Star Force: Liberation (SF56)

by Jyr, Aer-ki

  1

  March 19, 2554

  Cdat System (Dvapp Territory)

  Haxplet

  “Any movement?”

  “Not on the ground,” Nevil said, looking through his sniper scope from his perch on the rocky hillside, “but I can see the transports coming in.”

  “We are so about to get owned,” his fellow commando said, taking a glance back at the 200 or so Dvapp troops in the valley below. They and several other units in the area were set up to attack the fringes of the Skarron base just a few kilometers away, but word had come down that the enemy had gotten a reinforcement fleet into orbit and was fighting their way down with multiple transports…and that the limited navy that Star Force and the Dvapp had in place wasn’t going to be able to stop them all from getting to the surface.

  Nevil frowned. “Um…something’s wrong. They’re not carrying walkers.”

  Donald mimicked his frown, though both commandos were wearing full armor and couldn’t see each other’s faces. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’ve got the closest one lined up and there are no walkers hanging underneath it.”

  “Must just be a troop ship then.”

  Nevil adjusted his sights to match the battlemap telemetry being transmitted down from orbit and sighted the next transport. “Negative. Another one is empty too.”

  “Maybe they don’t have the big toys to throw around anymore. Good for us, except the infantry alone are going to be more than we can manage.”

  “I hear ya there,” Nevil said, sighting a third equally empty transport, as far as the exterior underside latches went. He saw the drift angle they were taking and moved his rifle to the side and ahead of their path, pulling back the insane zoom and looking at the bit of the enemy base that was in view. “Hold up, we’ve got activity…north side. Troops coming out.”

  “They might be trying for a hot drop,” Donald said, adjusting his crouched stance in agitation. He hated waiting for the fighting to start, though this next battle wasn’t one that looked to be anything less than a slaughter…which meant a fighting retreat trying to whittle down the enemy’s numbers as they moved.

  “Walkers are not coming out…they’re heading back in?”

  “What?”

  “Perimeter walkers are pulling back. What do they think we’ve got out here that can touch those transports?”

  “Pulling back to the LZ?”

  “Looks like.”

  “What’s that mean for us?”

  “Mechs will have to reposition. They’re going to be too far away to hit at full strength.”

  “Damn…there goes our ambush,” Donald said, biting his lower lip. He knew orders would come down eventually, but right now the comms were silent.

  “I think the ambush was off as soon as they started coming down from orbit.”

  “Point…so where does that leave us?”

  “Keep our heads down and wait,” Nevil said, still scoping the LZ as the first of the transports got close. “You know…” he said, trailing off.

  “For the record, you didn’t finish that sentence.”

  “The infantry is coming out of the city and it looks like they’re headed to the LZ.”

  “Joining up with the incoming for an immediate assault?”

  “Should be the other way around.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Give me a moment,” the commando said, watching the first of the giant transports land next to the small Skarron base, nearly right on top of the infantry and walkers but in an open spot just large enough to fit its bulk. As it settled large doors on the underside opened up and Nevil could see one of the ramps lower to the ground…with the infantry outside running up it and into the ship.

  “Son of a bitch, they’re loading.”

  “Loading?”

  “They’re getting onboard.”

  “Gotta be a hot drop coming.”

  “Won’t be on us.”

  “They’ve gotta be going for one of our bases.”

  “Walkers too,” Nevil noted as the second transport came in and didn’t land all the way, hovering over the surface as several of the docking arms reached down and grabbed the nearest walker, pulling it up and into one of the niches on the underside of the transport, with several more headed its way.

  “This is too weird.”

  “Explains why the transports were empty. Are all of them?”

  Nevil readjusted his sights and scanned the incoming ships. “I don’t see a single walker under them.”

  “Must be really short-handed right now…same as us,” Donald said as deployment orders flashed an incoming message icon in his HUD. “Here we go,” he said, pulling them up. “We’re moving a klick to the west.”

  “Archon chess pieces,” Nevil said, referencing themselves. “Looks like they’ve got a plan. Let’s hope it’s a good one,” he said, looking up from his rifle and crawling back behind the nearest rock before he stood up and looked down at the Dvapp below that were just now stirring as they began to redeploy.

  “After you,” Donald said, waving his hand forward as the two commandos came down from up high to join them.

  An hour and a half later Nevil was ducking behind a jagged rock as a quartet of Skarron fighters flew over pelting the ground with plasma blasts. He saw a nearby Dvapp literally evaporate when it got hit, blowing bits of goo everywhere, some of which washed over his grey armor. A split second later two skeets zipped past overhead in pursuit, with blue mauler blasts reaching out towards the slower fighters and blasting one out of the sky before they got out of Nevil’s view.

  One of the incoming transports had been loaded with enemy fighters, which had taken to the sky and moved directly against the friendly infantry positions around the base even as their walkers continued to load up for their hot drop. It was obvious that they were providing cover fire, but they were doing so far more effectively than the commando liked. The Star Force mechs were nearby but out of sight, leaving this group of Dvapp temporarily exposed, but at least there were friendly air assets in the area to keep the Skarrons from getting too comfortable up there.

  Nevil held position, knowing there wasn’t much he could do right now with no enemy infantry nearby to shoot. He thought about trying for a shot on the fighters, then dismissed the notion given how low powered his lachar rifle was compared to their shields and armor. About two seconds later when another section of rocky terrain blew out and threw debris across him and three nearby Dvapp he change his mind, tired of just sitting and waiting to get hit. With the rocky fragments bouncing off his armor and being expulsed by the Dvapp’s bodies after penetrating a few inches deep, he swung his sniper rifle off his back rack and tucked in backwards to the nearest crevice that gave him a good view of the sky and tried to pick out a moving target that he might be able to hit.

  The Skarron fighters were slow, but they were still aircraft and moved a hell of a lot faster than anything on the ground did. Nevil knew he’d need a long range shot to have any chance of getting a bead on one, so as a pair swung around a couple kilometers away and started heading in his general direction he brought his scope up and tried to get one in range.

  To his surprise he got a lock on one fairly quick and kept his arms as steady as he could, then pumped out a phaser-like beam burst, with the continuous lachar just nicking the upper edge of the fighter and hitting its shields. He fired again, then got two more shots in before the fighter zipped past on the right. He was pretty sure he hadn’t hit the hull, but at the least he drained a touch of shield energy off…which might make a difference.

  Another bit of movement in the distance got his attention and he swung his scope around…then checked his fire as a
Star Force ID tag hovered over it, indicating it was a Starscream-class mech in flight. To his relief it was heading directly towards them, taking a bit of Skarron plasma on approach but its shields and armor plates were so thick it almost didn’t matter. The heavy ‘super fighter’ flew in near to Nevil’s position and came to a hover, then began transforming some 600 meters away and dropped onto the top of a small rise with its newly formed feet landing on the rock as its shoulders formed and popped up anti-air turrets.

  They began spraying lachars through the air, covering Nevil and the rest of the nearby infantry and pushing the Skarron fighters back, save for those attempting runs on the mech. Regardless the repetitive explosions nearby the commando ceased and he breathed a sigh of relief, along with a deeply felt thanks to the mechwarrior for flying in…and the for techs who’s thought of creating a flying mech in the first place.

  Nevil put his rifle back on his armor rack and moved to a different position, trying to get some view of what was going on in the direction of the enemy base but not wanting to expose himself and press his luck. As he darted from one rock to another a Skarron fighter blew apart overhead with the debris falling some 40 meters nearby in three separate chunks, one of which bounced off a rock in a shower of pieces and caused the commando to duck for cover.

  He didn’t get hit but one of the Dvapp nearby did, getting a sharp piece impaling it all the way through its jello-like mass.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, scurrying over to it.

  For a moment it didn’t respond, then it melted around the shrapnel, flowing out onto the ground and Nevil thinking it was dead, but the pool reformed and became another meter-high pillar ‘crouching’ on the landscape.

  “No, but I will live,” it finally answered him, vibrating to create the sound, for the Dvapp had no mouth or vocal chords to speak from.

  “Way to stay alive, buddy. I envy you that.”

  “And I envy your armor,” it said, forming a pair of legs and walking over to a different rock to take cover behind. It left behind a small pool of goo, with Nevil seeing just how much material it had lost from the impact. He knew if they lost a certain amount of core material they’d die, though he was never sure how much that was or what ‘core’ material was comprised of. He just knew they were damn resilient to physical impacts and could soak up several plasma blasts before going down too, though it had a lot more effect on their crystalline bodies than blunt force trauma.

  “Nevil, they’re pulling out,” Donald broke in over the comm.

  “What do you mean?” Nevil answered his fellow commando, who was some 230 meters to the south.

  “I mean the Skarrons are pulling out…as in off the planet. The transports are taking them back up to orbit, and not just here. It’s happening everywhere.”

  “We are not that lucky,” Nevil argued.

  “Luck or not, they’re leaving.”

  “They bring a fleet into orbit just to pull them out?”

  “Looks like.”

  “I thought they liked to fight to the death.”

  “Just be glad they’re not this time.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Keep your head down, their fighters aren’t gone yet.”

  “Will do,” he said, lying and breaking out of cover to running up the hillside to find a partially obscured viewpoint on the distant base just in time to see one of the big ships lift off and start to head up to orbit, with several more already on the way and the others still on the ground, loading up.

  Nevil pulling his rifle off and sighted in on the base, ignoring the few fighters still zipping overhead and trusting the starscream to keep them off him as he scoped out the activity at closer range.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, seeing more infantry and walkers being loaded up. They really were leaving.

  “Here and here,” Paul said, pointing out the two star systems in Dvapp space that the Skarrons were holding onto. “Everywhere else they’re pulling troops out.”

  “To reinforce those positions?” Megan asked from across the display table that held several different maps and intel reports.

  “We think so. A lot of the convoys are still in transit.”

  “Where’d the evac fleets come from?”

  “Cal-com said they must have pulled a long flanking run to get around them. They didn’t come through the systems he’s got blockaded.”

  “Well, good for us they didn’t bring in more troops.”

  “Bigger fish to fry.”

  Megan wrinkled her nose. “Need a better metaphor.”

  Paul frowned. “You’re right, I do.”

  “I don’t think we’ve got the troops to do more than annoy them if they’re consolidating their forces,” she said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “They’re making it easy on us giving up the contested worlds, but the two they own are going to get very tanky very fast if all these troops are headed their way…and we don’t have a Last Whisper to throw on since you broke yours.”

  “Just a few scuff marks,” Paul said, referencing the damage to the Excalibur.

  “More like pot holes.”

  “I always preferred a full crit build anyway.”

  Megan snorted. “Can’t kill tanks with that.”

  “I did well enough.”

  “What’s your full crit build here?”

  Paul shook his head. “Don’t have one. We’re scraping bottom and need to consolidate our own troops. I think you’ve got Metropolis buttoned up pretty good, but even if the Skarrons go turtle and don’t strike out at any more Dvapp worlds there’s not much we can do about it on the ground.”

  “And navally?”

  “I can poke and run, but that’s about it.”

  “Isn’t that what ADCs do?”

  “We have so got to bring that game back,” Paul commented, adjusting one of the star maps. “What do you think of risking a Kiritak expansion here?”

  Megan cringed, seeing him point to one of the formerly Dvapp worlds the Skarrons had just evacuated. It wasn’t far from Metropolis, but bringing the little guys up to the front wasn’t what she liked doing…especially when they wouldn’t be able to defend them well. “A gamble.”

  “Agreed, but if the Skarrons are going turtle then a nearby supply base is viable…not to mention badly needed.”

  “I’d rather expand Metropolis.”

  “I meant do both.”

  Megan tilted her head while she looked at the star map and the planet that had once housed millions of Dvapp…all of which were now dead or evacuated. “You sure they’re not going to want it back?”

  “They’re licking their wounds too, but the resources there are too valuable to pass over. Our mining technology is far superior to theirs, so in order to get them the materials they need to regrow we have to go after them.”

  “Trade them the planet for materials?”

  “Something like that, though I wasn’t planning on asking. We currently hold the planet anyway…or did. Right now there’s no one there.”

  “Still risky. They’ll be exposed.”

  “The entire front is exposed.”

  “I know. I think this could work, but if it goes wrong it will go horribly wrong.”

  “We can’t tolerate the long shipping lines,” Paul reminded her. “The rebuilding effort has to be local.”

  “I know,” she repeated. “I just wish your ship wasn’t busted in case you need to go to ground again.”

  “Well, it’s not that busted,” Paul wavered.

  Megan raised an eyebrow. “You said the gravity drives had been damaged?”

  “There’s still enough to take it into the atmosphere.”

  “Ok, you are officially nuts.”

  “It’s not that big of a deal if you go slow. The tricky part is in the atmospheric calculations…and this planet is low grav anyway.”

  “Fine, you can still pull your stunts with a broken wheel, but you’re not going to be camping out there are you?”

  “No, I�
��ll be roaming. Gotta keep the Skarrons on the defensive. If they’re holding on to these worlds then I bet they’re still gonna be trying to resupply them.”

  “Or they could be going all local if they’re really turtling up.”

  “Possible, but they don’t build that well. Last ditch option, I’d say, and I’d bet a million credits they’re going to try some more long flanking resupply runs over the coming years. I’d like to intercept those before they get here.”

  “So while you roam the Kiritak mine and build and hope nobody comes in to shoot them? Can we at least get them a Sentinel?”

  “Planned on that, plus a decent drone fleet.”

  “Define ‘decent?’”

  “Enough to hold out long enough for me or other reinforcements to arrive.”

  “Is the relay intact?”

  Paul pulled up another screen and did a quick check. “Yes.”

  “Ok, we’ll try it. I’ll stay here and keep building up Metropolis, then put down a colony after the Kiritak start the resources flowing so we can avoid the trade lag. I’ll keep enough ships here to reinforce with, but stay close enough that I can call for you if needed.”

  “No promises there, but I am going to drop a few more stealth relays in neutral systems so we can stay in closer contact. Actually, we need to start hitting up every system in the ADZ.”

  “That’s a lot,” she reminded him, with there being 2,373 star systems within their current borders as measured by a 100 light year radius around Sol that made up the ADZ, with some deviations here and there, mainly around Protovic territory.

  “I know,” he said, mimicking her.

  “I also get the feeling that we just became responsible for carrying the Dvapp.”

  “They fought well and bled the Skarrons dry, otherwise we’d have already lost the front, so it’s a debt I don’t feel bad about paying.”

  “Agreed, but it’s one more item on our plate.”

  “Good thing we’re used to eating a lot.”

  Megan smiled. “True. Just keep your donut around for a while, ok?”

  “Need to get it patched up anyway, so deal.”

  “We don’t have a big enough slip here.”