by Aer-ki Jyr
Esna got off a couple more shots when she felt she could before Rammak got to them.
“Is he alive?”
“Barely,” the Scionate said as both sets of Calavari arms pulled out weapons. Rammak stepped over top of Esna and straddled her in order to leave the left side of the tunnel open.
“Stay down.”
“You’re worse,” she said, seeing a few bits of blood drip and then freeze on contact with the ice beside her.
“You know I can take a beating.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“Better me than you. Keep looking for open shots. There are more wounded coming.”
“How did those Zen’zat slip through?”
“They saw weak targets and went after them. There are too many too keep track of, but in the tunnel they all have to come the same direction.”
“Warships are still staying put,” Esna said after a quick alternate view of the battlemap.
“They won’t shoot the Zen’zat. Keep your eyes on them,” Rammak said, firing off a string of shots near the top of the tunnel that zipped over the shorter heads of a couple of Humans further down that were dragging two other Commandos each in the low gravity as easily as if they were duffle bags. They got to the waypoint a little bit later and dumped their passengers behind the Bsidd.
“How long till the speeder?” one of them asked.
“Several minutes. We have to hold here.”
“No shit,” the Human said, dropping down and laying next to Esna with only Rammak’s leg in between them. “How are your shields?”
“Low.”
“Then why are you standing?”
“Where do you want me?”
“On the bottom, other side.”
Rammak stepped away and landed with a thud on his chest as the Commando next to Esna rolled up on top of her.
“Stay still and focus ahead,” he told her. “If I’m on top they can only hit you in the arms, head, and shoulders. Shift your shields to focus there.”
“Alright,” Esna said, trying to look ahead and work through her HUD’s menus at the same time while the other Command perched on top of Rammak, leaving a gap in the tunnel between the two pairs. She barely found the proper shield settings in time before the other three opened fire on a Zen’zat trying to run down another pair of Commandos. Those two wisely hit the ground and flattened out, allowing the foursome to fire at their pursuit while flipping over and adding their own weaponsfire.
The Zen’zat got too many hits even as she tried to dodge and her shields disappeared in the blink of an eye. Her armor lasted longer as the Vik did the only thing she could do…which was to dive on the two Commandos when she got to them and therefore eliminate the weaponsfire coming from the living wall that Esna was a part of.
The Commandos knew it too, and as they wrestled the two of them managed to throw the Zen’zat towards the wall and even while the Zen’zat kept low the experienced shooters were able to punish her even while Esna held off pulling the trigger. She couldn’t make that shot and the last thing she wanted to do was hit and kill one of their own if she missed.
After the Zen’zat was down and staying down, one of the Commandos didn’t get up and the Scionate darted out and dragged him back up to the wall, then the Protovic with him came walking through the gap and began to attend to the wounded as best he could with whatever was in his pack.
A few moments later he squeezed in next to Esna in what would have been a nightmare for her claustrophobia if the presence of the armored bodies and weapons surrounding her hadn’t made her feel the safest she had ever been…plus she was here, fighting rather than running, even if she didn’t deserve it.
And the last thing she was going to do was let them down. She might not be a badass Commando, but if she could just keep getting in a few decent shots that would mean her being here was valuable. To that end she worked with the others as a few more wounded made their way back just prior to the main force that included the Archon.
Following him was a tunnel full of Zen’zat that was being thrown back a bit as the Archon chucked a few explosives that partially collapsed the tunnel, giving him a chance to sprint ahead and dive over top of the wall pile that had gotten even thicker with more Commandos being added.
Stuck on the bottom Esna wasn’t removed and she had as good of a view on what was coming as anyone as the Zen’zat dug through the ice pile, then were shot as she and those on the right side were able to just get a few shots around the gentle curve in the tunnel. Some of her shots missed and chipped out ice there, but ironically that allowed someone else to get another shot off through her hole, so she didn’t try to aim too well and just kept firing off as fast as she could.
Her shot counter was descending quickly, but these Dre’mo’don rifles carried a lot more ammo than the plasma rifle she’d learned to use back on Forso. Still, she couldn’t get into her pack for a recharge while being smashed on the bottom of the pile, so when her counter dipped under 50% she slowed her rate of fire, letting those up top do most of the long range shooting.
The Zen’zat took damage, a lot of damage, but their leading troops weren’t stupid. They fell to the ground early, much like Esna was now, and let those with full shields step over them and take the lead. So what she and the others were firing into was a moving formation that kept rotating out and…
Suddenly a missile shot out and into the Zen’zat, blasting them backward and collapsing the tunnel on top of them.
“Forgot I had that one,” a Bsidd said from behind somewhere. Esna could tell by the accent.
“Don’t help them dig out,” the Archon added. “But if you see one pinned take them down before they can rotate. Anyone else thinking the speeders might have stopped for drivethrough?”
Esna heard a few chuckles, but she didn’t fully understand what he meant, though she was also wondering how soon they’d be back, for they weren’t showing on the battlemap yet and up ahead large chunks of ice began levitating and moving off the pile as the Zen’zat used their powers to move them, probably by cooperating…then the ice chunks began floating towards the Star Force formation.
“Oh no you don’t,” one of the Commandos said as they opened fire and started blasting apart the chunks as at least some of the Zen’zat tried to rush the living wall behind the impromptu cover.
21
The ice chunks didn’t get far, either being blasted into steam that filled the hallways and obscured Esna’s view or dropped to the ground a few seconds later for what reason she didn’t know, but once she switched her HUD to a different setting the Zen’zat were visible again through the quickly cooling mist. They had stopped and dropped to the ground, one of which fired just over the ice and hit Esna in the face with a green orb.
She flinched, but her shields held firm as she fired back. Meanwhile the rest of the Zen’zat were finishing digging themselves out…from which came more ice chunks being thrown rather than run up towards the Star Force Commando wall. Most got knocked down one way or another, but a chunk hit the Commando above Esna then dropped down in front of her, blocking her firing line.
She shot it, puffing a huge wave of steam over her and those nearby, then the rest of the chunk suddenly reversed course and flew out to hit one of the prone Zen’zat in the head as he was pulled backwards and under more Zen’zat coming forward to take the hits…but they were suddenly thrown back along with the mist as a ripple of distortion slammed into them and physically moved them a few meters, exposing the shieldless Zen’zat crawling below.
They got hit again and Esna could see a lot of armor damage to them, but their fellow troops pulled them further back with their powers and out of range as more Zen’zat came out of the ice pile and got in front of them. Meanwhile the other Zen’zat ahead were getting chewed up while doing some shield damage to the Star Force wall but nothing significant.
Slowly the Zen’zat worked their way through the collapsed bit of tunnel, cycling their wounded back and sen
ding fresh troops forward to exchange fire with the weakening wall. Esna didn’t take many hits, but even her shields were down to 54%. Those above her had to be far lower and she wondered how much longer they could hold when the pressure on top of her armor disappeared and she suddenly found herself being dragged backwards by her feet.
When she got outside the wall the hole in front of her collapsed down with the Commando who had been on top of her taking her place. She turned around and sat up, looking for who had pulled her out when she realized the speeders were back, both of them, and the wounded were being loaded up. Some were walking, others were being carried, and the Protovic who pointed her to the speeder obviously wanted her to join them.
She didn’t argue, running over and hopping on to the furthest one that was loading up first, then the backmost of the Commandos began leaving their support positions and joining her. Once they pulled off, the wall started to disintegrate as the top individuals began sliding off while the Archon held position right behind…then she saw a blue shield pop up over the tunnel and everyone scrambled to get up and back to the closest speeder.
Esna didn’t see what happened next, for her speeder took off as soon as it was full, but the last thing she saw was Rammak’s bulk crawling up off the ground where he had been bottom of the pile…then it was just ice walls flashing past and she had nothing to look at but her battlemap, which also cut off as soon as the distance and the curve of the tunnel broke the connection.
It didn’t take long for them to get to the staging area where the few Commandos with her got off and a medtech came up to deal with the wounded. She stepped down too, and it was a good thing she did because a minute later the speeder took off again, easing through the techs and then accelerating off into the distance and leaving everyone else ahead of the Zen’zat but not nearly as far ahead as she would have liked. Still, they were coming on foot and she’d just ridden a speeder. They had some time.
The second speeder showed up a little later and Rammak was on it. So was the Archon and Esna knew he would have been the last man out so she assumed they were all there, though another Bsidd looked like it was missing one of its mandibles. There was also some purple blood dripping from the severed point that was itself melty from weaponsfire.
She cringed, not wanting to know how much pain it was in, but the Bsidd was walking fine on its other mandibles as a medtech got over to and began to seal up the wound. Rammak passed them by in the narrow tunnel and eventually got over to her with at least one additional melted spot on his chest armor.
“You did well.”
“How bad are you?” she asked, not caring about praise right now.
“Hurt, but still fighting capable. Have you reloaded?”
“Not yet.”
“Do it now. They will be here soon and we have to move.”
Esna reached back into her pack as she looked around at everyone else who were more or less standing still. “Why aren’t the techs moving yet?”
“I don’t know, but…” Rammak said as an explosion ahead dropped a section of tunnel down blocking the end towards the Zen’zat.
“Get on the speeder.”
“Without you?”
“Hurry. We don’t have time. Give me your rifle.”
“Can you still run?”
“Faster than you. Get on, now.”
“Stay alive,” she said, running up to and hopping on the other speeder that the techs were piling on in addition to the wounded. Esna got squeezed on like cargo, but she didn’t mind as much as she did leaving Rammak, who began running along with the other Commandos and the Scionate as a group behind the speeder, but they were quickly left behind as the craft zipped ahead and up to speed within a handful of seconds.
“How far are we moving?” Esna asked.
“All the way,” someone who she couldn’t see said. “So get comfortable.”
“What about the Commandos and Archon?”
“The first speeder will come back for them whenever it can.”
“Won’t the Zen’zat catch them first?”
“They just got a head start. They’ll make use of it.”
“Some of them are wounded.”
“They know what they’re doing.”
“Can’t we go part way then send the speeder back for them? We can run too.”
“I agree, but Archon’s orders. He wants us as far from the Zen’zat as possible. I guess he thinks they can outrun them.”
Esna didn’t say anything more, but she knew that Zen’zat were crazy fast. Whether or not Rammak’s head start would be enough she couldn’t say, even if he wasn’t wounded, and the thought of him falling behind and getting caught was something she pushed out of mind, trying to think of something else and focusing on the battlemap information coming down from orbit and the massive brawl going on up there.
Paul’s mind was interlinked with the battlemap, connecting him to every ship and crewmember simultaneously. He could see where they were, what they were doing, and what was being done to them in the way of battle damage thanks to the insane skill he’d developed using the system over more than a millennia, as well as his Sav psionic upgrade that made him even more formidable at this type of oversight and control.
But the V’kit’no’sat out there also had mental interface systems that they used, so he didn’t hold any technological advantage. And when dedicated to the fight, the V’kit’no’sat were willing to die to achieve victory. That appeared to be the case here, for they were going tooth and claw into his ships in a way that told the trailblazer that they were here to force a fight and kill every Star Force ship they could. They weren’t being cautious or overly clever, they were just hammering now that they had a situation where they knew Star Force wasn’t going to retreat from.
Paul could fight that way with his drones, for they were expendable with no crews onboard. He had no problem ordering them to kamikaze when needed, though the V’kit’no’sat rarely took that approach. Their ships were so much bigger it wouldn’t make sense, and if they could get up on top of one of his jumpships they’d just use their superior firepower to tear it apart. No, ramming was a technique that smaller ships used against larger ones, and the V’kit’no’sat were not so stupid to use it with valuable crews onboard.
So Paul had a slight advantage there, but at the same time he had to keep all of his control ships back out of the fight. He often used them as bait to draw the V’kit’no’sat where he wanted and they were definitely trying now, though it was more to keep him honest rather than hoping for an actual intercept. Unless he or his subordinates got sloppy they weren’t going to catch any of them. Paul knew the V’kit’no’sat’s tricks and technology well after fighting them for so many centuries, and if they were going to introduce something new here he’d probably see it coming.
His command ship was a little bit different. Still small compared to the V’kit’no’sat fleet and even smaller than most of his jumpships, the Excalibur did not carry any drones. Nor did this model of command ship carry the standard ground troop module in the core of the donut-shaped ship that could land itself on a planet and become an instant battlefort. This model of command ship had that central plug replaced with additional equipment that kept the warship as a control station for the drones deployed from other vessels and made it a more formidable brawler at the same time.
He couldn’t slug it out with the larger V’kit’no’sat ships for long, but he could do better than the jumpships could and every now and then he went from being the chased to the chaser, with him diving his command ship in amongst the drone swarms and using his much heavier weapons to focus on either an objective or vulnerable target.
The V’kit’no’sat had learned to try and bait command ships in before, but Paul was too good to fall for those traps. He knew that if he or his ship was destroyed the rest of the fleet would continue on, for he was not the only Archon capable of guiding the battle, but he also knew the V’kit’no’sat would gladly trade one of their shi
ps to eliminate him. That was why the Excalibur and the jumpships had dampening shields that could be thrown up in a matter of seconds that would block and catch any kamikaze ship trying to ram them.
The V’kit’no’sat knew that too, so when an Era’tran Ti’mat-class cruiser that was a touch smaller than the Excalibur accelerated into a jump from well back and headed towards Paul’s ship he immediately reacted. The drones ahead of his ship in an escort ring parted and his command ship descended rapidly. He had to order all of them to use jump-scale propulsive thrusts in order to do it and that left them scattered a bit afterward, but fortunately their capacitors were at full power and they could all make it out of the way.
The Ti’mat zipped right through the formation and continued on further out from the star as Paul saw the follow up coming in. Some 22 other Era’tran ships had made slower microjumps out towards his position expecting the Ti’mat to have been caught on Paul’s dampening shields and stopped there…where he expected some type of IDF to have pinned him in place for the hammer blow that was coming now.
But Paul had seen it coming and dodged it, and with a simple redirect he sent his command ship away from the attackers with his escort drones keeping pace all the while bringing another tendril of drones out from the main group behind the Era’tran…who saw their mistake and made evasive jumps to get away before Paul’s fleet could get in range and pin them down with interdiction fields.
Disaster avoided, Paul’s maneuver now had those 23 V’kit’no’sat ships out of position and weapons range of the rest of his fleet as he redirected the drone tendril back into combat. They’d made a small gamble and lost valuable time for it, but it didn’t surprise the Archon. The Era’tran were always going after control ships, as if the fact that they continually eluded capture or destruction was a personal insult.
As for Paul’s momentary distraction from the rest of the battle, it accounted for nothing because he wasn’t micromanaging much at the time. His sub fleet commanders, Admirals, and ship Captains were all damned good at what they did, allowing Paul to focus where he wanted while they carried out his orders, and the more skilled they were the broader those orders could be.