Prime Alpha (Planetary Powers Book 1)

by Joshua Boring

  “Strike one,” Nathen said. “Step up.”

  Calico groaned, muttering to herself as she threw down the mic. Nathen turned around in time to see her pull her helmet off and place it next to her knee. She cleared her voice, pinching her throat in some places and massaging it in others. Finally, as she picked up the mic again, she held a hand close to her face, so she could tap both her nose and her teeth easily. This time, when she spoke, it was like listening to someone play the violin using a flute for a bowstring. Nathen felt that eerie feeling again, watching the girl speaking, with such fluidness, a language that was not meant for the Human vocal cords.

  Nathen turned around and settled into the steering levers. This was a risk. Stelkan language was known to utilize two sets of vocals, simultaneously. Nathen's only hope was that the radio would cover any accent the amazing speaker would have, with her Human cords. She was doing an impressive job so far. The seconds ticked by, Calico fell silent, and Nathen could sense the tension as Trent hovered treacherously near the blaster cannon's controls. Then, the Stelkan commander came back.

  Nathen sighed in relief. Calico had successfully engaged a Stelkan in conversation, in its own language, without it knowing she was Human. That alone was a victory worthy of the Elite Stellar Commandos. With the response issued, Calico looked down at Nathen.

  “Its Commander Schrell,” she said, naming the tank commander. “They are responding to the communications blackout from the crater.”

  Nathen thought, and had his answer the next second.

  “Battle damage,” he said, figuring it was far more believable to feed him the truth than give an unconvincing lie. It was likely they'd seen the smoke from the base, miles away. “The War Hive attacked, but was beaten back with losses.”

  Calico relayed the message, and received a chirping grumble from the tank commander.

  “Now what?” she said, voice still shrill. Nathen had the next step planned out.

  “Say we are evacuating wounded.”

  Calico did, filling the inside of the tank with her pitched shrieks and warbles.

  This time, there was a long pause.

  Through the feed from the war helm, Nathen saw the lead tank rotate in place, swerving sideways and blocking the width of the road. This maneuver granted a clear line of fire over the tank's slanted rear half. Two blaster cannons were already aligned, slightly to their left, but no less pointed in their direction. Nathen tightened his grip on the controls, but didn't give the order to fire. When their path was entirely blocked, the rear hatch opened up, and an armored Stelkan perched out on the tail end, mailed wings clipped onto its shoulders like a trench coat. The bird skull-like helmet of the Stelkan commander stopped Nathen from reading his reaction.

  “He ain't fallen foh et,” Kyler said, watching diligently. “I say we pop 'im now while we got the chance.”

  “And then run back into the arms of the Insectoids?” Trent suggested. “Let's follow the commander's bluff through.”

  Ahead, the Stelkan commander waited, as if to see if someone would come out to meet him, but when no one did, he stepped down off the tank and rattled his armored wings until they were wrapped around his chest like a coat of arms. He squawked, making it clear what he wanted.

  “He wants us to disembark,” Calico explained, worriedly.

  “Tell him we don't have time,” Nathen said. “Our wounded need attention.”

  Calico lifted the mic and spoke the words, having to feign radio distortion to cover her own linguistic stutters on two occasions. Her voice was slowly giving out. Ahead, wrapped in its protective wings, the Stelkan cocked his head, listening to the voice speaking to him, then shifted his feet and tossed his head. Calico politely endeavored to change the commander's mind, continuing to speak. The commander tossed his head again, squawking a negative. Calico swallowed, gripping her throat, and was about to start in again with more excuses when Nathen thrust his finger at a commswitch and turned on his own Vorch-enabled radio.

  “Vontaelo!” he snapped, angrily. “Khay dorm zel si vuul, vhak tsao!”

  The commander stood, stunned. Nathen turned off his radio and sat and waited, while Calico sat in confused silence. Finally, after a long pause, the Stelkan commander screeched a derogative dismissal and turned, clopping back to his tank, sending a lingering, searing stare in the ESC's direction. Then it climbed into its tank and shut the hatch. Seconds later, the lead tank barring their way rotated aside, rejoining the column. Nathen heard Calico's mic spark with some colorful Stelkan speech.

  “Commander Schrell says we are to proceed,” she said, still taken aback. “He's sending two Pious squad carriers to escort us to the base.”

  “Perfect,” Nathen said with a grin. “Give him our thanks. And apologize for your Vorch pilot's crassness.”

  Calico arched an eyebrow at Nathen for a moment, then pitched her voice one last time to relay to final message. Nathen touched his temple in mock salute to the view screen, as the Yew tanks in Commander Schrell's column floated by, heading for the crater.

  “Alright Alphas,” he said as two medium-sized Pious transports broke off from the opposing column and took up positions on either end of the ESCs. “Let's play nice while it lasts. Prepare to move out.”

  They waited while the Stelkan commander floated by with his array of all purpose tanks, microtanks, and troop carriers, oblivious to the fact he'd just been conned; or the fact that he was going to find a very unwelcome greeting when he reached the crater. Once the column had passed, the Stelkan driving the lightly armored squad transport stood up and waved back to Nathen's tank. A second later, the Pious troop transport jolted forward, causing the two Golos standing on the back platform to grunt unhappily as they tiredly propped their TAC cannons beside them, disappointed they were turning back. Nathen softly moved after them.

  “So what now?” Phillip said, unhappily. “We're hostages.”

  “My thirty megawatt cannon thinks otherwise,” Helen chipped in, cheerfully. “Boss, that was brilliant.”

  “Half brilliant,” Phillip countered over the team comm. “We're still in a jam. What are we supposed to do when we get there? Claim our wounds turned us all into Humans?”

  “I appreciate your input so long as you are providing useful suggestions,” Nathen said with a smirk. “Now shut up.”

  “Yes, sir...” grumbled Phillip, uncomfortably.

  Nathen felt a tap on his shoulder and glanced back. Calico was still kneeling , Stelkan radio on the floor next to her helmet.

  “Sir,” she said, brushing back her crimson bangs. “What exactly did you say to that commander?”

  Nathen smiled, inwardly. “That was an ancestral blasphemy among Vor culture.”

  Calico blinked, alarmed. “I've... never heard of that.”

  “It’s not in the textbooks,” Nathen said, leaning back and favoring Calico with a stare. “You were being too formal. Nothing personal, but that Stelkan was walking all over you. Sometimes a little fierceness is called for, even in speech.”

  Calico said nothing, then sighed and scooted back, picking up her helmet and pressing it back onto her head. Nathen left her alone, planning out the next phase of their escape, right under the enemy's nose.

  Chapter 24

  Ten minutes later, Nathen saw the first signs of the starport. Up ahead, rising out of the earth, the control spire reached for the stars. A three-sided monolith at least thirty stories high, the spire served as the hub for the spaceport, as well as a beacon. The spire was the center point for two tiers of landing pads—for shuttles and aircraft—with large paved fields cleared further out for actual starships. The inner pads were smaller, meant to host fighters, scout craft, and gunships similar to what the ESC's had seen in the crater. Several infamous Xylas Yew Interceptors were in view. The outer tier platforms were slightly larger, and likewise were the craft parked on them. Giant, X-circle-shaped bombers lay prone, splayed across their pentagon platforms like four-legged starfish sunning themselves
on rocks. Up ahead, Nathen saw several automated cargo drones glide on their way to a nearby landing field where a pot-bellied barge sat. Everything seemed grounded, waiting for the next air strike against their foes. While Nathen assumed the tacticians were sitting, twiddling their taloned thumbs waiting for the communications antennae in the crater to get fixed, that didn't diminish the large garrison the Alphas were about to roll into. Gordon had said the Kastar combat corvette was on the third platform, but he failed to mention which one that was.

  In roughly five minutes, things were going to get interesting.

  “So,” said Helen, from behind. “What's the plan, Boss?”

  “Bear with me,” Nathen said, as the spire grew larger and closer. He'd hoped to pull off the road and examine the base from afar, plan his approach accordingly, but this was actually better. With the two troop transports guiding them in, they wouldn't have to explain their presence. They were as good as in the door. And, unlike with the crater, they didn't need to make sure everything was dead when they left. They just had to leave. Let the Yew stew over them, if they weren't finished off by the War Hive. The Humans would be long gone.

  All they needed was an adequate distraction.

  Nathen started noticing the shapes of idling ground crews and soldiers up ahead. Each of the Pious troop transports was burdened with a mixed species squad. As soon as they stopped, they'd be surrounded, and even in stolen enemy tanks, they'd get knocked out and dragged from the wreckage before they could get far. Even if they engaged them head on, there were other tanks to combat and counter them. What worked at the crater wouldn't work here. But perhaps it didn't have to. Nathen reached up and touched his helmet.

  “Alpha One to Hybrids. Speak to me, Griffins.”

  He waited a moment, with no response. It was possible they were out of range. The Genesis suit had a strong comm link, but the Hybrid dropships still had to be within a certain range or else the mystic alien signal desynched. Nathen tried again.

  “Knight to Hybrids. Respond, over.”

  “...-opy, Knight, this is Hybrid One,” Nikolai's voice said. “Reading you.”

  “Hybrid Two, ready on station, Commander,” Rathe chipped in.

  Nathen relaxed a little. “Good to hear. What's your position?”

  Red, in Hybrid One, paused a second to check his instruments. “Ahh, roughly five minutes from your position. I should warn you, someone shook the bee hive. Air patrols have tripled since we got here.”

  “Blast it,” Nathen said, breaking contact. First the orbital dragnetting for cloaked craft, now increased air sweeps. It’s like the Yew knew they were here, but they were just now sending troops to investigate the crater, so how could they? It was like they could smell the Humans in the thin air, but they couldn't find them.

  It made Nathen very uneasy.

  “Don't worry about it now,” Nathen said, reactivating his comm. “We need to get out of here before the Insectoids launch their own attack to rip the planet from the Alliance.”

  “It may be difficult to pick you guys up...”

  “No time,” Nathen insisted as their convey drew closer to perimeter fortifications. “We're en route now to the enemy spaceport in stolen armor. I need you to leg it there right now and raise absolute Hell, five minutes ago.”

  “You want us to attack the spaceport?” Leonard cut in, confusedly. “The one you're in right now?”

  “Yeah,” Nathen said dismissively.

  “Alright,” Nikolai said. “See you soon.”

  Nathen refocused back to the team comm. “Alright Alphas. Hybrids are on their way. When the show starts, play it cool. Remember, our objective is to secure a mode of transportation. Daytana.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Focus on getting straight to that Kastar corvette, and we'll run interference. Don't shoot anything unless you have to.”

  “Clear.”

  “Alright,” Nathen said, as they passed the outer fortifications. “Everyone, settle in. Here we go.”

  The four vehicle convoy slowed to a crawl as the road started to crisscross around, weaving between the elevated platforms. Ramps and walkways formed elaborate mazes to and from idling star and aircraft. The spire loomed high now, reaching past the top of the tank's war helm. They started slowing even more to a pedestrian walk as the troop transport in front of them guided the two tanks toward the medical bunker.

  “I have the left flank,” Nathen said, eyeing his withdrawal route. “Daytana, you head right.”

  For five more seconds, the column continued to the end of its journey. Then, a haunting cry came through everyone's comm.

  “Target locked,” Rathe said in his distinctive howl. “Ghost One!”

  There was no scream of rockets, no roar of gravjets. No giveaway at all. Suddenly the fattened barge on the far landing field roared into crackling flames as though it had been stuffed to the point of bursting. The shock of the explosion was overtaken as a black flash passed overhead in the blink of an eye, only yards above the raised platforms. The slipstream of the super-accelerated Hybrid was so strong it pulled several Yew pilots off their feet.

  Nathen slapped the side of his helmet. “Alphas, break!”

  He yanked on the controls and sent his tank into a sideswiping spin out of the column, while behind, Phillip hit the accelerator and banked to the right, peeling away. The troops in the Pious in front of them grabbed their weapons and mistakenly looked skyward for their enemy. The Golos seated on the back were getting to their feet to disembark when Trent pumped a charged cannon bolt into their engine frame. The Pious lifted up several feet as the gravtreads overloaded, then slammed to the ground. Stunned Flogs scrambled out of the wreck while the four Vorch clawed at their own flash-burned faces. Nathen wheeled the tank away and accelerated as Trent charged a fresh round.

  “Multikill,” the sniper said, flatly.

  The comm snapped again.

  “Hybrid One,” Red shouted. “Ghost One!”

  Again, there was no scream of rockets. This time, however, Nathen caught a glimpse of a silver needle as the Hybrid's state-of-the-art Ghost stealth missile shot overhead and detonated a platform and its three arrow-headed Interceptors. There was another black streak as Hybrid One passed through its own expanding fireball, twisting a trail of writhing flame behind it. On a nearby platform, Nathen caught a glimpse of an automated anti-air beam turret, attempting vainly to track the invisible enemy.

  “Sharps,” Nathen directed.

  “Targetting,” Trent said. The tank vibrated again as the blaster cannon issued a withering ZAP-POW! The cannon bolt struck the emplacement, and amid the shattering machinery Nathen saw the head of the beam turret twisting away through the air.

  Another Ghost missile struck the spaceport. On the side opposite Nathen, Phillip side-shimmied the tank as a large piece of what was once a Yew shuttle smashed across their path. The technician swore, trying to stay in the cover of the landing platforms as the black flash that was a Hybrid shot by just meters above the parked craft.

  Return fire started to break out, with several manned cannon emplacements spitting blasts into the sky as Flog and Golo fire crews rushed to burning hulks with suppression packs. Vorch pilots in tinted blue jumpsuits and sneering green helmets dashed in rows to their fighters, chanting a war hymn in eager anticipation of bloodshed. Several Stelkans, unsure of where their attackers were coming from, ran for the familiar security of their bombers, dragging or coaxing their Flog crews with them. The Hybrids were moving so fast, they passed over the starport in a second, and took a wide return sweep, too fast and low for anyone to identify.

  Nathen guided the tank through the chaos, circling behind the spire and searching for the correct platform. With the enemy sufficiently distracted, the Humans had their small window of opportunity.

  Suddenly, up ahead, something very large floated into view.

  Nathen stopped the tank and analyzed the new threat. The Yew mobile artillery unit was modified with anti-a
ir seeker drone launchers. Its giant gear-looking rotating guns could flood the airspace with lethal drones in seconds. Even though the odds of it locking on to or even identifying one of the elusive Hybrids were slim, it would be a serious threat once the commandos got into the air.

  Nathen accelerated, full throttle as the artillery unit cycled its guns.

  The pilot never saw the tank flying toward its blind zone. It certainly became aware of it when the faster tank bashed its side pod in with its ramming plate. Everyone in the tank lurched forward at the sudden impact, but Nathen wasn't finished. The floating artillery unit lost stabilization and was carried along on Nathen's prow like a massive hood ornament. He gritted his teeth and gave the artillery an extra hard shove into the side of a shuttle. The artillery bounced against the ground, side pinched from the tank's ramming plate. His teeth clenched, Nathen hauled back on the tank's controls, trying to reverse. It took a little coaxing, but the tank finally disengaged from its target and rattled back a few meters. A second later, the gunner's hatch between the launchers slammed back, and a stunned, warbling Stelkan pulled himself up onto the artillery's hull, clutching a broken arm. It had a half second to look in Nathen's direction before Trent vaporized it with a blaster cannon bolt.

  The commander let loose a tired sigh and steered the tank away, just as another explosion followed by a black flash took place on the other end of the starport. The tank lurched, and Nathen discovered he'd trashed a gravtread with his last maneuver. The tank was threatening to break down, but he didn't care. He pushed it on, engine straining.

  “I got it,” Trent said, suddenly. “Kastar combat corvette, three o'clock.”

  Nathen turned his head and saw the platform a good thirty meters away. The C-shaped saucer craft was as large as any of the Yew bombers scattered about, but it lacked the air-to-ground targeting arrays, and the extensive bomb bays. It was also considerably less armored. It made up for it, though, with better speed and agility. Replacing the bomb bays were flashtech pods, and several forward-mounted blaster cannon batteries. And it had plenty of room for the eight commandos.