Star Force: Bloodlust (SF54)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  Putting the now shriveling shrub back over the hole, she left the nook and stomped back out into the water, crossing the river and moving up the far bank and into the trees as she accelerated up into an easy jog headed towards her distant extraction point.

  Morgan watched from the treetops where she had climbed up to get a view of the sky as the dropship made its way down to the surface at a breakneck pace. At first she could only see it on battlemap sensors, for it was broadcasting its arrival in no weak terms, making her aware of where it was so that she could be ready…and ready she was. She was standing on the highest leaves of the trees, scanning the skies looking for Skarron fighters as she watched the dropship come down like a distant meteor with her helmet’s zoom.

  When it got within a couple of kilometers overhead she let go her awkward hold on a cluster of straw-like stalks and slid down through the leaves, falling through the massive plant and eventually hitting the ground on her side, smacking the wet soil then rolling over and onto her feet before running out onto the gravel wash on a U-shaped bend in another river. The wash had no trees or vegetation of any kind, making for a small clearing for the dropship to come down in.

  By the time Morgan got out there it was growing large overhead, and within the next 17 seconds it disappeared behind a nearby ridge, then zipped out over top of her a moment later with an opening boarding ramp as it rapidly descended down to the gravel.

  The trailblazer ran for it and jumped up onto the ramp before it had the chance to touch ground.

  “Go!” Morgan said over the comm as soon as her foot hit the metal, launching her inside between two Archon acolytes at the entrance.

  The scenery outside whipped to the side as the dropship spun and accelerated upward. Neither Morgan nor the other Archons felt the shift due to the IDF, allowing them to casually close the ramp as a bit of wind pushed in to kiss Morgan’s armor as she tossed her nearly empty satchel to the ground with a sigh of relief, pulling her helmet off and heading for the cockpit.

  “Nice to have you back,” one of the Archons said, following her.

  “You have no idea,” she said, not looking back at him. “Note to the wise, the Skarrons can track our armor shields in the forest. We have to turn them off to avoid detection.”

  “Damn,” the other one said, with the two exchanging glances. “What kind of range do they have?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s not far. Get them overhead and they’ll own you.”

  “Good to know,” the Archon said as he followed Morgan to the cockpit as the pilot was pushing the dropship as hard as he could to get up out of the atmosphere. On the holographic monitor they could see several fighter squadrons pursuing them, as well as nearby warships coming fast on an intercept…but at the same time three drones were moving down to cover for them.

  “Where’s the rest of the enemy fleet?” Morgan asked.

  “Busy on the far side. We had to pull them off to get you out.”

  “How many others are getting picked up?”

  The pilot shook his head. “You’re the only one to last more than 3 days.”

  Morgan was silent for a moment, then turned and punched the wall with her armored fist. “What the hell happened?”

  “I’m sorry, we couldn’t get back to the surface.”

  “I meant with the Scionate,” she said, both fire and ice in her voice.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think we’ve gotten a courier back with news yet, and with no relay in this system…”

  “How many dead?” she asked angrily.

  “I don’t know that either.”

  One of the Archons behind her pulled off his helmet with an apologetic look on his face. “Twenty six thousand, four hundred and eighty one,” he said painfully slow. “We also lost most of the drone fleet covering the evac.”

  Morgan closed her eyes and clenched her jaw, suppressing a string of vitriol that she knew would never be sufficient.

  “Looks like we’re going to make it,” the pilot said after several dead seconds. “The drones are forcing the fighters off.”

  “Thank you,” Morgan finally said, her voice now calm…yet dangerously so, like she was ready to snap and pounce at the first enemy to show itself.

  “We don’t leave people behind,” the pilot said, fully aware that Morgan had ordered his dropship and others to skip her the first time in order to evac more troops.

  “No, we don’t,” she said, glancing at the holographic map and seeing that they were nearly in the clear. Tossing her helmet to the floor and having it bounce off the wall and skitter around she began unlatching her armor with angry pulls. “Our allies are another matter.”

  “What are we going to do?” the Archon to her right said, wrinkling his nose a bit at the smell of her rancid clothes.

  “Get some answers,” she said, stepping out of the armor and into the crisp, cool air of the dropship with the planet’s excessive humidity blissfully gone, “then break some bones.”

  9

  January 24, 2553

  Hatten System (Scionate Territory)

  Inner Zone

  Commander Yen’ten watched from the pit as his jumpship braked against the star and came back to relative speeds with the system, allowing for the continuous transmissions from the two inhabited planets in the system to begin registering properly, giving him the information he needed to plan the next jump…a small one across the system to the further of the two planets.

  An insertion point in a friendly section of orbit was being repeatedly transmitted for any incoming fleets to hear, with the urgent call for reinforcements going out not just across the system but across the ADZ. Yen’ten’s troops had been on the border fighting Skarrons at Weema when the courier ship arrived with the recall orders, and since then they’d been on a breakneck course back to Scionate territory with him sucking his fuel reserves dry in order to get here as quickly as possible.

  Running his gravity drives further out from both origin and destination systems allowed for greater speeds but had a diminishing return as the gravity weakened, costing you more fuel for less thrust. At the moment speed was more important so his giant troop ship had trimmed the navigation as closely as they could, now arriving with barely 4% fuel reserves. That would be enough to get them across the system with some left for maneuvering, but they weren’t making a stellar jump again until they got refueled…and the only way that was going to happen was if they won the ongoing fight occurring on both planets.

  The Scionate troop jumpship came out of its microjump into middle orbit amidst a group of Scionate warships holding the rendezvous point while far more numerous fleets of Lacvamat ships dominated low orbit…but not enough to blockade the planet, which had the surface tied up in battles that saw the enemy pushing over 2/3rds of the smaller planet of Orril and with a solid but contained foothold on Rewqt. According to his information the Lacvamat were pushing Orril hard, intent on wrapping it up then moving their troops over to Rewqt to then conquer that world, with Yen’ten being ordered to send his 36 transports worth of ground troops down to Orril.

  They had to hold that planet or lose the system, and with so many Scionate troops deployed elsewhere in the ADZ there was no way of telling when the next group would return. Three systems were under assault, all smaller ones. The Lacvamat hadn’t been so bold as to hit their Capitol or primaries, but they were succeeding in taking the targets they were striking, due in no small part to the fact that the Lacvamat had no troops on the front and were essentially hitting the Scionate with a dishonorable, blindsided attack.

  But that advantage wasn’t going to last, for the troops on the fronts were being recalled en mass to defend their territory, giving the Lacvamat a window of opportunity that the local defenders were trying to stall out…with little success. A quick glance at the overall troop disposition and Yen’ten knew his transports would be going down heavily outgunned, but they had to hold at least a piece of the planet to deny the Lacvamat the clean sweep. More troop
s would be on the way, he knew, and the Scionate were the dominate military power of the two, so if they held long enough the scales would tip in their advantage, but they were going to have a very bloody price to pay in order to do that.

  There was no question whether or not they’d pay it. The Lacvamat had hit Scionate territory and every single one of the quadrupeds was now out for blood. They’d do what was necessary to attain eventual victory, even if it meant fighting and dying here to buy time for others to finish the job.

  The jumpship waited at the orbital rendezvous point long enough for the other ships following it in to arrive, which took nearly two hours, but that was as long as they were going to wait. Two more jumpships, one a troop ship identical to Yen’ten’s and one a warship carrier that added desperately needed firepower to the Scionate orbital presence. With those ships and the others working as escorts, Yen’ten ordered his transports to disconnect and head down to the planet to make a contended landing in a very hot LZ where the troops already on the surface were losing ground rapidly as they retreated across a massive grass plain with only a few small cities to find shelter in.

  Mik’tal ran hard, keeping pace with the Scionate tank alongside him. The big, blocky rectangle shielded his right side and the hole in his yellow armor as the skies overhead were filled with distant Lacvamat. Little energy orbs dropped like rain, landing randomly across the landscape from the unarmored flyers that were too far overhead for the infantry to shoot back at. The few Valeries in the air were consumed by the Lacvamat’s own fighters, shaped like a boomerang similar to their starships.

  Those fighters were nearly the Valeries’ equal, despite the inferior technology…but then that was to be expected of an aerial race. Trouble was that meant the Scionate had lost air superiority, which meant they’d effectively lost the ground war because the Lacvamat didn’t fight on the ground. They flew overhead and rained down ordinance on the infantry, landing only when there were key structures to take.

  In those few situations the Scionate were eating them alive, making it hard for the Lacvamat to take the few outposts and cities ahead, giving Mik’tal and the other fleeing troops somewhere to run to. They’d just had to evacuate one of their major cities, with so many Lacvamat flying overhead and dive-bombing his unit that they’d been hard pressed to see the sun in the sky. The enemy was attacking in swarms, even on the ground, making it virtually impossible for the Scionate to hold out once the city shields went down, though his unit had made them pay for the victory with many kills when they came down inside the buildings.

  Mik’tal had barely gotten out alive, more due to luck than skill, then had taken so many orb hits from above as he ran that his shields had gone down and his armor was penetrated on his right side. The wound was light, but it pained him as he ran…but run he did, for the Lacvamat were still overhead raining down glowing little purple orbs that were hitting the tank beside him and every now and then himself when he got unlucky.

  Staying as close as he could to the tank he avoided taking another hit to his exposed side, but the further he and the others ran the more of them got hit, for there were more than 500 infantry running alongside 18 tanks and a myriad of civilian vehicles as they made their way towards the outpost ahead, which was already throwing up anti-air against the fighters pestering it ahead of the Lacvamat ‘infantry’ swarm.

  Small twangs of energy discharge were sounding everywhere the orbs hit, then suddenly there was a loud screech of plasma overhead just before a Valerie shot over the tank so close that Mik’tal flinched. Two more quickly followed it and a glance upward saw the Lacvamat swarm changing its normal flow as the Scionate fighters flew directly into their midst, shooting or ramming them out of the sky.

  The first glint of hope in many hours forced Mik’tal to continue looking up as he ran, catching an orb to his armored face that then drove him down into the ground. His head hit and tripped him up, rolling his armored body over in a bad somersault as the tank continue to move ahead of him. A small personnel transport behind him hit him in the head as it didn’t slow, knocking him down a second time underneath it as the anti-grav vehicle floated over him.

  He held still for a moment, then popped up and got into the clear before the next vehicle in the convoy could do the same, nudging aside another Scionate and falling back into the group as they ran with the orbs continuing to drop even as the Valeries tore into the swarm…but the Lacvamat weren’t letting the ground troops go, intent on killing them in the open and having more than enough flying infantry to do it, no matter how many of them the Valeries took down.

  Mik’tal continued to run, seeing a few others around him go down to the purple rain accompanied by the occasional falling Lacvamat corpse, as they were still two kilometers away from the outpost and the more or less clear sky over it that was still in contention with weaponsfire and enemy fighters continuing to go at it, though the outpost’s shield appeared to be down, which was probably why the Lacvamat weren’t pulling back despite the losses they were taking.

  Mik’tal’s skin rippled with goosebumps as a loud rumble sounded on his right and grew louder quickly, with the sun going out above as a Scionate troop transport flew in low overhead, pushing the enemy infantry away with its own anti-air fire but more importantly blocking the airspace above the convoy so they couldn’t rain down fire on them. Elsewhere nearby other troop ships were coming down right into the swarm and beginning to unload with Mik’tal very glad for the help but knowing that the Lacvamat weren’t going to be easily displaced.

  He just hoped all these Scionate weren’t coming in to see their quick deaths.

  The transport overhead stayed with them all the way up to the city, but then it began taking heavy plasma hits as the Lacvamat version of walkers began pounding it. They were fighters, but so bulky and heavily armed they were more like mini flying turrets…and a group of 60 or so were coming in through the infantry swarm to hit the transport, as well as firing down underneath it.

  The vehicle to Mik’tal’s left took a hit, then quickly two more that exploded a chunk of it out that bowled over four Scionate ahead of him before tearing into the grassy plain and setting small fires in its wake. He didn’t know if they were injured or dead but he didn’t stop, knowing that he’d end up like them if he didn’t get indoors and the outpost was just ahead. He kept running, trying to block everything else out, including a plasma blast that fried the Scionate next to him and took down his own shields, leaving the left side of his armor a melty mess.

  A few seconds later and his left rear leg seized up as the melted metal hardened and locked the mechanical joint in place. Mik’tal fell, then got up into a three-legged limp continuing forward as another tank flew directly over him. He had to duck to keep from getting hit, but was momentarily glad for the air cover.

  When it passed him by he saw troops coming out from the outpost towards them, fresh troops, one of which came up to him and knocked him over with her head, then rolling him up into a rescue carry over her back with his armored paw in her mouth as she retracted her helmet into segments that pulled back down her neck.

  Glad for the awkward help, he let her carry his massive bulk all the way into the outpost gate where she dumped him to the side then disappeared, with him seeing her helmet reform just before she went back outside. Now laying next to a building, Mik’tal dragged himself over to the nearest entrance and went inside, relieved to be out of the deadly rain, and inspected the damage to his armor and realizing he was going to have to jettison it. He couldn’t fight with three legs, so he began peeling it off and pried his leg out of the jammed section, leaving him with only the wound on his right side hindering him.

  He was alive, for the moment, and needed to either find a new set of armor, which was unlikely, or find some way to assist the others that didn’t involve taking weaponsfire.

  Ven’poi ducked his Valerie down through the Lacvamat swarm again, cutting through three of them with the bladed front of his fighter before even
getting to fire the scatter gun, mowing down another dozen within a few seconds, but for every cluster he killed more came in to replace them. The sky was literally cluttered with the enemy, making for a target rich environment that had a very bad time targeting him. Their weaponry was designed to use gravity assist to cause heavy damage on the ground, with their air to air setting being very inaccurate. Add to that their reluctance to fire laterally for fear of hitting their own and Ven’poi had virtually a free fire zone to work through up until the enemy fighters got to him.

  Somehow the swarm knew when they were coming and parted for them, allowing their fighters and heavy fighters through without any collisions. Their boomerang-shaped fighters took after him immediately, two against his one, and he knew he had to run. Dropping down to the surface was suicide, for the infantry would bombard the hell out of his ship, so his only choice was to go up and above the swarm…and quickly finding that’s where the other Scionate fighters had gone as well.

  The boomerangs came up with them, both the small and the large versions. The larger ones were slow enough that Ven’poi could stay away from them, but the Lacvamat fighters would retreat towards them whenever the Scionate got the advantage, forcing them to either peel off or go head to head with the flying death traps. The heavies had enough weaponry and armor to slug it out with tanks, making his Valerie severely outgunned. The only way he could take one down would be to nip away at it with hit and run attacks, but the Lacvamat fighters wouldn’t allow that, making for a potent two-punch combo that frustratingly gave them aerial dominance over top the swarms continuing to assault the ground troops below.

  Ven’poi knew they couldn’t win, so he focused on doing damage. Every enemy he killed here without getting himself shot down would be one less the Lacvamat would have to throw against other Scionate tomorrow. With that in mind he engaged the enemy fighters when and where he could, but when they tried to draw him off towards one of the heavies he let them go, dipping down to the upper edge of the swarm and killing dozens more infantry there before the fighters returned to chase him off again.