by Aer-ki Jyr
“They might,” Rafa pointed out, “but anything of theirs we can bust up is a good thing at this point. Kyler, do they have anything in the tunnels aside from infantry?”
“Infantry with det packs, but nothing else that we’ve found. The breach points are too small for sharks and the shipyard entrance is guarded. Besides, anything bigger would have trouble getting past the battleships. So no, it’s just infantry. A whole lot of infantry.”
“Time to get our feet wet then,” he pressed. “We’ve got our custom armor, but the other Archons will have to suit up when we get to the city. See if you can find out how many you have before we head down.”
“On it,” Kyler promised as the three holograms winked out in sequence.
Paul sat in the cargo bay of one of his dropships along with a hoard of other Archons pulled off duty on his warships in orbit as they descended through the atmosphere towards the section of ocean that held Manaan. Ahead of them were several drone warships, part of which were making sure the skies stayed clear of lizards while a few others were hovering over the waves and making pinpoint rail gun strikes down into the water to hit the shallow comm relays. Meanwhile the lizard fleets around the submerged city increased their depth once they realized the warships were overhead.
All the way down on the sea floor they were safe, and there they stayed, as if hiding from the sunlight above.
That wouldn’t matter to Paul’s group, because they were headed inside the fence, not outside where the battleships were taking what advantage they could from the lizards being surface shy. Still, more transports and aquatics warships were arriving in shifts, replacing those Star Force was killing, more or less. Given the practice they were getting, the battleships were getting good at making short raids over the barrier and their kill count was increasing each time they did, while taking only minimal damage themselves.
Paul didn’t focus on that, or any other part of the overall battle plan. His part was simple…swim and kill lizards the way only Archons could, and he had plenty of pent up anger to sustain him for a long engagement.
Those seated next to him on the pull out benches in the Falcon-class dropship would be doing the same, though with less reckless abandon. While aquatics armor wasn’t as varied as their normal sets were, there were still differences between the adept, acolyte, and ranger versions, making his custom set more robust than what the others had, save for Sara, Rafa, Kyler, and Emily who all had identical ranger armor, save for the fittings.
It was heavier than the others, but not by much, giving him a bit more protection while maintaining his available speed. The biggest difference came in the style of the armor, which was far less bulky than the adept armor, which was little more than flexible turtle shells. The acolyte version was in between, offering more range of movement and slightly heavier armor plating, but containing less volume of such. It was a tradeoff meant to emphasize the swimming agility of the wearer…those who had little got the bulkier sets, figuring they were going to be taking extra hits anyway.
In order to reach ranger status, Paul and the others had to achievement benchmarks in all five areas of combat, plus now psionics, meaning that even though he didn’t care for the water he’d become quite skilled in it. And in this case, where his nose was safely inside an air pocket within his helmet, he didn’t suffer from as much of a disadvantage as he did when directly in the water, making him more than deserving of the heavier, but more agile set of ranger aquatics armor.
He’d outfitted his with several mods, one of which was a stun stick built into the right forearm that he could jab with while leaving his hand free. Another was a bubble shield attached to his back, his extra insurance if they were to come across any lizards with det packs and itchy trigger fingers.
“30 seconds,” he heard over his helmet comm, prompting him and the other Archons in the bay to stand up and grab their gear, most of which was already attached to their bodies at some point, though some carried physical shields meant for land combat. Paul figured they’d work about the same as the lizards’ shield gauntlets, save for you couldn’t see through them. That, and the physical ones would probably stand up to more plasma strikes than a shield matrix.
A crack in the rear of the ship opened up, lowering into a boarding ramp that hung out over the ocean. Nothing was visible on the horizon…just more and more water, eliciting a bit of a warning tingle down Paul’s spine. That was a lot of nowhere to get lost in, had there not been a city underneath them. His brain knew there was, but his eyes didn’t agree, giving him the impression that they were about to walk out into the middle of nowhere.
The Archons ahead of him didn’t hesitate and began dropping out of view two by two. When Paul got up to the edge he saw that the dropship pilot had the ship drifting forward so they wouldn’t land on top of each other, which was smart. He gave the acolyte ahead of him a second and a half head start then he walked off the edge and dropped several meters straight down through the air until his feet hit the water and his armored form cut into the ocean like a knife.
His battlemap shifted automatically to an underwater view, but his eyes were ahead of it, picking up the myriad of lights visible in the otherwise dark beneath them. To their northwest was the greatest concentration, which he knew was the main city structure. They weren’t headed there, but rather down to one of the lizard breach points in a nearby building.
To that end he fell into line and followed the others as they inverted and started swiftly jetting down to the sea floor more than a mile below.
9
All the incoming Archons met up at the same location on the sea floor, with Paul’s group arriving in about the middle. Sara and Kyler were both already in position, fighting off the scattering of lizards heading to the breach point they’d chosen to insert from. Paul let them continue, dropping down inside their circular perimeter on the edge of the bioharvest facility’s armored dome where the lizards’ det packs had broken through.
Unlike the blast doors currently holding the lizards back from the main building, the armor covering the surface buildings was lower grade, mass produced bulk armor, designed to take all sorts of nicks and dings without compromising the interior…but it wasn’t designed to stand up to significant weapons fire. That said, it was chemically designed to resist fracture, meaning that the blast point hadn’t translated up through the rest of the structure. Only the small area nearby Paul had been pulverized, absorbing the blast and letting Star Force have only a small repair job ahead of them rather than replacing football field long cracks throughout the entire dome.
Paul’s feet hit the angled surface, but the tread on his aquatic boots caught enough to support his almost neutral body weight. There he watched the other Archons assembling around him, most on the flat seafloor, while keeping their suit lights off. He could see their ID tags, however, given they were all transmitting into the battlemap and the holographic overlay set on the inside of his faceplate.
There he and the others waited as 338 handpicked Archons from the naval fleets gathered, then Kyler eventually swam over to his location with the other trailblazers following a few minutes later.
“Welcome to Atlantica,” he said over the comm to the naval expert, both of whom were wearing green armor as opposed to the silvers and reds around them.
“It’s a lot bigger from this perspective,” Paul said, referencing his normal orbital view.
“You ready for this?”
“Are you?” Paul quipped.
“I can sleep later. I want these guys off our doorstep.”
“Let’s start sweeping then.”
Kyler pulled up a special version of the battlemap that allowed him to share it with Paul, then using his forearm controls he began drawing routes on it.
“Six routes. These will hit the major staging areas in this hemisphere. We play venators, starting by heading here,” he said, pointing to a small building that had three different tunnels connecting to it. “Then we play it by ear and go wh
ere we find the most targets.”
“Weapons?”
“There will be plenty just inside. We’ve hit this location before.”
“Assuming the lizards haven’t clean up.”
“They were littering the floor last I was here, so don’t worry. Save those needlers for the det packs.”
“You picked up any outside?”
“A few, we’re…” he paused as ripple ran through the water and shifted them aside slightly, “detonating now.”
Another set of green armor swam up next to them with dozens of other Archons trailing in her wake.
“What are we waiting on?” Emily asked.
Kyler shot her the battlemap with the routes tagged. “The five of us are going out on our own, so we need to split the others into assault groups headed up by my guys. As soon as we get them divvied up equally we’re going in.”
“Odd play,” she commented.
“We’re staying on the move,” Kyler explained, and Emily knew instantly what he meant based on their prior experience, dating all the way back to when they were trainees.
“I’m down with that,” Rafa said, swimming up to the group.
“One to go,” Paul commented.
“I’m here,” Sara said from afar. “Get going.”
Kyler didn’t hesitate, flipping head for heels and jetting straight down into the breach and ‘crawling’ through. Paul went in right on his heels, stun stick extended, and was met with resistance immediately on the other side of the small broken tunnel he came out of.
Kyler fended off two jabs from lizards flanking the entrance, but given he’d sensed their positions he’d scooted out of the breach at speed and made them miss behind him. The plasma nubs nearly hit each other directly in front of Paul, who reached out and grabbed the right one, tugging it and the lizard that held it in towards him where he jabbed him with the stun stick in his forearm.
A quick Fornax blast to the other’s mind kept him from getting hit, and he knocked the tip of its weapon aside with his stun stick before reaching his arm up and poking it in the ribs, then he jetted forward and cleared the breach for the others to come through.
Meanwhile Kyler was engaging a handful of others who’d been hanging around the entry point, but he soon plowed through them, coming out into the next room with plasma rod in hand and another five kills to his credit.
“Form on me,” Kyler said on his private comm channel to the other trailblazers, then he switched to another he’d reserved for his assault team leaders. “Entry point secure, we’re heading out. Proceed at best speed.”
With that last order he jetted off at half speed, knowing the others would catch up with him, and picked almost random directions to travel, getting off the routes the others would be taking and ‘into the weeds’ so to speak. If the lizards were going to coordinate their defenses against them, he wanted them tracking his group and not fully prepping for the main kill squads.
Two and a half hours later the five trailblazers were halfway around the perimeter of the city, having kept moving and killing constantly, now more than 3 miles away from the closest of the assault groups. There were more than enough lizards in play for all the Archons to have their fill, and the rangers were focused on killing as many of them as they could rather than clearing out sections of the city.
The assault groups were proceeding in that regard, though they couldn’t lock down any of the buildings given the explosives damage, not only on the hull but inside where security doors had been shut to try and stall the lizards advance…and had been subsequently destroyed to allow them to progress. That said, they were proceeding building by building and killing all they came across, attempting to provoke a counterattack or at minimum kill all the lizards in a given area and eliminate the field bases they were setting up inside.
“Kyler, the lizard ships are breaking off,” Linda’s voice broke in suddenly to the trailblazer’s helmet.
“Say again?”
“I don’t know what’s happening, but every ship within sensor range is turning about and leaving. Their infantry on the fence line are also turning around for pick up. Those inside are still advancing, but it looks like you’ve got a finite number to work with now.”
“What the hell happened?” he asked, following Sara’s feet as she led the ranger group through a zigzag course around the inner edge of an industrial building.
“It wasn’t the battleships, they’re all currently inside the fence, and the lizards just got a group of reinforcements 10 minutes ago. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Keep me updated,” he said, switching over to his teamcomm. “Guys, the lizard fleet is bugging out. Their infantry inside the perimeter is still coming, but the flow has dried up. I don’t know how many we’ve got left to deal with, but we can finish this.”
“Good news,” Sara commented, raising her plasma rod up as all five of the rangers sensed lizard minds gathered ahead around the next corner. “How close are they to breaking through the doors?”
“A few inches, as of 20 minutes ago. I haven’t gotten an updated report, so I don’t think they’re through yet. They cad hold if we can thin the reinforcements further. The doors aren’t going to come down when they poke a hole in them, so they’ll have a shooting spree for a while until the lizards widen the gap. If we can keep up our kill rate we’ve got this.”
“Why are they pulling back?” Paul asked, swimming fourth in their staggered line.
“Control is working on it, but right now I don’t care so long as they’re not dropping off more infantry.”
“Maybe they ran out,” Rafa suggested.
“Had to happen sometime,” Emily added.
“Heads up,” Sara warned unnecessarily as she got to the corner. As was their standard operating procedure, she came up and veered off, engaging the closest lizard while making room for the others to come through. Individualized Fornax blasts were the name of the game, with each trailblazer choosing, then disabling their targets as they swam up and jabbed them with the enemy’s own weapons, burning into their scaly flesh with the plasma nubs.
They worked their way through the group of 20 or so in a flurry of steam bubbles, leaving behind a trail of bodies as they swapped out plasma rods on the go, swimming out the backside of the engagement, barely losing 15 seconds from where they would have been had it been a clear hallway.
Once they were clear Paul accessed his battlemap, seeing for himself the lizard aquatics warships pulling back and retreating in a number of groups out to where they disappeared from Star Force’s limited sensor range. Some of their ships were holding position, which he saw were comprised mostly of their infantry carriers, picking up nearby lizards before bugging out.
He frowned, knowing this wasn’t their standard operating procedure. Star Force was getting hammered, and while the battleships were holding the lizards’ ships to the perimeter their infantry were near to penetrating the main city…why would they give up now when they were so close?
It couldn’t have been them, for while they were killing the lizards left and right, there were thousands more out there operating with impunity that they just didn’t have time to get to. No, something else was going on, and part of Paul’s mind said this might be part of a larger gambit.
“Wondering what they’re up to?” Sara asked on a private comm.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, knowing she was well aware of their naval habits in orbit. The lizards didn’t give an inch, unless it was beneficial to them in some way. And when you gave them an inch, they’d take the proverbial mile.
“I agree, but it gives us a finish line for the moment. Control estimates 10,000 to 15,000 left in play.”
“Oh, that’s all?” Paul asked sarcastically.
“They’re going to run out of det packs.”
“True,” Paul said, glad for that. The only trouble they’d had with the infantry so far had come from their suicide squads, of which they’d dealt with five, all at ran
ge with their needlers. One pack had detonated anyway, and even though it was at distance, they still got a bit shell shocked from the blast as the concussion wave knocked them around the narrow hallway they were in at the time.
“Ok guys,” Kyler broke in over the teamcomm, “time to ramp it up. We need to work our way here,” he said, giving everyone a new waypoint that was kilometers away from their current position, marking the location of one of the tunnel entrances into the city that was under assault.
“Just us?” Emily asked.
“Hit and run,” Kyler explained as he felt more lizard minds nearby. “I don’t expect we’ll be able to take the doors back, but if we can thin them down it’ll help the defending teams if/when they get through.”
“I think we can do a bit more than that, Kyler,” Rafa argued.
“Well I could,” he came back, “but I wasn’t sure about you space monkeys.”
“Ha,” Emily laughed. “You’re going to pay for that when this is over.”
“How do you plan on that?” Kyler asked.
“Paul knows.”
“Knows what?” Kyler asked him.
“Sorry, it’s a 2s thing. I’m sworn to secrecy,” he said, not having a clue what Emily was talking about, and fairly certain she didn’t either…but Kyler didn’t know that.
“At least you have something to look forward to,” Rafa said with a laugh. “Sara, my lead,” he said, jetting ahead in line just before they came up on another small group of lizards.
The rangers worked their way through the buildings and connecting tunnels in an erratic path, but one that kept them heading more or less towards the city entrance that Kyler had tagged. Meanwhile, what was left of the lizard reinforcements had reached their breach points and entered the subterranean structures, leaving the stragglers outside exposed for the arrowheads and other Star Force craft to pick them off.
When the all clear was sounded for the seafloor some time later, the remaining arrowheads diverted for the shipyard and dove down into the tunnels, coordinating with the assault teams so they could ‘plow the road’ of the larger lizard formations while the Archon teams scouted out the locations of the remaining det packs. With that coordination established the arrowhead pilots ran their craft through the lizard groups until they became disabled from plasma nub impacts, then they evacuated them and took their place fighting hand to hand with the infantry.