Timestar

by Robert George Mertens

  At once, the warbots surrounded Tia, offering their bodies as cover for her. But she used them to gain a tactical lead on the enemy, as they raced into the bulk of the mechanical soldiers. The mechanicals were at first, surprised, but soon took up defensive posistions and began returning fire on the warbots. Tia continued her race through the valley, barely noticing that the mechanicals were falling off behind them. A few warbots were lost, but the mechanicals took most of the beating, having lost more than half of this contingient.

  The dense foliage gave Tia and her warbots some difficulty, since they avoided using existing paths, fearing that they may have been mined. It did not take long for the mechanicals to regroup and give chase. Within minutes after passing through the mechanical contingient, heavy shelling began to take its toll. Air support fighters flew off to attack those positions and Tia took her warbots up the ridge, bounding in thirty-meter leaps.

  She reached the top of the ridge that bounded the valley where Frank was believed to be holed up, and stopped. Before her and her warbots was a collection of armies.

  "Suni, this is Tia," she called up to the Butterworth.

  "Tia, I show your position right at the entrance to the valley," Suni replied.

  "That’s right. There are many enemy troops between me and the mountain."

  "I can see. That position is well guarded from above. We'll try to get aerial bombardment for you, but it doesn’t look good. Our scans show more than two hundred thousand enemy ground forces."

  "I have only three thousand warbots," Tia replied.

  "Help is on the way. Sandy is approaching from the east and Michelle is coming in from the south."

  Tia looked off to the east and saw more mountains with few passes. To the south were more mountains and a few more passes. As she could see from her vantagepoint, the passes were well defended.

  "I think they will not arrive quickly," Tia said. "Which pass is the most difficult?"

  "The eastern pass will be the most difficult," Suni replied. "The southern passes will be too difficult to defend. There are too many of them. Michelle should be able to get through them without too many problems. If you can help Sandy, that would be the best approach for you."

  "I'll move my forces along the ridge and attempt to free up the pass for Sandy. I'll need close air support and aerial bombardment if you can get it to me."

  "Air support is on the way. We’ll do what we can to get you some aerial bombardment, but it won't be easy—we’re under attack here, too."

  "Understood. Tia, out."

  Tia took her forces along the ridge on a southeasterly track, taking fire and returning it. She and her warbots were visible along the ridge and the enemy forces realized what she was doing in short order. They moved quickly to pinch off her only route to the eastern pass, so Tia and her warbots moved higher into the mountains as they tracked along the ridge. Within minutes, close air support arrived and began low bombing runs into the troops attempting to cut her off. More low bombing runs were made along the mountainside, where additional enemy troops were holed up, waiting to pounce on anyone attempting to move up the mountain.

  Climbing the mountain was easy for both Tia and her warbots, but fighting back its defenders was not. There were many small, defended positions up the mountain, and always their battle was upward. A few warbots were lost along the way, but it took much destruction to disable one. Often, only a direct hit with explosive ordnance was the only thing that could do so. Tia could tell she was taking a lot of flak, that, smacking noisily through her warsuit. Without her warsuit, she would have been long since dead.

  The mechanicals were still on their heels, but they could not move as quickly as Tia and her warbots. She fired her weapon ceaselessly at nearly anything that moved, often hitting enemy troops, killing them with the powerful projectile weapon she had armed herself with. She also had a lasing weapon at her disposal, but the projectile weapon seemed to be more effective and required less power. On her back, she carried additional projectile mass with which to make neutronium-based bullets. These left her weapon at some speed comparable to orbital velocity, so they went through almost anything.

  ~

  Michelle had gathered her troops south of the mountain where they now believed Frank was hiding. More than four thousand warbots had joined her by the time she reached the pass into the valley where Frank might be. There was light resistance leading up the pass, but when she and her warbots arrived, the pass was heavily defended. Her force had suffered losses from aerial bombardment as well, though the warbots held up even through the bombardment. Her own warsuit had already been damaged once, disabling it and she had to stop to repair it.

  She had some small wounds and lacerations, suffered when her warsuit was damaged from a bomb that landed three meters from her, tossing her sixty meters and rupturing her warsuit. That bomb had disabled two warbots. Large repairbots accompanied her force, and were either recylcing the damaged warbots or repairing them. No neutronium was to be left lying about. There were spare parts aplenty for any warbot that needed one.

  Within a kilometer of the pass, her contingient had to stop, pinned down by enemy fire. Large, explosive rounds littered the air around them, so they remained in the safety of whatever cover they could find. The warbots of course, were fearless, but Michelle had stopped them in order to prevent excess casualties.

  "I need air support!" she yelled into her microset, "Take out the guns on that pass!"

  "This is air support group tango charlie one-five-nine. Compliance. ETA to target; four minutes."

  While she and her warbots waited, the rain of projectiles and bombs from the pass continued to takes its toll on their numbers. Warbots did not seem to hide very well, seemingly impervious to the notion of death. Mostly they seemed to be chomping at the bit, itching to get into a fight. Their projectile and lasing weapons worked well, even at this distance, but the enemy was too well dug-in for their weapons to do enough damage.

  Overhead, Michelle watched as a string of low-altitude bombers began their run.

  "Move out!" she yelled, and four thousand warbots jumped from poorly chosen hiding places and began bounding up the pass. In less than a minute, come hell or high water, the pass would be taken, warbots pouring through and overwhelming whoever was up there.

  She attempted to take the lead, but the warbots were faster and would not allow her to speartip the attack. As one warbot would fall, another moved forward to take its place. As soon as the low altitude bombers started dropping bombs and strafing the pass, enemy fire dropped off and the warbots increased their pace, now moving at two hundred kilometers per hour. They would be at the pass in less than a minute. Michelle, being slower than the warbots, would be a minute getting there, only to witness the ruins after the assault.

  As expected, the warbots cleared even the entrenched positions before she arrived. Enemy dead lay about everywhere. On reaching the pass, she was awestruck by the beauty of the valley it guarded and the granduer of the mountain where Frank might be hiding. She also took note of the huge enemy army camped out in the valley, already in arms over her abrupt arrival. The sky above her thundered with the roar of aircraft from both sides, battling for dominance of the skies.

  As their own aircraft bombed and strafed enemy ground positions in the valley below, enemy aircraft bombed and strafed her warbots. The warbots came equiped with anti-aircraft weaponry and used it. The enemy aircraft outnumbered the Butterworth compliment eight to one. The warbots were nearly one hundred percent effective in shooting down the aircraft they fired at, but there were so many of them that the effort was nearly ineffective.

  "Spread out!" she ordered the warbots over her com set. Immediately, the warbots scattered into the surrounding trees and brush, forcing the enemy aircraft to pick them off one at a time. Even as they struck the warbots, not all of them fell, and some were not even disabled.

  "Into the valley! Attack!" she yelled, and her warbot army fell upon the enemy army in full
force, leaving a path of destruction wherever they went. The enemy army outnumbered them too greatly. She had expected Tia and Sandy to be attacking from the north and east, but they were nowhere in sight. She and her warbots were alone and well overpowered. Her warbots would fight to the end, so she comitted herself and her army, knowing that they would inflict massive damage on the enemy before they were through.

  ~

  Sandy and her troop of eight thousand warbots were pinned down under the eastern pass, unable to get through to the valley that led to the mountain where they believed Frank might be hiding. Enemy aircraft seemed to dominate the skies above her, strafing and bombing them as they took cover. If she did not break through the pass soon, she would have no army to take through it. The warbots were fighting back with anti aircraft weaponry they had brought along, but there was not enough of it to keep them back.

  "Sandy, this is Tia," came over her microset.

  "I’m here, Tia. We’re pinned down! We can’t get through!"

  "We’re just the other side of the pass, but you’ll have to give them a diversion so we can get up there." Tia replied.

  "What kind of diversion," Sandy asked.

  "We will need simultaneous close air support, you attack from there, and we attack from here. It must all be done quickly!"

  "Will do! Let me know when you’re ready!" she yelled above the din.

  "I have air support coordinated in four minutes and twenty seconds on my mark… mark!"

  Sandy set her timer and waited as enemy aircraft pelted her warbots. Four minutes later, she signaled her warbots to prepare for attack. In a few moments, air support fighters came swooping in.

  "Attack!" she yelled to her warbots.

  Her army of, now less than, eight thousand warbots raced up into the pass, attacking everything that stood in front of them. Sandy made her pace as best she could, about seventy kilometers per hour, while her warbots outran her. Even so, she remained constantly surrounded by at least twenty warbots at any moment. This made it difficult for her to shoot at anything without hitting one of her warbots, although she tried.

  ~

  Tia watched as the close air support craft made their bombing and strafing run and timed her attack on the eastern pass to coincide with the moment the first bombs fell. Behind her, the mechanicals, which had been placed there strategically to prevent access to the northern ridge, were now catching up.

  At the moment the first bombs fell, her warbots began swarming into the pass. Overwhelmed by forces on both sides and from above, the enemy guarding the pass retreated further up the mountain, many falling along the way. The pass was taken.

  Tia and Sandy met at the pass. On the other side of the valley, they observed from their vantagepoint a nasty skirmish taking place. This they knew was Michelle, but they could both see that she was heavily outnumbered and would fall soon. The warbot casualties on the other side of the valley were becoming heavy.

  "Air support group, we have the eastern pass," Tia called, over her microset, "We need you to move over and help Michelle!"

  "This is air support group tango alpha one-four-four. Compliance. ETA to target; six minutes."

  Between them, Tia and Sandy still had some nine thousand warbots. They were being resupplied as quickly as their field repairbots could pick up the pieces, but even some of those were getting destroyed in the battle.

  "Tactical view," Tia spoke to her warsuit, and her heads-up-display gave her an image of the battlefield, showing Michelle’s forces nearly surrounded. In a few more minutes, they would all be destroyed, and Michelle might even be killed.

  "We have to move out now!" Tia yelled over her microset.

  The combined forces headed down into the valley, spreading out as they moved along. Nearly two hundred thousand enemy ground forces lay between them and Michelle. Tia monitored her heads-up-display as the enemy closed in on Michelle, but there was little she could do. They plowed right into the enemy, taking heavy casualties, but also inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. After a few more minutes, Michelle and her forces were completely surrounded, and simply formed into a small, well-defended group

  On her heads-up-display, Tia saw that Michelle was in the middle of the group, but soon they would be overtaken and all destroyed.

  In a few more minutes, air support rolled in, strafing and bombing enemy troops, giving Michelle a respite, but it was not enough to stop them, and her circle of warbots grew smaller.

  "What are we going to do?" Tia said, to Sandy.

  "Look," she said.

  She flipped out her heads-up-display and looked where Sandy was pointing, in the air, more warbot troop carriers were converging on the site were Michelle was pinned down, dropping around her. Some of the carriers were shot down, but many of the warbots inside still survived, being able to guide themselves to the target zone without a carrier.

  "How many are coming?" Tia asked.

  "Those are our last five thousand," came over the microset. It was Suni. "We’re all out after this."

  "That should be enough," Sandy said.

  "No, it won’t be," Suni said, over the microset, "We’ve calculated your loss ratio. You don’t have enough warbots between you to do this."

  ~

  It had been three hours since the initial attack on the invaders over Relm by the Butterworth and her crew. Frank was somewhere beneath the planet surface and Suni had a fairly good idea where he was. The ruckas that had begun around Site 11 with the heavy metal deposits suggested that somebody was fighting back against the enemy ground force attack. She was certain it was Frank.

  She did not know where or how he had gotten weaponry that could fend off such a force, but the fact that the battle had become heated told her that somebody down there with lots of firepower was giving the enemy their money’s worth in defensive capability. Tia, Sandy and Michelle had volunteered to go to the surface to lead the warbots into the battle and take the valley beneath the mountain.

  At first, Suni had been against sending humans to the surface, especially since warbots could handle the fighting. But after seeing the odds against the warbots, she realized that they would not be able to do the job alone. Warbots lacked creativity and strategy. Only humans could do this, with the aid of their warbots.

  The situation would not have been so dire had it not been for the return of the Black Hole People. Although the Butterworth hull had been beefed up and improved, it had not been a match for the weaponry they used.

  "Can you get a fix on the origin?" Suni asked, trying to get a lock on an enemy with both black hole and invisibility technology.

  "I have a scan in the x-ray spectrum," Paddy relied, "There appears to be an anomaly at these coordinates," she said, passing the tactical data to Suni.

  "Close enough," Suni replied, "Target that anomaly and send them one of our K-C Specials."

  In a moment, a K-C Engine loaded with a heavy neutronium core was launched and immediately went into transpace. In another moment, at the coordinates given, a bright star appeared at first, then it become a very intensely bright star, as though a single event had triggered another.

  "I think we got ‘em," Paddy said, "The anomaly appears to be gone, but it’s hard to tell with all the noise I’m getting. The first explosion is comparable to what the K-C Special should have yielded, and the second explosion indicates that something else blew up as well."

  "Good," Suni replied, "But keep an eye out for that anomaly. We don’t want them sneaking up on us again. Damage report."

  "The hull is breached," Dyna replied, "There is a large hole amidships. We cannot breaklight for sixty-two hours, but we have manuevering capability. One of the engines is damaged and will be inoperable for forty-three hours. Repairs are underway."

  "Suni, I’ve got another Black Hole ship… no, two… no, three more Black Hole ships on x-ray scan!" Paddy said.

  "We’ve got to get over Site 11," Suni replied, "Target them and take them out."

  "We can’
t," Nikki replied, "They’re moving, now. That first one we got because it was stationary. Unless they’re stationary, we can’t get a targeting lock on them."

  At that moment, the ship shuddered again with another heavy impact.

  "Report!" Suni said.

  "We’ve been struck by another Black Hole weapon," Dyna replied.

  "Evasive manuevers!" Suni yelled.

  At once, the Butterworth began moving away from its current position, where it had been stationary. Other enemy forces, witnessing the multiple explosive impacts, began converging on the weakened Butterworth. Battlecruisers shored up defenses and held their ground against the enemy onslaught. It was taking too long to get Frank back, Suni knew, but she also knew that this would be their only chance.

  "Maria, lock targeting on those three Black Hole ships and fire," Suni said.

  "Our targeting will be off, Suni," Maria replied.

  "Then use your best guess. We have hundreds of the K-C Specials. Use them. Fill the sky with them. They can’t evade all of them."

  Maria was still healing from her wounds during the attack against her on Iskol, but was well enough to work a weapons station while Sahn and Heidi rested. She watched her scanners as the x-ray images danced and moved about, obviously also performing evasive manuevers. Without knowing how large these vessels were, it would be difficult to know just how many K-C Specials to fire. Looking for a pattern, she noted that one of them was manuevering in a rather predictable manner—an unwise thing to do when evading.