by Aer-ki Jyr
The rest of the drones fired into the huge wound, expanding upon it as the ship tried to run to orbit with the little Star Force gnats staying close and using it for cover as it lost more and more gravity drives, slowing its ascent.
But it managed to make it up past 100 miles in altitude and into the thin air where the other warships were waiting, with the Domjo managing to limp up through them as chunks of its underside continually fell off and began to drop back down to the surface. Along with them the drones split off from their attack but accelerated hard upward through the gaps between the V’kit’no’sat ships and ran towards their distant fleet. Not all of them made it, getting hit from multiple targets, but some 40+ got out still with engine power and flew clear of weapons range by making emergency jumps that the V’kit’no’sat were not going to follow to chase down a handful of drones while thousands more were pounding them higher up in orbit.
Esna was carrying a crate in her arms and hopping along down the tunnel when the huge tremor hit, shaking the ice so hard that chips shook loose and fell down through the air in a snow mist as her foot landed askew and fell forward landing on the crate a couple seconds before another big tremor shook her so badly she slid halfway across the tunnel on her knees amidst a huge shriek of ice that hurt her ears.
Esna held onto her crate and tried to drag her feet to stop her sliding, then a violent jerk made her lose her grip and faceplant into the ice with the crate spinning a foot away. She decided to stay down until it ended, which didn’t happen for another 40 seconds and after 6 more impacts when she tentatively stood up and saw that the tunnel behind her had disappeared.
“Baju,” she swore, running back to where a few techs were standing just shy of a huge crack in the ice. They stopped her before she could get too close, but Esna could still see the half meter wide gap on the other side of which the tunnel floor was now almost at ceiling height with a narrow gap that she’d have had a hard time crawling through.
And Rammak was with the others down the tunnel on the other side.
“Stay back,” a Kiritas warned. “They can scan down the crack and find us.”
“How are the others going to get across?”
“They have to dig down and expand the gap, but there’s no way to get across without being scanned. The combat armor is shielded to make it difficult to pick up, but the envirosuits aren’t. As soon as they come through any ship directly overhead will spot them.”
“There may be other fissures further ahead,” a Bsidd said, coming up from behind.
“The speeders will let us know that,” the Kiritas responded. “And we can’t dig from down here without being spotted. They have to widen the gap from the other side.”
“How?” Esna asked. “They don’t have a digging machine.”
“They can melt it with their weapons, but we need to get a platform ready so they don’t get stuck in the crack if they slip and fall. Tear up one of the crates…”
“No, make it out of ice,” the Protovic next to Esna differed.
“You’re right,” the Kiritas agreed. “We need to cut it out of the floor…”
“Genius,” the Protovic said, turning around and heading up the tunnel.
“What?” Esna asked, very worried about Rammak making it through.
“The flooring has diffusion shielding mixed in with the ice,” the shorter tech said as it swung its stubby tail around and took a single hop forward, motioning for Esna to follow. “If we cut out a section and put it above and around the gap it will extend the cover.”
“Damn you guys are smart,” Esna said, keeping pace with him.
“That’s why we’re techs. Mind pulling another sled while we cut and fuse?”
“Sure. Anything to help.”
“No,” a Bsidd tech said. “Her armor is shielded. There aren’t any more Commandos on this side.”
“There’s a mechwarrior further down.”
“Better than an envirosuit but hers is still the best we’ve got. Plus she’s got the cloak.”
“Alright, but we need a floor piece first. We can’t risk her falling and we can’t use a rope…wait, just wrap it in her cloak.”
“Esna,” Rammak’s voice suddenly popped onto her comm as she and the techs turned around to see his big head in the narrow gap on the other side of the fissure.
“We’re here,” she answered. “We’re going to dig the tunnel open and make a bridge.”
“How long?”
“Not sure,” the Protovic answered the all-comm. “We’ll work as fast we can, but we have to shield the gap from warship scans or they’ll point and click annihilate us with naval weaponry.”
“There’s a cave-in further back that we’re having to dig out, so we can’t help here and the Zen’zat are still coming.”
“We’re on it,” the tech promised.
“We’ll get you out,” Esna echoed.
“Hurry,” Rammak said, then he and his battlemap icon were gone as he retreated up the tunnel.
As they worked the fleet in orbit disengaged from the fight after more ships on each side were lost, but they transmitted a good view of what had caused the fissures in the ice. It wasn’t weaponsfire like Esna thought, but pieces of warships falling down from above and pounding huge craters, a few of which weren’t that far from here. Luckily none of them had hit above the tunnel itself, but it looked like a few had in some of the other tunnel spurs.
Esna didn’t know if anyone was in them or not, but if it hadn’t been her concern for Rammak pounding through her head her claustrophobia would have been spiking to new heights now as she helped the techs with everything they asked, first of which was helping to pry up slabs of ice that they cut. She and others carried them near to the fissure and stacked them there until they had a large pile, then they took her cloak off her armor and cut it up into pieces and wrapped them around a rope that they tied to her weapon rack so the tether wouldn’t show up on sensors with nothing but ice across the planet to clash with despite its tiny size.
Once the rope was on she knelt down next to a slab tipped up on its side and dragged it forward until she was almost in the crack, but not quite. There she used a tool they gave her and melted it against the wall but with it being lower than the ceiling. She did the same thing again on the other side of the tunnel before giving Esna one over her head and helping her from behind put it up on top of the two vertical slabs.
The precision measured and cut slab dropped down as she squatted and it ended up about shoulder height as she dragged it out into position over top the others, then fused it into place but still not extending out into the fissure. When she backed out the techs helped her put two more vertical slabs on top of the flat piece which she climbed up on top of. It took the Bsidd and their mandibles to help lift the next flat piece up to her, but with the help she managed to get it up near ceiling height and drag it into place, but she didn’t fuse it.
Esna pushed it halfway down and accepted another piece that sat partway on the vertical wall pieces. She fused those two together into a longer slab then had help pushing it out into the fissure all the way to the far ice wall and sliding it into the gap that Rammak had poked his head into.
“Got it,” she said, backing up as her feet teetered on the edge of the mid height platform…where she could see looking down that the fissure went very deep. Too deep for her to glimpse the bottom of.
“Next wall,” the techs said, giving her a vertical piece that she then slid up and into the gap on the left, then followed by another on the right. Once those were fused into place she backed out and the techs began cutting out the mid height floor piece she’d been standing on.
“Well done, Human,” the mechwarrior said.
Esna frowned beneath her helmet at what she’d thought was also been a Human. “What race are you?”
“Dvapp.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is.”
“I can take whatever shape I want. This form fits inside the sta
ndard mechwarrior armor.”
“You what?”
“I can change shape.”
“How?”
The Dvapp took his helmet off and Esna was shocked to see that he had no face. It was just a lump of white goo that suddenly shot out of the armor like a snake and pooled on the floor…then it rose up and took on a texture that looked like hard packed sand as it expanded into a much larger biped form.
“Wow,” she said, looking up at him.
“He’s rare,” a Kiritas said as the Dvapp stretched out an arm-like tendril and grasped another slab of ice and took it out of the hands of the two techs bringing it up to the main pile from their ‘dig site’ further down the tunnel. The tendril literally melted around it, then the Dvapp picked it up and reached it all the way past Esna to where another tech took it and laid it against the wall. “The Dvapp aren’t part of Star Force.”
“I am,” the mechwarrior said as he oozed back inside his armor and resealed the helmet. “My race was attacked by the V’kit’no’sat even though we didn’t assist in the war. Our mere association with Star Force was enough to make us a target. Those who survived were evacuated to the Rim Region and we’ve rebuilt there, but rather than fight they cower behind Star Force’s protection. I and a few others do not and have joined the empire that saved our race not once, but twice.”
“Are you made of ice?”
“Crystal, more or less,” he said as the other techs continued to cut away at the central slab with others being stacked nearby to add to the impromptu tunnel extension.
“Does crystal get cold?”
“Not like you, no. But this armor has its advantages.”
“Does crystal show up on sensors? It looks like ice.”
“More like stone,” the Protovic said passing by with another slab. “Never punch a Dvapp with a bare hand.”
“Wasn’t planning to, but good to know,” she said, looking back at the Dvapp who was only a few inches taller than her. “Really?”
“I can be liquid or solid, and very solid if given a moment to prepare.”
“So it makes you hard to beat up?”
“Very.”
“So why a mechwarrior and not a Commando?”
“I can’t use my body like I need to inside armor, and without armor I have less defense and no shields. I can cause Zen’zat trouble, but every shot I take destroys part of my body. Humans and others have far more experience as a biped than I do, so it’s best if I leave armored hand to hand combat to you. Inside a mech I am mentally linked to it, and because I do not have a base form it is easier for me to adapt to various types of mech bodies that don’t match your physiology.”
“Makes sense,” Esna said impressed, though still mildly confused. “What do you eat?”
“Not what you do, but Star Force makes foodstuffs for a wide range of races.”
“Do you have enough with us?”
“Yes, some was taken from the base, but I also have the emergency rations I take into my mech.”
“You’re not wearing a pack.”
“I don’t need to,” he said, retracting his right glove and oozing out his ‘hand.’ Esna looked and didn’t see anything, then his arm material flattened out and several canisters became visible inside.
“You can store it inside your body?”
“Weapons too, but this armor is confining,” he said as he pulled himself back together.
“That is so cool. Is there anything else I can do?”
“Just get ready to haul chunks of ice away when we get to cutting the far wall,” the Kiritas said. “Until then just…chill.”
Esna smiled and stepped aside to make more room for the few remaining slabs to pass, then after that most of the techs were standing around as well while a floor and additional walls were added out across the gap and then reinforced. When the digging time came the techs made a line and started walking in a circuit with each being handed a small chunk of ice. Esna joined them and got hers as she stepped up onto the higher floor slab then walked it back down the tunnel a ways where she stacked it into the closest hole in the floor where the slabs had been cut from, then repeated the process again and again as they chewed out material from the far side angling up to the now higher opposite tunnel floor.
17
Esna waited silently for the most part as a handful of techs worked to cut stairs into the ice while a few others hauled off the smaller bits, leaving her and most of the group with nothing to do until a call for assistance came and suddenly she and several others were ordered via battlemap up the partial stairs and into the outstretched hands of Rammak who helped lift them up the rest of the slick incline.
“What do they need?” Esna asked, waiting with him as the others passed by.
“Your weapon. Come with me,” Rammak said, running off with Esna hurrying to keep pace as they worked their way back down the tunnel and through a cave-in that was now a much smaller tunnel with shoveled debris clogging the sides for several dozen meters given that they didn’t have anywhere else to stash it. Eventually they came up on a group of people still digging out with only a narrow, arm-sized hole punched through to the far side.
“Trade me,” a Human Commando came up to Esna and said, pointing at her papow and offering his own rifle.
“Ok,” Esna said, unslinging it and exchanging the weapon that the Commando then took up to the small gap and shoved through to someone on the other side.
“What’s going on?”
“The Zen’zat are almost here and we’ve got 6 people on the far side of this cave-in. They’re holding at the outpost further back, but if we can’t get them dug out in time they’re going to have to fight and your weapon will buy them some more time.”
“Glad you gave it to me then. Where do you want me?” she asked as one of the warriors shot the pile of ice and blasted it into bits and mist that washed back over her and Rammak, then the diggers got back to work on the dislodged pieces that they were kicking back towards her.
“Carry,” Rammak said, picking up one in each of his four hands and dragging the ice chunks away from the bottleneck. Esna picked up one with both hands and followed him, then realized there was already a low wall being built about shin high further back that he was adding to.
“Fallback point?”
“The ice will take a shot or two that our shields won’t have to. Stack it with as few gaps as possible.”
“How far away are they?” she said, putting her piece in place as Rammak walked back to get more.
“A few minutes out. We…” he said as weaponsfire was heard on the other side, and not a single shot busting up ice either. The Archon and others were firing on the Viks.
Esna grabbed and carried a few more pieces as her exchanged rifle dangled from her rack that was no longer covered with a cloak, then as the weaponsfire continued she stopped just short of picking up another piece of ice as a bare Human hand came through the cave-in fingers first with flows of water pouring out around it.
She stood there awe struck as the hand moved sideways then down, cutting out the ice around the narrow hole with intense heat that eventually dropped the half cylinder to the melty ground underneath it once the Archon finished his circuit, then a rippling of the air came through the central hole and hit her in the chest, pushing her back through the tunnel and onto her butt as the plug of ice followed.
Rammak stopped it from sliding into her with a massive foot as Tyrenk’s arm pulled back and was quickly covered with armor as he disappeared from view on the other side. Not two seconds later a Bsidd Commando tucked down its appendages and slid through the expanded gap followed by the rest of the cut off Star Force warriors as Rammak grabbed Esna up in his arms and carried her back down the tunnel faster than she could have possibly run.
Accepting the fact that she was baggage right now, Esna didn’t complain or thrash around, merely waiting until he’d let her down but that didn’t happen until they got back to the fissure where he rolled her acr
oss the last few meters of ice and down the stairs as he turned around and headed back.
“Run,” he said, and Esna knew better than to disobey. If she stuck around then she would slow everyone else down, so the best thing she could do was put distance between herself and the Zen’zat while the others bought time for her and the techs to get away.
To that end she took off sprinting as fast as she could in the low gravity without bouncing off the walls. That meant she actually had to apply less muscle power and that counter intuitive approach was hard to maintain when she could still faintly hear the sound of weaponsfire behind her. Esna slipped up once, hitting her head on the ceiling when her foot didn’t land right on one of the floor grooves and she ended up jumping up more than ahead, but she managed to land on her feet and keep going with no one else in sight for some 15 minutes until a speeder gratuitously appeared…and nearly ran her over.
She ducked to the side wall as it braked to a stop only 3 meters ahead, not thinking it could slow down that fast, though it was empty save for the pilot.
“Get on,” the Kiritas said, and when she did so it accelerated towards the fighting, ironically making all the running she’d just done pointless, but it got them up to the warriors still fighting and falling back in time for them to jump on, including Rammak, who picked up Esna again and held her in his arms.
“What are you…”
“We need to make room,” he said as a few others crammed onboard, some laying down on top of each other in order to stack everyone in, for the other speeders were already carrying the techs off down the tunnel and this was the only one left available.
“Ok,” she said from her awkward perch up near the tunnel ceiling, then the speeder started to move away as another Commando caught up and jumped on, but the Archon wasn’t there.