by Aer-ki Jyr
Regardless they were fighting the Skarrons more effectively than the Nestafar had been, which gave her a little bit of comfort as she waited for the transport to load. Inside her compartment there was food, which she eventually started to nibble on. Everything was right here that she would need for the trip, with the introduction material on her terminal indicating that it was preferred that she stay put for the duration of the journey, given that there wasn’t room for lounging outside.
Shri knew that wouldn’t do for a long interstellar trip, but the compartment was comfortable enough that she settled in and distracted herself with watching what was happening outside…and within. There was a separate, live feed showing the boarding process, how many compartments there were, and how many were filled. At the moment there was only 2% filled, and she’d been here for more than half an hour already, underscoring just how large the Human transports were.
There were also ways of checking on who else was onboard her ship and even the others, with Shri looking up several of her friends to see if they’d evacuated already. Some had come with her onto this ship, she knew, but it wasn’t until she looked down through the lists that she found out which ones were where…and the fact that she could send them messages.
That kept her busy for the hours that followed as she had an ongoing conversation with two of them up until the transport disconnected from the water tubes and began to lift off. Shri paused her conversation to watch and mentally cross her fingers, hoping they wouldn’t end up getting shot down. Painfully slow the transport rose up above the evacuation zone, with her getting an aerial view of it all and seeing just how large it was from yet another perspective.
From there they moved up through the atmosphere with her keeping a close watch on the surrounding combat to see if any fighters or ships would be coming their way…but the trip up to low orbit didn’t see any difficulties. There they stopped, however, along with several other fully loaded transports and many empty ones under the protection of an even larger Star Force warship that dwarfed the ship she was on. It and many smaller ones guarded them as they waited, for what she didn’t know, but they spent many hours there…with her feeling a mix of anxiousness and relief, for both she and the others were off the planet they feared they’d be trapped on, but waiting in orbit to be shot down was equally vexing.
Ultimately her ship formed up into a convoy of 9 transports that were escorted out by the other faction that was aiding the Humans. Shri still couldn’t get an identity on them, but their ships had the same chrome color as their walking battle machines and they flew out to a jumppoint with them while others were intercepting the Skarron ships that were actively trying to get at them.
Shri’s heart nearly leapt up into her throat as a group of six actually got within weapons range and fired on a transport…not hers and the shields held, but it was still frightening all the same. Those enemy ships were quickly engaged while the transports moved on, jumping out from the planet on a brief trip to the star where they met up with thousands of others, most of whom the computer tagged as being empty and waiting for their chance to go down to the planet.
Only then did she fully realize the scale of the evacuation effort. Seeing numbers on a chart was one thing, but looking at all these ships here and knowing how packed hers was underscored just how big this operation was…and how much they owed the Alliance for doing this.
More of the alien ships were here, guarding them closely as a handful of Star Force warships also patrolled the area. Things appeared quiet at the moment, with no enemy ships in orbit…as far as her sensor feeds indicated. There was another long wait, one in which Shri slept through while her transport slowly docked with a jumpship, before the console pinged an update alert as they finally got moving towards their jumppoint in a much larger convoy with one of the Star Force warships escorting them out.
Her jumpship went first, followed by the others shortly thereafter that she was then able to detect mid-jump through their location beacons. It took a while for them to register over the vast distances they were coasting between, but she did see the warship bringing up the rear, glad to have the military vessel with them and even more glad to be out of the war zone.
Now was the longest wait of all, with them having to make multiple jumps that would take weeks to get to their eventual destination. Shri stayed in her compartment for three days before venturing out and over to one belonging to a friend and talking with her in person, as most of the other Elarioni were doing. Other than that she explored a bit, finding nothing but habitats and spending most of her time in her own and accessing the entertainment, social, and knowledge software to pass the time.
Of particular interest was their destination world, which she studied intently and happy to find out that it was completely a water world with no land for enemies to occupy. If they wanted to take it, they’d have to fight an aquatics war, which she knew her people were more than capable of doing.
The database called it ‘Atlantica,’ which she had a hard time pronouncing, but by the end of the trip she had it down well enough in her own dialect and was eager to feel its waters on her blue skin.
9
November 2, 2537
Hachtat System
Eliossa
Riona was woken from a sleep cycle onboard the TF and groggily ran to the hangar bay, half dressing in the hallway as she went and getting into her skeet just in time to hit the air along with a dozen others that met up with some 100+ Voku fighters a few miles off enroute to a fresh enemy LZ where the Skarrons were just now beginning to land transports. There hadn’t even been enough time for an orbital battle, with the enemy dropping into the atmosphere directly from their jumppoint and burning hard to get to the surface past the chasing Voku vessels.
Several dozen Skarron warships broke off from the group to intercept them, screening for the transports to get to ground and unload thousands of new walkers onto the planet a few miles off from the evacuation zone…and within easy walking distance for the machines to begin a new assault from. So far, after an intense first three weeks of combat, both the Skarron and Nestafar had avoided the Star Force foothold on the planet while they continued to battle each other in other areas. There were a few attempts to get at the evacuation ships over the two months that followed, but nothing that the defenses couldn’t repulse with ease.
As was typical, that was about to change. Riona blinked away the last traces of sleep from her eyes and focused on the sensor readings from the LZ ahead as she and her impromptu squadron tucked in behind the much larger Voku fighters. The skeets were faster in super pursuit mode, but she wanted to arrive with their allies because it was going to get messy very fast and the more anti-air that went their way the better. The Voku fighters were more heavily armored than the skeets and could take a greater pounding, hopefully allowing the Star Force fighters some breathing room to maneuver.
By the time the group arrived at the LZ there were already over 50 walkers on the ground and the fighters knew better than to try and hit them. Instead they climbed and stretched out into a long line, some 5 or six fighters wide, and struck like a plasma streamer at one of the descending transports that had four Type-3s suspended underneath plus who knew how many infantry inside.
The Voku hit first, pounding and breaching its shields as they shot past taking what anti-air fire could hit them as more and more fighters struck the ship enroute to flying to the far side. Riona’s group was in the back third of the lot and unloaded their maulers and what missiles they had on the target before zipping past and out of sight as the Skarron fighters emerging from multiple transports, most of which weren’t even on the ground yet, poured down on them and the Voku in turn turned their attention to neutralizing that threat as the transports continued to flow down to the surface.
Riona’s squadron turned back after some dicey maneuvers to avoid collisions with the Skarron fighters and dove after the now smoking transport. Alternating between short attack runs and flanking ‘sta
lls’ that allowed them to pound the craft from short distance the skeets added to the existing damage and managed to knock it out of the sky before it could sufficiently decelerate.
The transport rammed the rocky ground, smashing the four walkers underneath it and crumpling on impact, killing who knew how many inside. Riona couldn’t watch long, for the enemy fighters were increasing in number and before too long they’d be outmatched and would have to flee, but she was content that they’d taken out those four walkers…which would mean less for their ground troops to deal with later, though given the overall numbers the Skarrons were deploying it seemed that it would matter little.
Riona brought her squadron back up to the Voku and assisted them with killing several hundred fighters before the airspace became too clogged and they had to pull back, bringing the enemy with them and fighting an ongoing battle while retreating all the way back to the evacuation zone perimeter defenses where the land-based mechs added their anti-air fire to the mix and more Star Force and Voku fighters arrived from other locations to assist.
Knowing that they had to kill as many of the fighters now, while they could before more unpacked from the transports and literally choked the skies, Riona flew hard and aggressive, more so than normal in order to rack up a high kill count but the overreach eventually came back to bite her as she risked going back into the thick of the fray with too low of shields and got hammered by a group of Skarron fighters working in concert as the two Voku fighters nearby her went down and left her momentarily isolated.
She saw the vulnerability immediately and tried to go evasive, but too much plasma was coming her way and her armor could take only so many hits. A long loop towards the ground ended with her tail being blow off and her skeet hitting and rolling across the ground in a very pod racer-like crash, with the numerous flips tearing off what appendages the enemy fighters had left intact. The last few rotations banged her around inside the cockpit as the IDF lost power, leaving her dizzy and disoriented for several long seconds after the remains of the skeet finally came to a rest.
“Damn it,” she swore, grabbing her rifle, popping the canopy open, and rolling out to drop onto the ground as she fell a couple of meters, leaving her staring up at the sky.
Riona got to her feet and looked around, seeing the fighters continuing their battle overhead but at the moment it looked like they were ignoring her…as they should, for they had plenty of targets up there that could shoot back. When she turned around and looked towards the LZ the pit of her stomach sank as she saw their ground troops already in play and heading her way…both walkers and a horde of infantry preceding them.
She figured she had about 3 minutes before the leading elements reached her, and there was no way she could fight them hand to hand out in the open…leaving her one choice.
Riona walked around the edge of her broken skeet and took off running back towards the evacuation zone perimeter several kilometers away and desperately hoping that none of the fighters would try and make a strafing run on her. The striker armor that she wore would protect her from a single hit, maybe two, but fighter weaponry was much more potent than the infantry versions and this would be a very bad matchup, especially since she couldn’t fight back, but she didn’t have any good options. Staying put was a death sentence, so she had to run and run fast.
Riona activated the powered nature of the armor and took off in a flash, running as fast as she could in just shorts and a jog bra, with the heavy armor plates moving themselves to keep in sync with her body’s own motions. After about thirty seconds she reached back and disconnected her rifle and tossed it aside to make herself lighter and more smooth, recognizing the fact that if she had to shoot it out with anyone right now she was as good as dead…plus she always had psionics to use if she had to.
With that extra weight gone her speed increased a tick, plus she threw in a few Yetu bursts that her armor matched, with her watching the skies as much as the rock strewn ground ahead of her, choosing her foot placements ahead of time so as not trip herself up. Riona ran for several minutes with additional fighters dropping out of the air…most of which were Skarron…all around her, with several pieces of debris raining down and hitting her helmet, but fortunately they were no bigger than her finger, though if she hadn’t been wearing armor they would have cut her up for sure.
Counting herself lucky in multiple ways she kept running as fast as she could consistently manage, tearing across the meters of ground with a speed that most biped races could never hope to match and searching the horizon ahead of her looking for the nearest fort/outpost that would mean a safe haven. She saw several mechs ahead, but they couldn’t do much more than distract the enemy from her. If she was going to get inside it would have to be at one of the outposts and so far she couldn’t see any, though the battlemap said they were there.
She passed by a madcat that was walking the opposite direction and firing off its rail gun with a boom that shook her steps, but the Archon managed to stay on her feet and keep running, eventually passing two more in that particular star before she got behind them, feeling a bit better but still overall exposed as large dark spots began to rise up ahead of her. At first she thought they were transports leaving, but they held a low altitude and grew in size, coming forward towards the enemy and Riona seeing that they were not tagged on the battlemap for several seconds before an update was made.
That meant Star Force didn’t know what they were initially, but soon the Elarioni tags appeared just before their ring-like warships opened fire on the Skarrons behind her with what looked like Sammies but she couldn’t be sure. They were accompanied by huge globs of glowing blue and purple that looked for all the world like a glue spitter.
Riona wanted to turn and look at what they were hitting but she didn’t, knowing that she had to keep running to safety before her luck turned from bad to worse. Eventually the warships, most of which had an elliptical design to the rings, passed overhead with her able to see the sun through their hollow center, as well as the fighters that were continuing to battle it out at higher altitudes.
Eventually one of the outposts came into view and she had to divert to the south a bit, already with her legs burning from the effort but she didn’t care. She could rest later, and sore legs were a lot easier to recover from than plasma burns so she pressed on until one of the gates opened up ahead of her, allowing her to keep her speed all the way into the interior, with it resealing behind her and the bubble shield overhead finally taking her out of harm’s way.
Riona slowed to a stop then sagged to the ground, landing on her knees and breathing heavily. She knew she had to get to the command center and organize pickup so she could get back into the fight, but right now she had to let her body recover, for she’d pushed herself far harder than she’d intended to, with the adrenaline of the moment overriding her normal inhibitions.
“Are you alright?” a Regular commando asked as she came up to her.
Riona held up a ‘wait’ finger as she continued heaving, slowly pulling her breathing back under control enough to speak.
“Yes…I need…transport…back to…the…TF,” she managed between heavy breaths.
The commando nodded. “I’ll relay the message. Nice escape by the way.”
Riona nodded but didn’t say anything as she ran off, preferring to spend her precious air on recover rather than useless sentiment. She did manage to look up and see more of the Elarioni warships passing by overhead, prompting her to adjust her battlemap to see how much damage they were doing to the enemy…which was when she also saw large Voku ground and air formations closing on the Skarron LZ and their assault columns reaching out from it towards the evacuation zone.
This was going to be one messy fight, and she had to get back into it as soon as possible.
In orbit Paul had his hands full, but nothing compared to what was going on down on the surface. The Skarrons had brought a sizeable fleet escorting their transports and some of it was headed his way to t
ry and get at his own transports, which he was tasked to defend. That left the offensive portion of the orbital battle to the Voku, who were doing a remarkable job of it, but once again the Skarrons had brought with them a solid naval punch and were milking it for all it was worth in order to get their troops to ground…and the frustrating part was that there was no way for Paul to stop them, nor could he send drones down to the surface to help out, for he needed them all to protect the Elarioni onboard the transports.
He was relieved when he saw their own warships coming up out of the ocean and moving into the fight…something that hadn’t occurred to date, but as curious as he was to see what weaponry they employed he didn’t have the luxury of watching. The Skarrons were getting tricky in their maneuvers and he had to keep reshuffling his ‘chess board’ around the safe zone in orbit to outflank any potential runs in at the waiting transports, though some were already taking long range lachar hits, meaning Paul had to send drones out after those attacking ships to either destroy them or force them back out of range, keeping him constantly busy with only a moment here and there to glance at what was happening down on the surface.
There was someone else watching, however, and watching closely. More than a day into the battle new ships flew in, not coming from space but from overland and depositing a Nestafar army on the far side of the Skarron LZ, with them seeing a moment of opportunity to strike back at the enemy that was slowly conquering their planet. They had no love for Star Force or the Elarioni, but they recognized that they weren’t here to conquer their world and were defending only a tiny piece of it…and if they could use the confusion to put some serious hurt on the Skarrons then they were going to take the opportunity before they had to face this huge relief force on their own if/when they overran the Humans and their allies.