” the Bsidd answered, “but I’ve got more broken bones than I want to count. That Zen’zat was as fat as a Calavari.”
“Hmmph,” Rammak groan appreciably. “At least he didn’t damage your sense of humor.”
“Never,” the Bsidd said, though the pain in his voice revealed just how much effort he was using to hold his concentration together.
Had Esna broken her arm, she wouldn’t be joking. Crying and screaming more likely. And that was just another sign of how out of their league she was, both in this evacuation group and in this war.