I replied, “Spite, Colonel?”
The Colonel pounded his fist on the table. “That ship should have never reached the ground. They had the means to take it out before it hit the atmosphere. Instead, they chose to let it land so they could make it personal. Doomed themselves is what they did. That fleet is massing for an attack of their base right now.”
The Colonel opened a comm to his staff. “Looks like they are going to hit the Bulgar at Nevil. Pull in what troops you can around her perimeter. If that base falls, they will have their foothold!”
I spoke. “Colonel, if you want, I can take the Swift out there. I can create some havoc for any ships that are lining up for an assault.”
The Colonel took a heavy breath. “Hanging back here is killing me, Grange. I like to coordinate from the front lines. Sitting here watching all this unfold is going to be like torture to my soul. Take the Swift and see if you can deter their initial action. I’ll keep you on call if other needs arise.”
I replied as I powered up my glove BHD, “You got it, Colonel. Call if you need me.”
I blinked out, and fifteen seconds later I was setting down in my pilot’s chair. I pulled a seatbelt around my midsection to counter my missing legs. The hatch was closed, and seconds later I was rounding Tresha to the point in the sky directly above Nevil. I shot straight up and hit light speed just before encountering the pocket of five hundred ships that were grouping in high orbit. As I blasted through a pair of destroyers, my tactical display lit up with new ship arrivals into the Tresha system.
I hailed the Colonel.
“Grange, we just saw the same thing. I need you to evaluate their purpose.”
I replied, “Roger that, Colonel. I should have that for you in less than a minute.”
I turned the Swift towards the incoming ships and pushed her throttle to full. I was soon braking as I neared the new threat. It was fighter carriers, a ship that we had seen little of for many, many years.
I spoke to the Colonel. “This can’t be good, Colonel. Are you picking up my video feed?”
The Colonel replied, “We are. The computer is showing two thousand fighters per carrier. They are still entering the system. Two hundred twelve so far.”
I punched a few commands into my holo-display. “I’ll do a few swings through them, Colonel. Maybe I can disrupt whatever strategy they have planned. At least for a short while.”
The Colonel agreed, and I knocked out a quarter of the fighters on the first carrier as I accelerated outward.
As I looped back around for my first full run, several hundred new ships dropped below light speed just behind the carriers. A grid of ion beams suddenly formed a wall directly in my path. I had no chance to turn before I would impact the bright blue pattern in the otherwise dark space.
I attempted to steer the Swift towards a hole in the grid pattern, only to see the ion beams begin to oscillate in random ways. The scattered field in front of me would be hit or miss for the Swift.
I braced for an impact and was rewarded with only a glancing blow by the closest beam as it swept away from me. The active skin on the Swift shot up to 60 percent. A query of the Help system showed that I was vulnerable to a direct hit. My free lunch at the Durian cafeteria was over.
I spoke to the Colonel. “I don’t know if you caught that or not, Colonel, but I am now vulnerable out here. At the speeds I’m traveling, I can’t avoid a pattern like that. It’s too broad.”
The Colonel replied, “Bring her home, Grange. They won’t be able to reproduce that pattern in this thick atmosphere. Try to focus on ships directly involved in an assault, like taking out their carriers before they start dumping those fighters.”
I pushed the throttle to full and fired, taking out another carrier as I passed their position.
As I approached Tresha, I ran the calculations on the maximum speed I could sustain in high orbit. The display showed only one-thirtieth of light speed, just over one revolution per second going around the planet. I programmed in an algorithm to keep the Swift circling the globe while firing at targets as they became available. The damage would be far less significant than that of a full shot at twice the speed of light, but I now had limited options.
As the Swift dropped into its programmed mode, I popped the rear hatch and exited. As I slowed, I drove with my glove towards the nearest newly arriving carrier. After powering myself aboard, I sought out the ion charge well. Once it was located, I used the same tactic we had used against the Durian command ships. A bright stream of ions soon ripped through the carrier from the back to the front, destroying all the fighters attached to its hull as they attempted to power up for deployment. As I powered towards the next carrier, the two thousand fighters aboard her jettisoned and headed for the planet’s atmosphere.
I yelled over my comm, “Colonel! The fighters are coming in!”
In under a minute, nearly four hundred thousand Durian fighters had aligned in a formation above Nevil. It was a sight unlike any I had ever seen, nearly eclipsing the light of the sun from reaching the city of Nevil below.
I spoke. “Tell me we have something that is useful against those fighters, Colonel. I can mix it up with them, but I won’t be very effective against that many. What do we have on the ground?”
The Colonel replied, “The Gonta had a significant amount of air defenses that they left us with. A concentration of those fighters in one sector will be overwhelming. If they drop through onto Nevil, those Bulgar are going to have a very bad day, as will we.”
I coded new programming for the Swift on my HUD. “I’ll have the Swift take a few swipes at them, Colonel, while they are all lined up.”
As I powered myself towards a troop carrier that was in stationary orbit, I asked the Colonel a new question. “Colonel, why are they not blasting away on us from orbit?”
The Colonel replied, “All these cities have ion inhibitor domes that prevent high-orbit beams from reaching the ground. Fighters can slip through those domes and fire on a ground target without issue; they are just much smaller cannons. Larger ships could do the same, but these ground cannons would cut them to pieces, being that they are such big, easy targets. Our biggest concern is ground troops. If they breach the outer defense walls, they can take out the inhibitor generators.”
I floated into the ion well of the troop carrier as I spoke. “So, our main focus will be keeping the ground troops beyond our walls. Isn’t there danger of the fighters taking out the generators?”
The Colonel replied, “The individual generators have a small inhibitor field of their own. The worry for the fighters is if they wise up and start pounding our outer defenses.”
I fired a tungsten round from my left-hand glove. “Scratch one more troop carrier. Colonel, how protected is everyone else, our people?”
The Colonel hesitated as he passed commands on to his troops. “Did no one tell you? We have everyone capable of fighting manning the defenses. Everyone else is belowground in the massive bunker systems the Gonta had. They will be continuing our sustained farming, our hospitals, even educating our kids. If we stop life for war, we will all wither away. The others are protected in the bunkers. Until the city walls fall, they will not be in danger.”
I replied, “I didn’t know about the bunkers, Colonel. It was probably mentioned at some point, but I didn’t pick up on it.”
A second troop carrier with five thousand Prassi soon disintegrated as its charge well was breached. Before I had the opportunity to reach the next ship, it began to drop down from orbit, just behind the hundreds of thousands of fighters that were now beginning their assault of the city of Nevil. I aimed my glove downward and followed right behind them.
The fighters swarmed through the ion inhibitor domes and began to fire upon the structures within the city. Buildings exploded and crumbled. The barren streets were soon lined with debris as the fighters unleashed a relentless barrage of ion bolts.
Return cannon fire from our defenses soon ensued, w
ith the occasional fighter taking a direct hit and falling from the smoke-filling sky. Our medium defense cannons fired upon the larger ships as they descended upon Nevil. A Dakar destroyer erupted in flame as a pair of ion bolts found the ion conduit that fed its main cannon. I watched the large ship descend as in slow motion. It crashed hard into one of the open farming fields that surrounded the city.
The ion bolts continued to stream upwards, striking ship after ship as they moved towards the ground. One assault ship after another violently exploded. Our defenses were holding, but the assault was only beginning, and the bulk of the attacking ships had not yet left orbit.
Defense posts around the globe were reporting attacks, some with a significant number of ships. None were intended to open up a front as was the assault on Nevil. As I drifted aboard a Dakar cruiser, I was shocked to find the cargo hold full of ground troops. I sent the newly gathered intel to the Colonel, who immediately entered it into our defense profiling system. The Dakar discovery would add another two million potential ground troops to the already massive fleet.
The Dakar cruiser was soon racing towards the ground under the force of gravity as the ion feeds to its engines were cut off with a well-placed tungsten round from my glove. The cruiser crashed hard and crumpled into a flattened pile of debris as all those on board were no longer counted amongst the living.
After twenty minutes of relentless assaults by the Durian fleet, and rebuffs by our troops, the first Colossun troop carrier reached the ground. It landed in a field that smoked and burned with the debris of the hundred ships that had come before it. Large bay doors opened on its sides, and soldiers poured out onto the Gonta farmlands. Soon after, a second and then a third landed, emptying out their cargoes of fighting men and women.
As I turned my eyes upward, I was startled to see one of the Colossun mega-ships descending towards me. “Colonel, why would the Colossuns be dropping in supplies when their troops have not even secured a foothold?”
The Colonel replied, “Check those containers, Grange. Maybe we mistook those for supplies.”
As I took in the Colonel’s words, the great ship moved through my position, revealing the contents of its immense cargo holds.
A surge of adrenaline shot through my veins as I had a sudden realization that I had seen those containers before. They had carried Colossun androids!
I yelled, “Colonel! Those container ships are full of the android soldiers! Try to concentrate your ground fire on those mega-ships!”
The first ship reached the ground after taking heavy fire. Massive bay doors opened down both the port and starboard sides, and the three-meter-tall android Colossun soldiers streamed out onto the abandoned Gonta farmland. The androids soon filled the field surrounding the ship. A quick scan from my BGS sensors placed the number at thirty-four thousand.
I spoke. “Colonel, how many of those mega-ships did we count?”
The Colonel replied, “Close to five hundred. That gives us over seventeen million of those androids that will possibly be on the ground. We are now counting upwards of twenty-seven million assault troops should they all reach dirt.”
As I looked down upon the field, the swarm of androids began to sprint in the direction the first Colossun troops had taken. Ion fire from our defensive walls was already beginning to pound the onrushing troops. The Bulgar troops fired in a relentless barrage of ion bolts. I then began to see larger explosions pockmarking the fields as the troops advanced. The Bulgar had some type of explosive mortar rounds, and their aim was ridiculously on target. Colossun troops fell as the intense explosions erupted around them.
As the android troops followed in behind the now-scattering Colossun regulars, the Colossun ship countered with a new strategy of its own. Hundreds of smaller ion bolts flew from the mega-ship, taking out the mortar rounds while they were still in the air. The androids opened up with their blasters as they advanced towards the Bulgar defenses.
I dove straight down using my BHD glove and found myself stepping through the bulkhead wall of the ion charge well on the mega-ship. Three seconds later, her ion cannons went silent as a stream of ion particles ripped through her interior. The Bulgar mortars again reached their intended targets.
The Colonel’s air defenses knocked two additional troop ships from the sky before they could land and unload. The Colossun regulars were in disarray as the androids passed their position while continuing the assault.
As I looked upwards, I took note of the lack of ships coming down from overhead. Back down on the ground, the number of Colossun androids continued to be thinned out through precision mortar strikes as well as with relentless ion cannon fire.
The Colossun regulars were racing back towards their troop carrier in retreat. I again dove down, and with a single tungsten shot, the troop carrier burned as a stream of released ion particles shot out from the breached charge well. I then began my own barrage of ion bolts, targeted into the Colossun regulars as they hunkered down in a nearby field, watching their escape route burn.
Forty-eight minutes after the assault had begun, it had come to an abrupt end. The fields surrounding the city of Nevil smoked and burned with the wreckage of hundreds of the attacking ships. Thousands of bodies littered the killing fields in front of the Nevil defensive walls. The Durians had squandered their first attempt at gaining a foothold on Tresha’s surface. The Bulgar, despite their initial mistake, had survived the assault with minimal loss.
Chapter 18
The swarms of enemy fighters continued to circle the skies above Nevil, pummeling every building, every structure. As the fighters laid waste to the city, the ion inhibitors remained intact. After the first ground assault by nearly ninety thousand troops, only a dozen Bulgar soldiers had been injured. Tresha was not going to be the easy target that the Durians had hoped.
The Swift continued to circle the globe, inflicting damage at a rapid but largely ineffective pace. The ships of the Durian-led fleet moved continuously, preventing anything more than the target of opportunity for the Swift’s computer to lock onto.
I floated over the city of Nevil, shooting at fighter after fighter as they swarmed about my position. The fighters’ size, speed, and weapons were no threat to my BGS suit. In the twenty minutes that passed between assaults, I had knocked nearly a hundred of the assault fighters from the sky. My efforts were hardly making progress. The fighters flew close to the ground, making themselves difficult targets for our ground cannons. When the next assault wave started, I was positioned in the city center.
The Colonel spoke. “Grange, a second invasion attempt is now under way. Do what you can to keep those troops from landing.”
I replied, “I have the transports highlighted on my HUD, Colonel. I’ll focus my efforts on them, first.”
I shot upwards and met the first of the ships as it descended. It was a Dakar destroyer without any troops aboard. As I moved towards it, my HUD lit up with the three hundred other similarly equipped ships that were falling in behind it. Twenty of the Colossun mega-container ships followed closely behind the tip of the spear.
The initial ships absorbed the ground-based cannon fire; explosions and fires raged across their decks, as they had been sent forward to lessen our initial blows to the troop ships. It was a strategy that worked, as the first of the Colossun android carriers settled in the fields surrounding Nevil, followed closely behind by a second and a third.
As I raced towards the nearest mega-ship, a strong ion bolt emerged from a mid-sized cannon on a Dakar ship just above me. The active skin on my BGS suit quickly shot to 70 percent capacity. The Durians had again altered their strategy. I now had to assume that my position could somehow be tracked.
I reached and disposed of the first mega-ship before the full load of androids could disembark. I looked at my HUD and shook my head as another twelve of the massive ships set down in the fields around me.
I raised the Colonel on the comm. “They just landed a half million androids, Colonel. I hope
the Bulgar have more than those mortars going for them!”
The Colonel replied, “Just do what you can to stop them from unloading, Grange. The Bulgar are in for a real fight this time. If those mortars aren’t effective, we expect half a million of those androids to reach those walls. If it goes man to man, they will almost certainly be overrun.”
I powered towards a transport as it approached the ground. It met with a quick death of ion destruction through fire and explosion. Nearly half of its cargo was taken out before it unloaded. The numbers, however, were quickly becoming too great for our efforts. The fields around me moved with soldiers as if a field of grain were being blown by the wind. I fired continuously as I flew towards the next ship.
My resolve was then emboldened as a familiar voice came over the comm. “Mr. Grange, this is York. I have Frost and a dozen others here with me. We will be assisting you in your efforts. The Colonel’s team is coordinating our targets; just follow the green markers on your HUD as the ones for you to hit.”
I replied, “Those ships have medium cannon on them. I took a hit, and my active skin was nearly overwhelmed.”
York maneuvered towards her first victim as she spoke. “The Colonel thinks that was a random shot that you just happened to float in front of, Mr. Grange. If not, then we will know soon enough.”
The farm fields surrounding Nevil were soon filled with ion bolts zipping in both directions, explosions, smoldering debris, psychological warfare, and war cries of android assault troops. It was controlled chaos on all fronts. The twenty-meter-high Tantric walls that surrounded the Bulgar-inhabited city stood tall against the powerful onslaught of android warriors.
As the androids reached the walls, they began to pile on one another using the ones standing at the bottom to climb towards the top. Three times I heard alerts go out as a wall was temporarily breached. The Bulgar were fighting a fierce battle that I would have only expected out of our own troops. This wasn’t their world, but it was their war.
AMP The Core Page 18