by Aer-ki Jyr
“He said his lower body was numb,” Frank offered.
“His spine has probably been severed. We can fix this if we can get him back to the seda in time.”
Frank reached up to his earpiece. “Report on our medical evac?”
“On its way,” Nicholas replied.
“I’ve done what I can,” the medic said, looking at Frank. “Don’t try to move him.”
“Stay with him,” Frank told the worker as the medic scurried off, then he too left, knowing that useless sentiment wasn’t going to help his friend. He needed to focus on doing something useful.
Frank walked around a bit, surveying the damage and the other wounded. He counted seven before a large knot of people attracted his attention. He went over and saw Nicholas in the center of them, examining three of the dead aliens they’d dragged over. Their equipment had been stripped off and laid to the side, including weapons, belts, wrist devices, and what looked like a forehead halo.
“What have we got?” he asked Nicholas, who only looked up when Frank bumped him in the shoulder.
“They’re built Human. Head, two arms, two legs. Pelvis and spine are similar. Not sure if that tail is manipulatable or just a decorative appendage. They were walking around like we do, but I also saw one shrink down and slither away on all fours, so I’m not sure what to make of them. I thought they were Human when the firefight started.”
“So did I,” Frank admitted, toeing one with his armored boot. “Four digits.”
“You think they’re indigenous?”
“If they are, then Star Force royally screwed up,” he said, looking at the peculiar body armor it was wearing, which left the head and arms completely exposed, but had the legs and torso covered. The feet were also exposed, but they didn’t resemble feet as he knew them. They looked only a little thicker than the thing’s hands.
“What do you want done with the bodies?”
“Drag the rest over here and keep a guard on them until reinforcements arrive. For all we know they could regenerate.”
Nicholas glanced at the obviously dead bodies and raised an eyebrow.
“We don’t want any more surprises,” Frank reiterated.
“Right,” Nicholas said, walking off in search of another of the fallen aliens.
“How’s the perimeter?” Frank asked into his earpiece.
“All quiet,” Aaron reported. “They made off with four crates by my count.”
“Damn,” he whispered, glancing back at the dead ones. “I suppose the sensor tower couldn’t track them on the way out either?”
“Negative. Other than extreme close range their ship is a ghost. They were headed on a northwest track, if that means anything.”
“It might. We’ll let the Tribune and Archons worry about that. As soon as you’re satisfied, we could use some help tagging and bagging.”
“On my way now,” the other Triarii said.
Frank stared down into the cold, dead, bulging black eyes of the nearest lizard, feeling a mix of anger and anticipation. He didn’t like taking casualties or losing cargo, but for Canderous this was their first blooding and they’d succeeded in driving the raiders off. He doubted this would be their one and only meeting, which meant they finally had a real enemy to face instead of repetitive simulations and contests amongst themselves.
The Canderian didn’t know the size, strength, or origin of their new enemy, or anything else about them to be blunt, but he was eager to find out, as opposed to the Corvati who’d been rattled to the core by their attack. Frank and the Canderians were soldiers, trained from birth for combat. For better or worse they needed action, a legitimate fight they could throw themselves at in order to prove themselves and rid Canderous of its green birth. The Archons had done plenty to teach them humility and give them a challenge, continually thrashing them in training exercises but this was different. This was for keeps. This was real.
This was war.
Frank sucked in a deep breath of air, feeling for the first time in his life like a real soldier rather than a glorified newb. They didn’t ask for this fight, but they’d got it anyway, as the Archons had said would eventually happen. A righteous war, they’d said, would come in time. Creating one by misdeeds was both unnecessary and against the very code of the warrior. Patience, they’d urged, and the righteous war would come to them.
And now it was here.
Frank didn’t know what all this meant, other than there was no turning back. Canderous had seen blood. Canderous had seen victory. Canderous was no longer green. If it was a fight these lizards wanted, then Canderous would oblige, with or without Star Force, for now they’d finally proven that they could stand alone and that, above and beyond his own 4 kills, filled Frank with an indescribable pride.
8
July 13, 2261
Epsilon Eridani System
Corneria
Harrison walked into the room where they had the alien corpses on the seda along with Mara-677, seeing that the other three Corneria Clan leaders were already present. His eyes went directly to the lizards’ faces, scrutinizing every facet of their scaly visages…then he breathed a sigh of relief.
They weren’t V’kit’no’sat.
“I don’t recognize them,” San-1299 said to Harrison, leaning on the examining table with both hands as he stared down at one of the corpses.
The Saber nodded his agreement. “This is something new.”
Tribune Raines, the only Canderian in the room, blinked in surprise. “You’re aware of other aliens?”
“Yes,” Anders-743 answered, “but none are supposed to be in this star system.”
Raines frowned. “You didn’t think you could trust Canderous with that knowledge?”
“Actually Canderous does know,” Harrison said. “Information is restricted to Legats and above. You’re now the lowest ranking Canderian with that knowledge and it stays with you until orders to the contrary.”
Raines nodded curtly. “Understood. How many others are we talking about?”
“We have data from a classified source detailing thousands of races. To date we haven’t encountered any of them, so this attack is as much of a surprise to us as it is to you.”
“What concerns me more is this inability for our sensors to detect them,” Jaime-532 said.
Harrison glanced over the table at the local Sangheili leader. He was only two levels below him in rank, making them essentially tied for unofficial leadership in the system.
“We were able,” Raines pointed out, “to pick them up at extreme close range. Not enough for sufficient warning or tracking, but at least their ship isn’t completely invisible to sensors. If we could get aircraft in the vicinity of their next attack, then it might be possible to track them at night if we stay close.”
Mara shook her head. “The skeets have less sensor capability than your tower did. If we’re going to track them we’re going to have to stick them with a beacon or follow them on visuals.”
“They ran off this time,” San pointed out. “Are you sure they’ll be back to try again?”
Raines locked eyes with the Archon. “Either we scared them off, or they’ll move onto a softer target. Lacking such a target, they’ll either give up their raids or increase their attacking force to overcome our defenses.”
Harrison nodded distractedly, still staring at the lizard bodies. “He’s right. We’re not going to catch them off guard again. The big question is where are they coming from. Does anyone have even the faintest of leads?”
All four Archons shook their head in the negative, while Raines held perfectly still. He was by far the most junior member of the group, and it appeared that he felt the disparity in the way he was constantly standing at attention.
Mara turned to look at Raines after a brief moment of silence. “Are you wanting air cover for your surface facilities?”
Raines stiffened even further. “We have no such assets in the system, and without the ability to track the raiders remotely
they can retreat and disappear at will.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Mara said, crossing her arms over her chest as she thought. “The question is this…are we trying to take the ship down or track it back to base?”
San sighed. “We might want to let them take a shipment with a beacon hidden inside, set on a timer. They steal it, take it back to base, then an hour or two later it goes off giving us their location.”
“Now there’s an idea,” Anders agreed. “Trick is knowing where they’ll hit next.”
“Their hull might block the signal,” Harrison said, dashing the idea. “Let’s look at this from a different perspective. If they have a base out there, where is it likely to be?”
“Star Force did an extensive survey of the planet,” Jaime reminded them. “If it’s down there then it’s either subsurface or of new construction.”
“What about the other planets?” Mara asked.
“All were surveyed,” Jaime continued, “but only the habitable ones were overly scrutinized. These things are air breathers?” the Sangheili asked.
“Yes,” Raines confirmed.
“I bet they’ve got a ship in orbit,” Anders said bluntly. “If they’re invisible to our sensors then they could be parked right outside and we wouldn’t know it.”
Raines neck suddenly twitched and he put a hand up to his earpiece reflexively as he received a message from the seda’s command center. His face screwed up with anger as he looked towards Harrison.
“They’re hitting us again, same location, multiple ships,” he reported before hustling out of the morgue.
“Is it the night cycle already?” Mara asked, thinking otherwise for that particular location on the planet.
“No. They’re hitting us in the daylight this time,” Raines said as he ducked into a nearby elevator. The Archons followed him in and were quickly spirited off towards the seda’s interior.
“All Clan Samus warships are in high orbit,” Anders said, glancing at the others. “Anybody got anything closer?”
“We do,” Mara said. “I diverted a corvette to low orbit yesterday.”
“1st fleet has six warships in low orbit,” Harrison said, referring to the non-Clan Star Force defense fleet, “and Clan Saber has 9. One of them has got to be within visual range.”
“We’ve got two,” Jaime said, glancing at San.
The Ninja Monkey shook his head in the negative. “Our fleet is holding in Dxun orbit.”
“How much did you reinforce?” Harrison asked the Canderian.
“I’ve got 21 men on site with some heavy weaponry,” Raines said as the elevator arrived at its destination. He followed the Archons out onto the compact walkway ringing a central pit. Along the outside of the ring were stations imbedded into the wall and wedged shoulder to shoulder with about 1 in every 4 currently occupied.
“Centurion?” Harrison asked the woman standing in the pit looking down on a small holographic map along with three other Canderians.
“They’re sacking the place,” she said with disgust. “No reports of troop landings. Our people have scattered into the forest while they’re taking the buildings apart from the air.”
“We need comms,” Jaime said.
Raines snapped his fingers to get his people’s attention, as well as signaling that they should follow the order in the efficient ‘ditto’ Canderian custom.
“Where to?” one of the other Centurions asked, walking to the side of the pit and flipping on equipment at an empty station.
“We need five lines,” Jaime explained, “to each Clan.”
Two more officers stepped up and began prepping stations.
“It’ll take hours for air support to arrive,” Harrison pointed out.
“We can at least get the clock ticking,” Jaime noted, sitting down and accepting an earpiece. “Give the ground troops an ETA and something to hold out for. If the raiders stick around long enough we might even be able to pick up their trail if we’ve got enough birds in the air coming from multiple directions.”
“I’m sold,” Anders said, setting down at another station and making contact with Clan Samus’s colony on the surface.
“Star Fox can do better than hours,” Mara said, nudging ahead of Harrison for the next open comm station.
“Ninja Monkey is closest, by my reckoning,” he differed, “and they’re still 3,000 kilometers away.”
“We’re 4,500 and we’ll beat you all there,” she said, making contact and holding up a ‘wait’ finger to stall any further questions from Harrison. “This is Mara…get me Brad, Ally, and Ras in the air in the prototype skeets inside of 5 minutes, coordinates to follow. Make sure they’re armed, we’ve got a fight on our hands.”
Mara used the holographic map for reference and began constructing a crude heading to feed her pilots once they lifted off.
“Prototypes?” Harrison asked as he sat down at his own terminal.
“Very fast at high altitude. They can be there inside of half an hour.”
“You been holding out on us?”
“We’re still working out the glitches,” she said, unabashed.
“They will get there in one piece, right?”
“Did I say glitches? Let me rephrase. We’re summarizing our data before we file a report with Star Force. They’ll get there.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“A little trick with the shield generator.”
Brad ran across the hangar bay, blinking the haze of the bright lights out of his eyes as he spotted one of the new skeets towards the center with a quick ready crew gathered around. The Archon had been on sleep cycle when they woke him, only just now getting to the bay as the other two skeets were rising up off the deck and drifting towards the hole in the ceiling overhead.
“Fuel?” he asked, hopping up into the single-seater and throwing his right leg over the pommel that the pilots rode belly down on.
“She’s full,” a tech said, having just undone the resupply line. “So are the weapons.”
Brad didn’t waste time with formalities and nodded his thanks, pulling down the cockpit over top of him. Within thirty seconds he had the aircraft powered up and lifted off the deck, following the two pilots out and seeing that they were hovering nearby over the colony waiting for him.
“Would someone like to tell me where we’re going?” he said over the open Clan Star Fox comm.
“Heading 243, range 4537 kilometers,” Mara’s voice answered back. “Our raider friends are back, so go say hi.”
“Gladly,” Brad said, kicking in his T-shaped skeet’s 3 anti-gravity engines and shooting the fighter straight up into the sky. “Pilots on me. Who do we have here?”
“Ally Laismon, reporting.”
“Ras Vanderjack here.”
“Good,” Brad said, watching his altimeter run up, “I thought they’d stuck me with some newbs. Listen up. Looks like you’re going to get your first taste of real combat, but first we have to get wherever we’re going. That means a high altitude run at high speed, just like we’ve been practicing. Keep a kilometer separation minimum, arrow formation.”
“Copy that,” Ally said, maneuvering her skeet around to drop in on Brad’s left flank as they continued to climb higher where the atmosphere was thinner.
“What are we up against?” Ras asked.
“I don’t know,” Brad said, switching back over to the frequency Mara was on. “Got any info to pass along, boss?”
“We’ve got Canderian troops on the ground, riding out an aerial assault. Reports indicate three, repeat, three raider ships similar to the one that attacked yesterday. They’re bombing the infrastructure and have not yet put troops on the ground…that we can confirm.”
“Bombing with what?”
“Stand by.”
Brad muted the outgoing feed on that comm line while reactivating his current unit’s private comm. “Assume fighter to gunship attack profile. Three bogeys. We’ll improvise the rest when we get there
.”
“What are we waiting for,” Ras said, eager to get moving.
“500 more,” Brad replied pithily. After he reached the prerequisite altitude he activated his skeet’s shield generator, which began to produce a second skin around the craft, invisible to the air save for where disturbances occurred. The thin layer of shield matrix began to thicken as more and more power was poured into it, eventually topping off at about 2 inches thick.
The shield matrix didn’t precisely match the dimensions of the skeet. The smooth lines couldn’t be mimicked, and the more faces a shield had the more complex its emitters had to be, which was why most shields were boxy structures. The skeet, however, had to maneuver through atmosphere so a box was out of the question. Instead a nearly similar silhouette of the ship’s hull had been created out of varying geometric pieces that preserved most of the aerodynamics.
The aerofighter was equipped with physical shields, meaning that the energy matrix was formatted to resist matter. Had Brad been outside the ship and tried to touch the hull his hand would have been stopped by an invisible wall just shy of it, with the contact point on the shield turning opaque upon touch as the matrix was disrupted, damaged, and had to recharge. If the physical impact was hard enough the matrix at the impact point would crumble and the object would pass through…with the resulting breach in the shield being ‘sewed up’ by addition energy being deployed from the emitters.
Turn the shield off and the energy matrix dissipated within a second. Turn it back on and a new one would have to be formed from scratch. The types of matrixes used in shields were many and varied, with Star Force only now being able to produce the simplest of ones. Simple as they might be, they were still impressively strong going up against natural phenomena, such as wind in this case.
Brad flipped a switch that activated the prototype components within the shield generator, creating an addition to the standard shield. This one was a simple cone, stretched out in front of the skeet some 48 meters and ending at a tip smaller than the width of a hair. The adjunct matrix quickly filled with energy.