by Aer-ki Jyr
“Break through,” Boen clarified. “That trash heap is massive.”
“I’m getting reports that their infantry are carrying explosives in addition to the rocket launchers. They’re planting them in the heap and blasting it apart bit by bit when the walkers don’t have a shot.”
“That I didn’t know. You want us going after the infantry?”
“Not really, but if you have a clear shot take it.”
“Will do…you just worry about that super dragon.”
Mark spun his skeet around on a long loop, giving himself a moment to think before he flashed back into combat. The Nestafar had already landed a second mega walker and they’d managed to take it and a lot of other walkers out with their second nuke, the blast marks of which were still visible on the trail from the LZ up to the base, as was the remains of the giant machine. The line of ‘ants’ had moved to the side around it as if it wasn’t important, and now Mark understood why. He’d hoped they didn’t have a third sitting up in their jumpships to bring down, but apparently he’d been wrong.
He made a diagonal strafing run across the path heading back south, hitting another protomech then flying off towards the east as he came around closer to the LZ. There he saw the super dragon stretching out one of its enormous legs to take a step forward while the ‘small’ spiders and giraffes skittered out around it in a wide formation, forming a bulge in the ant line that was creeping its way out from the LZ and up towards the base.
Boen was right, they had to do something, and soon.
Mark flew in through the slit in the northern bay doors directly over a pair of thors and slipped inside the base along with three other skeets behind him. As soon as they got inside the doors ground closed, locking them in and the Nestafar out. So far the enemy hadn’t attempted another assault there, though they were making plenty of progress in other places.
The skeets flew across the cavernous bay and landed snug up against Star Force’s pillar and the refueling equipment that had been built inside it. Mark popped the hatch as the techs and a handful of grounded Archons ran out and began attaching refueling equipment to his skeet, both for the engines and the plasma, along with a third smaller one for the lachar that virtually never ran out of the scattering of physical particles included in the mostly energy cocktail.
“How we doing?” he asked Luke-593 as soon as he hit the deck, wearing his armor minus the helmet and gloves, both of which were sitting at the bottom of his cockpit in restraint bins.
“No mask?” Luke asked as they walked over and into the airlock while the techs were busily servicing the skeets.
“I’m trying not to breathe much,” he said, toggling the door closure routine and feeling the whirlwind of exchanged air to follow.
“We’re losing ground,” Luke said loudly so he could be heard over the noise, “but all fronts still have the enemy contained at the moment.”
“Found anything useful downstairs?” Mark asked as the sequence died out and the interior doors opened, with both Archons jogging off to the control room.
“Nada. We’ve pulled everyone back up save for two and a group of Protovic. All but one of the Scionate we had to divert to the auxiliary exits to hold them.”
“Tunnel?”
“Can’t get it sealed. Not enough dry time and their digger is operational again…or they brought in a new one. They keep cutting through or digging new tunnels around and we have to keep falling back. We’re trying to erect a larger blockade at the base intersection, but if we don’t take out the digger they’ll tunnel back in within a week.”
“A week I’ll take,” Mark said, walking in on a very sparse command staff, none of which were Archons. The shipless pilots and techs had a holographic battlemap glowing in the center of the room, detailing the conflict outside as well as the numerous ones on the perimeter of the base. Mark looked over the icons representing the auxiliary exits and saw the mass of infantry on the exterior.
“Have they snuck a dropship by us or are these units flying in on their own?”
“No dropships have deviated from their orbit to landing zone flight path, aside from the one the gunships shot down,” one of the techs reported. “No units have emerged from the crash site and no recovery units have been sent out.”
“Any progress on that third nuke?”
“No go,” Luke told him. “Not even close.”
“Damn,” Mark said, leaning on the holoprojector table. “We’ve got to have something to hit the big one with. If it was alone we might be able to pick it to death, but it’s got an army of escorts.”
“We need to get the gun,” Luke pointed out, “unless you’re worried about it ramming through the doors.”
“We can’t get a look at it without taking down the spiders ringing it.”
“We could introduce one of the dropships to it?”
Mark looked over at the other Archon. “I don’t think it’d get through, and nobody is making a one-way run, I don’t care how bad the situation is.”
“Their anti-air sucks, and if we build up enough speed prior to impact…”
“I’ve already considered that. And I didn’t mean get through their weaponsfire, I meant get through its hull. It took a nuke to crack the other two, and they barely got the job done.”
“Oh…don’t suppose we can tip it over?”
Mark’s eyes suddenly went wide as a crazy idea hit him. “What do we have that might trip it?”
“Sorry, no tow cables.”
“We don’t have to kill the thing, just keep it away from the base.”
“If you can’t stop their other walkers it’s not going to matter. They’re about through as it is and the Alliance fighters don’t have enough firepower to take all of them down. They only thing…”
“The approaches,” Mark said, getting the same idea as Luke a split second later.
“The starship pieces are too big to move, not that we could get them in there anyway, but…”
“…we do have a lot of dead mechs on the north side.”
“And a big Protovic transport to help move them, along with some others…if you can thin the herd out there first.”
Mark dug a finger in the Archon’s chest as he turned to leave. “Make it happen,” he said, taking one last glance at the battlemap and the incursions happening on the surface, then he took off to head back to his skeet, knowing it wouldn’t take long to get it refueled. When he got back outside he noticed, to his satisfaction, that a group of techs were in the process of loading two missiles underneath…but they weren’t of Star Force design. Another standing nearby came over to explain as the first of the four skeets took off and headed back out towards the northern bay doors.
“A present from the Gnar, simple release. We’re arming them now so don’t bump into anything on your way out.”
“What yield?”
“About 200 kilotons.”
“How many?”
“They had six stashed away, with the other four going on their craft. They were buried under debris, or so they said. I think they were just holding them back until now.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” he said, clapping the man on the shoulder as he climbed up into the open cockpit and resealed it as he waited for them to finish, coughing out a bit of the harsh atmosphere as the air inside recycled to get the noxious compounds out. While he waited he triggered his comm as he checked to make sure his fuel and weapons were at full power, which they were.
“Boen, you busy?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“Got a couple party favors from the Gnar. Not enough to do our big boy in but I should be able to wound a couple of spiders. I’m about to come out, get your ass in here and refueled, then I need your help with plan B.”
“Please tell me plan ‘B’ stands for bomb?”
“‘B’ for barricade,” he explained as the techs rushed away from his skeet and one of them gave him a thumbs up. “I’ll fill you in later.”
“Heading in,” Boen said as Mark lifted off and headed for the doors. The other 3 skeets were already gone, but the doors were still cracked open, either waiting on him or they’d just decided to keep them open until they saw an enemy closing in. On his battlemap he saw a few other skeets circling around to the north but he beat them there and ducked through the visibly narrow gap that drastically widened at the last moment, then he was out of the base and back into the sky, turning off to the right and heading along the curve of the mountain rather than flying straight over.
“Heard you picked up some bombs?” Kara asked.
“Be there shortly,” Mark answered. “Got some infantry to hit first.”
“You’re wasting them on infantry?”
“No, but our defense teams are getting clobbered,” he said, approaching the first site and getting a little bit more altitude sufficient to make a strafing run…except he didn’t increase speed. “Are you refueled?”
“Yes.”
“Keep hitting the protomechs, we’ll deal with the big ones when everyone gets cycled through.”
“Better hurry. That big one is slow, but it’s making progress.”
“I know,” he said, coming to an almost standstill over one of the exterior exits but retaining just enough of a drift to keep the skeet moving laterally to make it a bit harder to target. He switched over to scatter gun and fired into the assembled infantry outside and hit his anti-grav, rocketing him up into the sky as he pointed the nose down, keeping the gun in line as he hammered the Nestafar outside, knocking out several rocket launchers before they had a chance to fire and thinning the numbers of reinforcements they had to throw at the defense teams inside.
2
Mark came in on the spider walker from behind in a lazy dive bomb and released the second of his Gnar bombs, rocketing up into the sky immediately upon release, though he still felt the concussion wave hit the hull and rock him around a bit. When he eventually got turned around so he could see the result of the blast another of the Nestafar walkers was partially broken apart and now sprawled on yet another one of the paths through the debris field, blocking access to the hangar doors.
Several other walkers were damaged and knocked down, along with the scattered remains of multiple protomechs and a slew of infantry that had been in the blast wave. Never the less, three walkers were still battering the already breached hangar doors, methodically tearing away at the trash heap that was holding them back. That said, the flow of reinforcements coming into that location was beginning to grow thinner…though the bottleneck of walkers being backed up behind the blockades the skeets were strategically laying down was growing very deep, so much so that the fighters had to avoid flying over that area directly for fear of getting hit by a mass of random weapons fire coming up into the sky.
“Nice placement,” Kara commented.
“Wish we had a few dozen more of those,” Mark responded as he ducked down toward the starship remains and fired a few orbs into the side of one of the spiders near the doors, expanding upon a topside hole that the fighters had been pecking into it.
“If we slow them down enough we can whittle them to death,” Boen added, sensing Mark’s mood.
“I don’t think we can keep them off the base long enough to try,” he said reluctantly as the other Archon found his wing and dropped in cattycorner to his right.
“Got any better ideas?”
“I’m working on it, but if you want to steal my thunder and break out a brilliant strategy to save the day…be my guest.”
“Target the debris,” Boen replied pithily as the pair shot past an approaching giraffe and nailed it in the left flank that did little more than mark it as a target with a few dimples in its armor.
“With what?”
“Dropship with tow cables.”
“They’d be sitting ducks,” Mark reminded him.
“We have to block the inroads and we’re running out of time. Unless you’ve found some more explosives to use, what else do we have to work with?”
Just then he got a proximity warning, highlighting the area around the mega walker, indicating that it had just become a no fly zone.
“Who tagged that?” Mark asked over the comm, too busy flying and shooting to search out the ID tag in the battlemap database.
“Wasn’t me,” Boen asked, his voice clearly confused.
“Nor me,” Kara answered.
“Canderous,” Sandra said, having taken a moment to swing up over the base clear of incoming fire so she could look it up.
Just then a target appeared high in the sky, streaking down towards the planet and smashing into the line of walkers just ahead of the super dragon. The oversized missile detonated on impact and knocked several of the medium and heavy walkers aside while gouging out a larger crater. It was followed by another, and another, and another…all the way up to six missiles before the dust began to settle and the carnage exacted on the ‘ant train’ started to show through.
Mark pulled off his current attack run and got some altitude so he could see the damage, as well as comming the seda. “What was that?”
“A few basilisks filled with improvised explosives,” Orion answered immediately. “Thought you could use the assistance.”
“Tell me they were unmanned,” Mark demanded angrily.
“They were unmanned,” the Legat confirmed. “Coordinate locked and released.”
“If you were aiming for the big one you missed.”
“Unfortunately yes. Did we get any of the smaller ones?”
“You got a lot of the less big ones…I’d hesitate to call them small. You got any other tricks up your sleeve, because we’re running short down here?”
“That was our last tactical option, short of violating your standing orders.”
“Stick to protocol no matter what,” Mark told him firmly. “Death before dishonor.”
“Death before dishonor,” Orion repeated. “If it helps, it appears that they’ve begun recovering dropships. The last few enroute are probably going to give you the tally of the ground forces you have to overcome.”
“Copy that,” Mark said, slightly relieved. He’d felt like the flow of Nestafar reinforcements would never stop…and like the Legat had said, he now had a semi-firm number to work with.
“Boen, Kara. Looks like we’re going to have to rack up a high kill count.”
“Will do, boss,” Boen acknowledged.
“I’m up for the challenge,” Kara agreed.
“Three groups,” Mark ordered. “You each take one and we hit one walker at a time, starting with those near the doors. Opposite strafing runs, target topside.”
“That’s more like it,” Boen said, breaking off Mark’s wing and flying off to rally the other skeets to him.
“We work our way back up the flow and let them crawl over their dead.”
“And the super dragon?” Kara asked.
“We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it. Right now focus on keeping them off the doors.”
“On it,” she said, dipping down with another two skeets behind her and releasing a plasma streamer into the top side of a spider. Small bits of plasma shot back up at her fighter but they missed badly, then the other two came through adding their blue lances and damaging approximately the same spot, melting off armor but not penetrating all the way through.
“We’ll make as many refueling runs as needed, just unload on them,” Mark said, using his control board to call more than a dozen fighters to his wing. Kara and Boen were doing the same, forming up for a more focused attack run that would have them coming in from approximately opposite sides. He let them go first, holding his group back and circling around to a northern approach as he watched on the sensors as they moved in.
It took both groups, with each fighter unloading a streamer onto the top side, but they managed to break through the top of the spider’s armor, leaving it open for Mark’s group. Given the angle they were coming down the mountain and the small hollo
w the doors sat in, his skeets had to drift out over the target to fire, but the trailblazer brought them down three wide and directly overhead where they fired down onto the top of the spider.
The walker collapsed directly in front of the doors, its innards junk, while one of the skeets took a hit and went spiraling off towards the debris field…then it rocketed high up into the sky as the pilot amped up his anti-grav in a last ditch survival tactic. He was totally out of control, but the skeet wasn’t going to crash. Mark knew he’d be able to limp off, but that was one less fighter they now had to throw at the enemy.
Angry, Mark abandoned his group and dropped his skeet straight down to the deck and pancaked out a few meters above the ground, bracketed by debris on either side with a straight targeting line to the underside of the second closest walker to the hangar doors. He fired off another plasma streamer directly into the underside cannon, slagging it then rocketing back up much as the other skeet had before the walkers and protomechs in the area could concentrate their fire on him.
“Nice hit,” Kara commented. “Don’t do that again. They’ll be ready for it.”
“Less to pound on the doors with,” Mark said, though he was in agreement. He got his skeet under control and rendezvoused with his attack group while the other two were already making a run against the next spider in line, ignoring the giraffe that was in between. He also targeted the spider, placing an attack waypoint on top for his group to focus on, then he sped them in at almost reckless speed, crossing over the target half a second after the last of Kara’s group.
He released a dual plasma orb attack, nailing the top of the target while those behind him mixed it up, either firing their plasma streamers in a phaser-like beam that crossed over the walker or pummeled it with additional orbs. Mark flipped around quickly and went back in underneath the rest of his approaching group that had got strung out and hit the mech while its weapons were focused the other way, pouring a streamer in on a slow attack dive and crumpling the walker to the ground.
This time, however, the walker exploded along the midsection, blowing out all six legs like harpoons, two of which speared nearby giraffes, knocking one down and puncturing the other just below the neck. That one didn’t get back up, though the other did, with the walkers’ attention now firmly on the fighters and not the hangar doors.