‘Yes, Marko, but not at this time of year for this latitude, and it is not particularly strong light anyway.’
‘Yeah, that would be right, Glint. Just wish that we knew a lot more about possible nasties down there.’
The major interrupted. ‘All crew, we have a go on the mission. Stand by to drop in three minutes.’
Marko checked his air feeds then sealed his helmet faceplate with the outer protection folding up and around Spike from the collar of the suit. Another blister-shaped transparent shield slid over his head from the rear of the cockpit. Looking into his screens, he switched to the ground maps that the radar from the dirigible, stationed seven kilometres above, was feeding them. He then started the turbines and throttled back, easing off the power settings on the antigravity. He noted the dispersal sequence and took the controls lightly in his hands.
‘We are good to go, Glint,’ Marko instructed.
A moment later they abruptly dropped away from the lifter to be buffeted by a sudden rush of air. Marko peeled the Chrysops away to the right, its four vectored thrust jets working to hold station off the right rear of the lifter, with the other aircraft doing the same. Lilly and Jasmine in their Hangers deployed a moment later, climbing above the lifter just as they broke through the clouds to see the forest of enormous bright orange, cream, yellow and red fungus spread out below them.
At the ends of, and beneath, the stubby wings, the double rail guns folded out and extended on their gimballed mounts, targeting crosshairs appearing in the heads-up units inside the flyers’ helmets as each came online. They all did a large sweeping pass over the first of the pick-up points, a single bright blue orb hovering above it, seeing only the hundreds of Avians crouching in a great circle. The first of the landers swept in from the south at speed to flare out hard over the landing zone, and six large hatchways quickly opened downwards. The lander hovered to allow those waiting to move quickly up the ramps and within minutes the hatches were closing again and it lifted away from the spongy mass of flattened fungal material. The lander went straight up on antigravity before accelerating with its jets through the cloud cover with an escort of three gunships.
‘That looked easy!’ Glint commented.
Marko pulled a face. ‘Yeah, Glint, let’s hope it stays that way.’
Rick’s distinctive voice came into everyone’s headphones. ‘That was the easy one. It’s all uphill from here. We can see squads of mixed Avians and standard humans, with what appears to be some sort of mech in support, moving towards the next two landing zones. Remember, unless they fire on the refugees or on you, you must not engage them.’
They dropped out of the clouds again to see fire engulfing some of the fungus trees, kilometres away from the landing zone, with the wind carrying the thick smoke across the area where the blue marker was hovering.
‘Thought that that fungus did not burn well?’ Marko mused out loud.
Spike answered. ‘If it’s dead and dried out, Marko, anything will burn.’
They flew over the area of the burning trees to test if any of the ground forces would engage them, just as thousands of small flying lizard-like creatures erupted from the ground around the flaming trees. They formed into swarming balls and rapidly climbed up to investigate the smaller gunship drones as they in turn decelerated to ascertain if there was a threat. As soon as any group got too close, the drones would accelerate straight up. Marko watched with increasing interest as the creatures constantly changed tactics to try and get close to one of the drones.
As if orchestrated, dozens of different ‘groups’ converged on one drone which suddenly found itself cut off from any avenue of escape. The creatures came within a metre of the drone and ejected a sand-coloured mist. As the drone flew through the mist, it suddenly shot upwards, then rolled over and tumbled out of control to explode when it hit the forest floor, its fuel and ammunition detonating. The resulting fire encouraged even more of the lizards to take flight.
‘Wow! Wonder what that mist was made of, to take out a combat drone so fast?’ Harry exclaimed.
‘There are a few possibilities, Harry, but triflic acids would be right up there with them. Dissolves just about anything quickly. Fascinated that an advanced biological could evolve them for use, as we normally only see that in insects.’
The major spoke up. ‘Lilly is right, people, stay away from the lizards. Now listed as a natural biological hazard. Right, the Avians are moving across onto the southern ridge line. The lander will attempt a pick-up from there.’
All craft carried on orbiting, escorting the fast-moving Avians, some of whom were flying to the pick-up sites, constantly looking for threats to their sides, when Jasmine suddenly yelled, ‘Julie! Eject!’
Marko swung around in his seat to see Julie being blasted upwards from her craft just as three micromissiles slammed into it. The ejection seat took her hundreds of metres as the nearest gunships fired down into the forested ravine that she had just passed over. A third drone swung up to catch her seat with her still in it, before it reached its zenith, and grasped the seat back with waldos, flying her up towards the lifter. Marko could imagine her grinning, but shaking at the same time from the near miss.
‘Spike,’ Marko said. ‘Watch what happens on the AV feeds and let me know how she gets on.’
More micromissiles were fired from another concealed position as microwave beams flashed downwards from the dirigible far overhead, burning the missile warheads before they reached their targets. Hundreds of metres above them, explosions started in earnest as well.
‘Bit far away for air bursts, don’t you think?’ Fritz asked.
‘Unintentional air bursts, Fritz,’ the major answered. ‘The dirigible is knocking down mortar shells. Anti-mortar in a few seconds.’
High-acceleration missiles flashed from above, exploding on the mortar positions below, as the gunships also started to engage ground targets. The gunships howled towards the ground to scream along millimetres above the ridge lines and tree tops, firing into the mortar emplacements as well as pulling extreme internal G forces far in extreme of what any biological could withstand. From Basalt’s crew’s perspective it was obviously exactly the response that the enemy ground forces had been waiting for when, seconds later, two gunships, which the command dirigible had sent to investigate signatures of mortar positions, crashed headlong into fine net-like tough fungal rhizomorphs which had swung up from the towering fungal trees seconds before the gunships came into sight.
The effect was dramatic: each otherwise tough craft was suddenly seized and flung into a savagely tight loop that was terminated against the ground due to its own speed and kinetic energy. They exploded, producing impressive fireballs which ignited even more trees and agitated greater numbers of the lizards, and then millions of long streamlined double-winged iridescent red hornets. Basalt’s crew, on seeing them, shuddered, remembering their experiences on 27’s planet with insects. The hornets swarmed around the burning areas, then immediately attacked the two Games Board flying cameras which had come down to get closer footage of the destroyed gunships. As soon as a hundred or so of the hornets had come in contact with the cameras, they simply fell from the sky to crash into the forest. As each camera started to tumble down, the flies left it to seek out other targets, including the lizards, as an ecological battle royal started in the surrounding area with hundreds of different creatures and insects attracted to the fires. Marko wished fervently that he’d have the time to study them, hoping that he would at least get a chance to look through the Games Board’s images.
‘Julie is well, Marko,’ Spike reported. ‘A hatchway opened in the top of the lifter although she was still locked into her ejection seat as it was lowered by the gunship.’
‘Good, thanks, Spike.’
Before he could comment further Rick spoke. ‘We are moving further up the ridge line. My intel drone is encouraging the Avians to ditch their belongings and fly to another area, but they are insistent that they take
their gear. Another larger group is now moving down the ridge to join them, so two landers are now inbound. ETA is fifteen minutes.’
Marko thought that, considering the swarming behaviour of the creatures they had seen, there must be a burning time in the planet’s year, and started to look in the forest for evidence. Looking carefully, he saw trees that appeared to have been burnt and had thousands of orbs dotted over them; he wondered if it was part of a life cycle of the native species. He also wondered about the mechanism that would ignite the trees, as it appeared to be a fairly random spread. Things were starting to settle down again as the two landers broke cloud cover and started to sweep down to the hundreds of waiting Avians.
The first slowed down and then hovered just above a large flattened area with a stone outcropping. The vehicle’s hatches rapidly swung down and the refugees swarmed aboard. It lifted away as the second large craft did the same. Nothing had attacked them by the time the remaining gunships and craft orbited. They all sighed in relief when the second lander started to climb up through the clouds with the remaining gunships in escort.
*
Three
Marko looked down at his fuel levels and wondered how soon before they would be allowed to refuel. He keyed the major’s comm link. ‘Boss, I am coming up short on fuel.’
Michael Longbow replied a minute later. ‘Yeah, just got the word. The next pick-up is some thousand kilometres away. All dock.’
As he swung the Chrysops towards the lifter, there was a huge flash from overhead and seconds later one of the landers could be seen to tumble out of the clouds some distance away. Marko ramped up his vision and watched as the ship, billowing smoke and fire from its main engine bays and obviously struggling to maintain control and altitude, appeared to gain some control as the hatches were blown off and the Avians poured out of them and away from the stricken craft to fly back to the planet’s surface.
The large ship started to gain altitude again then suddenly there was another explosion deep inside the craft. It rolled over onto its back and plummeted towards the ground. To Marko, it seemed to take forever to hit — until he realised that he had inadvertently sped himself up. Seconds after he reverted to normal speed the large ship hurtled down into a ravine with a great burst of fire and smoke. The shockwave arrived seconds later with the noise of the crash audible even through his helmet layers.
‘Shit! Rick is taking some solid hits over this lot!’
The major, surrounded by data feeds in the lifter’s cockpit, replied. ‘Not wrong, Harry. Looking at everyone’s cameras, Ivana estimates that only three Avians were unable to get out. Fairly remarkable if you ask me. But then again I am a cynic at heart. And Rick will not say why the lander failed. Continue to dock, people. Come on board for a stretch and a drink. We have seventy-two minutes’ flight time and I am taking us high. That shit down there bothers me. Have just been advised that the survivors from the crashed lander will be picked up tomorrow.’
Marko was the last to dock with the lifter. Around him the small gunship recon drones were also coming into dock as they had nowhere else to go after the destruction of their mother ships. He watched as Harry, ahead of him, slid his Chrysops up against the docking grapples that had swung down under the lifter. As soon as the fighter was in contact with three of the six, they softly contracted, grasping the craft like a hand and lifting the cockpit up through the floor of the lifter. As soon as it was snug, the heavy locking cams slid into place and, seconds later, the fuel hoses and ammunition feeds locked themselves on. He keyed Glint’s private comms.
‘Hey, Glint. You want to take this one?’
‘Take what, Marko? Oh, you mean do I want to control the dock? Yes, certainly.’
‘You have control.’
Glint called out. ‘I have control. Hold on!’
As soon as Marko relinquished the controls, he regretted it. Glint poured on the power, rolled the fighter down and away to then rip up under the lifter while performing a perfect barrel roll, and seconds later neatly slotted the cockpit though the floor of the lifter with an almost imperceptible touch. He held the fighter against the lifter until the graspers figured out that they had already docked.
‘That earns you a little bonus, Glint, and probably a kick up the arse from the major!’ the producer commented.
Glint sounded indignant. ‘My thanks, Producer Ivana. But why would I get a remonstration for such an excellent manoeuvre?’
The major took that one. ‘Because, Glint, we do not put additional stress on a craft when it has just been in combat. There may be damage that you are not aware of and something could go dramatically wrong. Nice work, but don’t do it again. OK?’
A slightly contrite Glint answered, ‘Yes, Major, I understand.’
Marko’s restraints let him go and he climbed out of the cockpit. He looked at Glint as he climbed out as well, then leant down and shook him by the hand, combat tapping against Glint’s wrist: ‘Nice! Liked it!’
The ACE suddenly brightened and smiled up at him.
They made their way along the walkway between the cockpits, with the one that had once held Julie’s now destroyed Chrysops sealed off. The rest of the crew smiled at Glint, with Lilly and Jasmine arriving last, climbing down the ladders from where they had docked the Hangers above them. Moments later the monitor, Jim, after reassembling himself, also joined them to record the inevitable non-official debriefing.
The crew had a drink, then carefully checked their individual Chrysops through the lifter’s systems, with Harry finding shrapnel damage in the top engine management systems of his. Everyone moved forwards as Julie and he lifted the deck plates out of the way to get access to the top of the craft. The major brought the lifter to a hover a kilometre above the clouds while they clipped on, then activated, an automatically deployed wrap which sealed the Chrysops against the lifter. This allowed them to work on the machine while the lifter accelerated back up to speed and continued with the mission.
Minutes before they arrived in the vicinity of the next pickup points they finished testing the replaced units. As the lifter descended and slowed down, they had the onboard computer fold the wrap out of the way so they could slam and lock the access hatches back into place. They all climbed back into their cockpits with Julie flying the spare Chrysops. After dropping away from the lifter, Marko noted that there were large areas of open water below them and wondered if the big moon also supported large aquatic life. The plant life floating on the water’s surface looked extraordinary, with huge, deep blue, water-lily-like leaves which must have been at least six metres in diameter. Tucked beneath them were smaller versions of the same leaves, of different colours.
High above them, another of Rick’s dirigibles hovered, directing operations. This time there were even more gunships and, for every one of those, there were two sleek high-speed missile drones — shaped like long elegant sharks — sporting dozens of different configurations of missiles under their wings. The crew of Basalt had seen them in various conflicts before and knew that there was also a large warhead in the front of the drones, with drop-down ramjets which could accelerate them up to Mach 8 making them scary weapons to be on the receiving end of.
Harry thought they were overkill and wondered what Rick was up to. The rest of the crew were wondering if they would be able to get sufficiently far away to escape the blast if Rick decided to use them. They could see the blue intel drone hanging above the designated pick-up point as they started to orbit again.
‘I see no Avians waiting, Marko,’ Minh Pham said.
Marko scanned his screens. ‘Yeah, I don’t either, Minh Pham. And that piece of ground looks very smooth, don’t you think? I bet you Rick got this one wrong.’
An agitated-sounding Rick answered. ‘No, Marko, this is the point and my intel says it is OK, although I now see the Avians assembling on the other side, away from that stone. OK, no problem, I shall direct the pick-up lander to them.’
The lander slid down out of
the clouds again, making a textbook pick-up, although instead of climbing out again — and with every craft escorting it at high speed — it slid down to the centre of a nearby lake and uplifted a small village of refugees from an island. As it started to lift off over the water, something resembling a huge tree slug flung itself up out of the shallow water and latched onto the underside. Two gunships immediately fired at it, but the projectiles passed straight through its writhing soft body as it clung on with its two-metre-wide sucker mouth.
Marko, being closest, rolled in and brought the rail guns to bear, firing continuously and slicing the body away a metre below the mouth. As the body dropped, the mouth segment also died and peeled away, to reveal that the hull plating had almost been eaten through. Bits of the plating were still falling away — whatever was in the creature’s saliva was still active. Marko relayed the images to Rick. ‘Rick, you have a problem. You seeing this?’
The Rick proxy that appeared on his screen seemed very angry. ‘Fuck! What a shit of a place. Another expensive lander stuffed. OK, will have to transfer the refugees onto the dirigible. Proceed to the next pick-up. I wonder what horror awaits us there!’
Spike spoke through the crew comms. ‘I think the very big, very powerful Rick does not like his assets being beaten up on by mere biologicals, Marko.’
Marko laughed. ‘I think that you’re right, Spike. Did he talk with you when you saw him in the mess?’
Spike made a rude little sound, much to Marko’s amusement. ‘No, he only lowers himself sufficiently to speak with Glint. He even ignores our friend Nail now.’
Marko frowned. ‘Interesting. I wonder why. Think that I might delay making his ACE a little longer yet.’
‘Two more to go today,’ Harry commented, ‘and then time for us to climb back up to the dirigible as this is now effectively midafternoon and I’m told that the really scary critters come out to play during the night.’
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