by Aer-ki Jyr
Where the dust cloud was being chewed into by the rain, what remained of the asteroids were shielded from lizard view being located at the base of the newly formed craters. The giant ‘rocks’ had held together fairly well, with the exterior having been deformed by the impact, though the shields protecting it had done well to soften the blow before they breached and the material took the rest of the hit. But inside those house-sized rocks were hollow pockets with IDF protecting the contents. So long as the shells didn’t breach or the fields overload, the Spark-class drones inside didn’t feel a thing in the crashes, soon coming online when the cases were explosively released opening up the contents to the falling rain.
With controllers in orbit handling them, the little anti-grav spheres lifted up out of their protective cocoons having bypassed the planetary defenses and were now located behind enemy lines a bit. Each of the 134 craters were spaced out so none ran the risk of hitting each other on impact for they were totally unguided on reentry, so each of the little groups of sparks began to flow out of the craters like a line of ants heading towards mutual rendezvous points where they would form up into 6 different columns, traveling overland rapidly towards the flank of the lizard armies that were continuing to push Star Force’s troops backwards.
But these sparks weren’t headed for the main battle, rather they were headed for the lines of reinforcements feeding them, intent on ambushing those overland convoys for while a lot were being moved in vehicles there were so many lizard infantry units in play that they were approaching on foot from the nearest cities. Those were exposed while the bulk of the wisp swarms were well ahead playing tag with the Star Force anti-air defenses.
Whether they stayed there or redeployed to counter the sparks wasn’t an issue. Getting those units into the field at the position they did was key, for it was outside the ‘safe’ corridor that Star Force had blown into the anti-orbital defenses and where they weren’t expecting anything containing cargo or troops to come down in. If the sparks were all destroyed by the wisps before they could get to the infantry columns then so be it, for that would give the defenders a much needed break from the persistent air attacks and an opening to counterattack, briefly, on the ground. Either way it was of strategic value, however costly in terms of equipment and ammunition. They couldn’t employ the same tactic again, not from this command ship anyway, for Sara had sent down their full complement of drop pods.
As the sparks left their one-way transports behind the interiors of the empty shells began to fill up with rain water, a few inches at least by the time Alpha 9 decided it was time to get moving. They’d come down inside one of the pods, huddled up in a smaller cocoon with a backup IDF in case the main one failed. It hadn’t, and now the four man Arc Commando team was on the planet behind enemy lines in the middle of nowhere, hopefully undetected and going to stay that way.
Inside the hollow sphere where a few sparks had ridden were several other packages, from which four speeder bikes were removed and loaded up with cargo canisters where applicable. Jyra climbed onto her floating steed with extra fuel packs and supplies stashed around the seat with just enough room for her to slide her legs over, then she pulled a special sleeve that covered the front of the bike up over her head and attached it to the rear giving her the aerodynamic look of a fat needle.
The other three did likewise, obscuring each other from view save for a tiny spec of a camera on the nose of the bikes that fed into their HUDs. Through that they could see ahead, but not behind or to the sides. That wasn’t the best feeling in the world, but Jyra knew it was a necessity as she hit the interior button that activated the cloaking sheath. Her bike vanished from view, replaced with a black blot that no light was being emitted or reflected from. The other three did likewise, turning into phantoms that rose up into the rain under the dark of night undetectable to lizard sensors or eyes. Had they come in the daylight the black blurs would be noticeable, but at night it was almost impossible to tell dim light from nothing at all so long as the concealed bikes didn’t pass in front of a light source.
It wasn’t a scifi ‘cloaking field’ in the traditional sense, but it would allow the Arc Commandos to move around the countryside unnoticed so long as their ruse had worked and no one was nearby to pay attention to the crash site…with the cloud cover and rain being an added bonus that virtually insured they’d go undetected.
They still had half the night to work with, but they couldn’t take a straight line approach to their destination city. The four of them hovered out of the drop pod in sequence then took off into the night navigating solely by telepathy to keep from bumping into one another, for the dark shadows the bikes made in the rain were almost indistinguishable from the rest of the night even when they were directly in front of you.
That meant the four of them had to stay close together given their limited Ikrid range, with Jyra’s being the weakest. They kept her in the middle of their tri-point formation, with Brandon’s speeder ahead. She could see a bit of his distortion wake as his canopy busted through the raindrops in her nightvision, but he was too far away to see with her Pefbar, though every now and then she could catch a glimpse of the ground beneath her as they skimmed a ridge. There were minimum altitude sensors underneath the bikes that would keep them from dropping too low, but in order to keep from bouncing up and down constantly they were flying in as straight of a line as possible.
All she had to do was follow Brandon, for it was his job to navigate as best he could without good vision or lateral sensors, and he had them traveling at considerable speed. They could always increase altitude, for the bikes had no maximum, but the more they could hug the terrain the better they all felt, so they were playing it cagy and a bit reckless at the same time.
But she trusted their team leader and just did her part to keep up. The few times he eased out of her Ikrid range Mace and Leo were beside her to orient off of. They had greater range and didn’t lose track of him, allowing her to creep back up to the point where she could sense his presence, though his bike was still thoroughly a blank spot as far as her nightvision was concerned.
As far as navigating to their destination they had no help there. The bike’s navigation systems could pick up the orbital signals from the warships to give them a read-only link to the battlemap, but those systems were powered down when underneath the stealth sheath, for it would block all incoming signals. That meant Brandon had to play it by ear and guestimate their heading and distance traveled up until he found some convenient terrain and they stopped within a steep canyon.
By that time they were out of the rainstorm and the first hint of light began to illuminate the western horizon, with them parking their bikes between rock formations where they’d be all but impossible to see. They kept their cloaking sheaths on, making only a visible inspection from directly above possible of spotting the black dots and hopefully they would be in shadow once the sun rose, but the four Arc Commandos slid out from underneath their rides and had a look around the area, finding an elevated position from which to get their bearings.
Jyra crawled up top a small mount next to the other four as the sky began to brighten to hazy blue, barely enough to make out the first bits of sight without their nightvision, but the distant lizard cities were easy enough to make out, for their buildings rose up well above the terrain. There were three within easy viewing and a scattering of others whose tips were just poking above the horizon. None of them were their target, meaning they were going to have to lay low throughout the day and travel another leg over the next night, but first they needed an accurate vector.
Jyra saw a new waypoint uploaded onto her HUD from Brandon’s helmet and synced with the battlemap being transmitted from orbit, but per their sneaking orders they’d set their own transmitters to stay silent aside from a very weak signal that would only register within a few dozen meters. That may have been a bit paranoid considering their comm signals were already camouflaged, but with the ever increasing level of lizard tech
they didn’t want to take any chances.
“Looks like we’re clear,” Leo commented, the first words any of them had spoken all night long.
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Brandon said, continuing to have a look around. “I don’t think the lizards have any reason for being out here on foot, but I don’t want to take the chance of a stray ship spotting us. If anyone sees a nice camping spot, don’t keep it to yourself.”
“I’ve got a ledge to the south,” Mace commented. “Plenty of boulders to find some shady spots.”
“I suppose a cave is too much to ask for?” Jyra said, looking around with the others in her nightvision.
“How long do we have to look?” Leo asked.
“About 5 minutes.”
“Couldn’t you have put us down sooner?” Mace complained.
“Woulda, coulda, shoulda…it’s a moot point now.”
“I’ll take the north,” Jyra said, crawling over the top and sliding down the rocky hillside there.
“South,” Leo said, taking off the opposite direction and leaving the other two the remaining cardinal points. They scrambled around on the ground, running once they were below vision height of the surrounding area, and looking for the best cover they could find, hoping they wouldn’t have to be stuck in a square meter or two for the next 19 hours.
Mace won out in the scavenger hunt, finding a deep overhang that was essentially a wall-less cave on three sides. It wasn’t big enough to bring all their bikes under, but they did head back to them and retrieve bits of equipment that they then hiked a short distance and out of sight of the bikes to dump underneath the overhang as the sun finally broke over the horizon.
“Good one, Mace,” Jyra said as she pulled off her helmet and tasted the slightly pungent air that had oxygen levels higher than Star Force standard. “Who wants first watch?”
“I will,” Brandon offered. “Get your digs set up and chill. No workouts, unfortunately.”
“At least we can get out of our armor,” Leo said, pulling his helmet off as Jyra began unpacking their portable tents.
“No, use the big one,” Brandon told her.
“Will it fit?”
“I think so. Try anyway, we’ve got plenty of time to kill.”
Jyra shrugged and pulled out the larger unit as Leo smoothed off the ground as much as possible, kicking some small rocks out of the way before she deployed the canister and they all stepped back from the perimeter but still stayed under the aerial cover of the ledge. The pale pink rocks would stand out in stark contrast to their pitch black armor, for they’d chosen that color for their nighttime operations in the hasty prep they’d had on the command ship prior to insertion.
The tent rose up and kissed the ceiling, getting pinned there a few inches from full deployment.
“Close enough?” Mace wondered.
“It’s not rigid,” Jyra pointed out.
“Will it still work?” Leo asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Never had to deal with this before.”
“We don’t need the walls, it’s the stuff inside.”
“Well,” Jyra said, pushing the door flap aside and walking in. “The floor and ceiling are solid, and I assume the power lines in the walls are either flexible or in the poles.”
“Try it,” Brandon said, tossing her the power pack.
“Please work,” she whispered. “I really want a shower.”
She slid the small device in then got handed the other pieces of equipment through the doorway by the others. When she plugged them in they lit up with power, but it wasn’t until she stepped inside the shower ring and tapped the button with her armored toe did it come on. She let it scrub the outer layer of her armor until it did a full circuit up and down, with the few missing inches of height apparently not affecting it negatively.
“Seems ok,” she said, turning it off and stepping out.
“Something to add to the Nest notes,” Brandon said, staying outside. “I’m on watch. Get to sleep.”
“How about some cards?” Mace asked.
“After we relieve ourselves,” Leo noted. “I’d prefer to do that in private, thank you very much.”
“Yeah,” Jyra agreed. “Go ahead. I’ve got second.”
“Are we showering in private too?” Mace wondered.
“Let’s just camp outside and give everyone some alone time,” Jyra suggested. “Though it is weird that the idea of showering in front of you guys doesn’t bother me, but I really don’t like taking a dump with you watching.”
“Ditto,” Leo agreed. “Might as well give each other some space while we can.”
“Let us know when you’re done,” Mace said, walking back outside and finding a bit of ground to sit on looking out at the ever increasing sunlight kissing the rocks. A huge shadow was overtop the ledge and most of the canyon, but he could see the sunlight line on the walls was moving ever so slowly down.
Jyra sat down next to him, with Brandon to the far left still with his helmet on. He’d stay that way until his watch was over, with the other two letting him keep the look out while Jyra leaned back on the ground and stretched out, literally, after having been cramped up on the speeder for hours. She yawned, not really tired but thoroughly bored.
“Should have brought a game mod,” she said, sitting back up and mentally settling in to the process of waiting for nightfall to come again.
4
February 27, 2933
Gvaris System (lizard territory)
Nephasil
Jyra and her team packed up their gear just before sunset and crept over to their speeders when the light finally went down. Throughout the entire day they hadn’t seen or heard so much as a peep from the lizards, but with their lives hanging on by a thread they didn’t want to take any chances. When deep night finally reigned they mounted up and took off on the next leg of their journey, traveling north around a city then angling northeast in a zigzag between two others before finally finding some less than suitable terrain to lay low in during the next day.
There they didn’t have the luxury of an overhang, barely finding enough boulders to hide their bikes in and having to stay in armor tucked into crevices for most of the day. When night finally fell they took an hour to set up camp and shower, then they immediately packed back up and headed off on their bikes towards their destination city.
They got to the perimeter with a few hours left to spare but didn’t think that would be enough time to accomplish their mission, so they searched around and actually found a cave to hide in about 20 miles outside the city. There they waited through the day cycle, sleeping in turns while one always kept watch with a fair amount of air traffic passing nearby them. They weren’t disturbed and no wisps or transports did a double pass so the team assumed they’d gone undetected, then when the day began to wane it was almost time to get going and make this happen, with Jyra watching battlemap updates being transmitted from orbit detailing how the ground battles were faring.
She wasn’t pulling live vids, for she couldn’t request additional data with the blackout protocols, but the basis statistics showed that they were losing, but in a controlled manner. Bleeding the enemy of troops as they slowly withdrew, but Star Force only had so much ground to give. The ‘had to hold’ points were still secure, but the pressure on them was mounting and Jyra wasn’t sure what the outcome of this one was going to be unless they got reinforcements…for the enemy’s never-ending stream was going to wear down their troops eventually, with the lizard body trails already being visible from orbit.
“Anyone else thinking that we might be a bit too late?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the cave where she could get decent reception on her helmet, but just far enough in side that she was still in shadow.
“Looks that way,” Mace answered. “But if Sara let us come down here, then I’d guess they don’t see it that way.”
“We’re going to need backup.”
“Might already be on the way.”
“Regardless,” Brandon added, “we haven’t seen this much resistance on the ground since…well, as long as I can remember.”
“I don’t think the lizards want us severing their empire’s lifeline,” Leo summed up. “I think we’re in for a whole new level of spamming here.”
“Not us, if we do our job right,” Brandon corrected. “Let’s hope their backline is asleep.”
“When do they sleep?” Jyra wondered. “And how much?”
“A good question,” Brandon agreed. “Let’s not try and a find out this trip, okay?”
“Not like I was going to go around interviewing them,” Jyra mumbled. “Just wondering how much a slice of day they miss in snooze zone.”
“Once every three days, give or take,” Leo answered.
Brandon turned his helmet to look at him. “How do you know that?”
“Recon report.”
“By who?”
“The Queen of Diamonds. She’s pulled a lot of solo missions behind enemy lines studying them. I’ve been able to get into most of the reports. Makes for good reading.”
“I didn’t think our codes would work on the trailblazers’ stuff?”
“She’s not one of them.”
“Scuttlebutt says she is,” Jyra disagreed.
“No, she just has some experimental flying armor,” Mace explained.
“Have you found confirmation of that?” Brandon asked.
“In reports, no. But I have pulled visuals from some of the battles she’s been in. Those aren’t hard to find.”
“Ok, lizard expert,” Brandon said. “Anything else we should know before heading in there?”
“They don’t like losing,” Leo said, watching his own HUD with the realtime battlemap.