Star Force: Survivor (SF52)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  But being constricted to 50 or so meters off the ground wasn’t fun to fly with and didn’t give him many options to work with when the fighters came after him. Fortunately he wasn’t alone, and in addition to the eight other dropships in formation with him he had a squadron of Starscream-class mechs flying ahead of them clearing the road.

  The flying mechs couldn’t rise up above the ceiling height either without drawing fire from the distant walkers, and thankfully none of the big ones were within range, else their missiles could have downed the dropships quite easily. No, Davi had a window and they had to take it now before the big ones did get into range. They were slower than slow but on approach none the less, meaning they didn’t have long to evac and he didn’t know how many trips they were going to get to make.

  The starscreams flew several kilometers ahead, drawing the attention of the Skarron fighters their way, some of which headed straight for the dropships, but the mechs landed and transformed into ground fighting mode and lit up the sky with anti-air fire, fighting the fighters safely beneath the ceiling height and giving the dropships a ‘safe’ zone over which to fly into the city.

  Davi’s Falcon took a couple of plasma hits to its shields as one of the fighters strafed it on a pass from left to right, but within a few seconds the anti-air batteries on the near side of the city opened up and drove it away. Fortunately the Skarrons hadn’t circled around to the back side yet, and the dropships made it safely inside the perimeter but not under the city’s shield, which had already gone down.

  The Star Force pilot landed the dropship in the one spaceport still under their control and which the ground troops were fiercely hanging onto, opening the boarding ramp and waiting for the first of the evacuees to come onboard. Setting the ship into standby mode he headed to the back of the craft, intent on packing as many people in as physically possible, knowing full well that there could be some left behind to die, and that thought was one that he wasn’t keen on.

  “We have to go now!” Chad Erri said, pointing to the door.

  “Hold on,” Kevin Pru warned, doing one last head count of the 7 year olds in this orisect. There were supposed to be 100 and he was damned if he was going to leave anyone behind. He’d already made the count once, but he was going through a second time just to be sure.

  “No…now!” Chad insisted.

  A few more heads…there, they had them all. “Ok, go. I got the back.”

  Without needing any further prompting the handler went straight to the door with the younglings following him two by two. Kevin waited at the back of the line to make sure nobody wandered off or stayed behind, following the last pair of girls out and reluctantly saying goodbye to the city that he’d spent the last 12 years in as home. He’d been working in maturias for well over a century, but Metropolis had finally become home to him, and this city in particular…but now it was about to fall to the enemy and he needed to push sentimentality aside. Getting his charges out was what mattered.

  He jogged at the back of the formation out into the hallways where other orisects were also evacuating. All the lines were neat and none were strung out, from the 20 year olds down to the hover sleds carrying the infants…which was a relief. The situation was panicked enough, but this was Star Force and not one of the holo vids. People knew their jobs and were professional about it, right down to the younglings. They were worried and upset, but they held to orders and their formations, just as they’d trained to do many times before. Repetition was key, Kevin knew, and he was gratified to see their training being verified in an emergency situation like this, despite the myriad of other things going through his mind at the moment.

  The surface streets had been deemed a ‘no-go’ zone, so Chad led their orisect down into the subsurface connective tunnels in the city and the line jogged their way across more than two kilometers before they got to a bottleneck with ground troops holding them and several other groups up. Kevin saw one finally be let through into the spaceport, having to run up a flight of stairs to ground level. Apparently there was danger nearby, else they would have been sent up immediately. That wasn’t a good sign.

  The younglings started to stir, having nothing to do but stand in line. They held position, but began talking and filling the hallway with din. That wasn’t preferable, for it hindered people’s ability to hear what was coming, but Kevin knew there was no way to make them be quiet. They were only vocalizing some of the same thoughts running through his head and he couldn’t blame them for that.

  It took some ten minutes that felt like hours before the next orisect went through, then two more shortly thereafter before Kevin’s and Chad’s was next up. When the word came he saw Chad hit the stairs at a slow run with the 7 year olds sprinting up after him in order to keep close. Kevin made sure everyone ahead of him made it, then followed the last two up himself, passing a pair of security guards in full combat gear and clapping one on the shoulder in thanks.

  They climbed some 18 flights of stairs before they got into the spaceport, with the little ones being forced to walk the last few. The line lagged but held together well enough, then they were up on level ground and moving through hallways, wide expansive courtyards, and promenades with the distant sound of plasma fire sending a chill through everyone. They were so exposed now that even a rookie with a rifle could have hit someone just on accident, and Kevin literally cringed as Chad led them forward and through a chokepoint out onto the loading pad.

  When Kevin’s end of the line came up to the archway that led into a short tunnel, he glanced back to make sure no one was following them, seeing an Archon sprint into and out of view far down the promenade. Glad to be getting away now and fearing for the others still waiting behind, Kevin focused his attention ahead and jogged out into the huge open air landing pad that fortunately still had its own shield covering it like a flat dome. He saw one dropship take off and move through that shield as soon as he entered, with many more on the deck loading people coming in from multiple entrances.

  The dropship they were destined for was halfway across the deck, making for another decent run with the younglings already fatigued from the stair climb, but true to form they held together all the way up to the dropship and hit the boarding ramp still in their two by two formation, with Chad stalling at the entrance and shooing them on inside.

  “Seats,” Davi said, pointing at the far end of the cargo bay to the forward section that was for passengers. The hold was empty, but the first ones were going up there. “Fill them all in,” he told the younglings as he escorted the first ones up and saw that they got seated where they were supposed to go. When all of them were taken he directed the others to stand in a corner of the bay, with their handlers coming up to him at the end of the line.

  “We have to pack you all in, like concert pack,” Davi explained. “Nobody sits on the floor, everyone stands as close as possible. We’re not leaving anybody behind if we have room. Keep them in tight.”

  Kevin nodded as Davi ran back towards the main boarding ram as another orisect came up, this one made up of 15 year olds which he directed to the left wall. More and more came aboard, with him stacking them in like he was playing Tetris. His route to the cockpit was obscured, but that didn’t matter. He had to get as many in here as possible.

  More and more came and he filled the hold with them, then squeezed a handful more people in that were not orisect. Hopefully this was the last of the younglings, at least. Everyone else in the city should be smart enough to survive a bit longer than they would.

  From the outside Davi triggered the hatch to close, making sure those inside were standing in the correct positions so they didn’t get arms or legs caught in the diminishing creases. When it finally locked up he found himself on the outside of the dropship and he turned and pointed to the civilians standing behind him.

  “I don’t know how many I can take, but come with me,” he told them before running around to a secondary entrance on the dropship that led to the tunnel neck betw
een the passenger compartment and the cockpit. He opened the small ramp and ran up it, pointing those with him to squeeze into the gaps in the walkways between the seats that held the younglings. He jammed as many people in there as he could, then added a few more in the ramp foyer and even in the cockpit before yelling back down the ramp that he could take no more and for them to back away from the dropship.

  Knowing that he’d done all he could he squeezed his way between those in the cockpit over to his pilot’s seat and kicked in the anti-grav, confirming that the shield was still in porous mode above him. That meant it would stop energy and light material from coming through, including atmosphere, but large heavy objects could pass, such as the dropships. A kamikaze fighter would get through too, or any missiles, which was why someone in the control room was monitoring and could snap a second shield into place a few inches over the existing one if needed.

  Making sure that one wasn’t up was necessary before takeoff, as was making sure their exit corridor was clear. He had to wait some 30 seconds on that, then he got the word and lifted up along with three other dropships, clearing the deck with many people still visible around the edges. There wasn’t anything he could do for them other than get back, offload, and hopefully come back for a second run…if the city and spaceport were still in Star Force hands by then.

  When he cleared the shield and returned to open air he saw many lurking white bulges reflecting the city lights in the dark that surrounded the colony, marking them as closer than they had been before, with weaponsfire coming from along the edges of the ‘safe’ side of the city as the Skarrons encroached and slowly eliminated the defense turrets along the outer wall.

  Wasting no time Davi shot the dropship off across the low building tops, darting between the taller ones until he passed the city edge and accelerated hard with the grasslands becoming a dark blur below him. Battlemap contacts popped up, showing Skarron fighters angling towards them but some low flying skeets took to them and risked an aerial confrontation, keeping the brawling close to the enemy in the hopes that the walkers wouldn’t risk firing on their own fighters.

  Davi silent thanked them for getting him and his passengers out. Enemy fighters scared the hell out of him, and he knew his own shields would offer little protection if they were able to hound the dropships, for his craft was the slower and he had a long way to fly, with every small shot adding up to a takedown kill. Fortunately he and the other three dropships got enough of a head start that the rest of the Skarron fighters didn’t pursue them. Once sufficiently clear of the walkers’ lachar range he elevated to normal cruising height with the atmosphere thinning and his Falcon accelerating in response.

  It took some 23 minutes to arrive at the nearest safe city/colony and even more precious minutes to offload his passengers. Once finished he got a warning, indicating that the zone around the target city was becoming too dangerous to return to, with the option being floated at pilot’s discretion given that they couldn’t guarantee air cover.

  “To hell with it,” he said, lifting off again. “Might as well take a closer look.”

  Davi lifted off and flew back the way he came, eventually stalling out into a hover a few meters over the marshy ground as he studied the battlemap ahead. The perimeter defenses were all but down, but a handful of the anti-air turrets appeared to still be functional. No walkers had closed on a narrow slice of the city, but there were plenty of enemy infantry there fighting some mechs who were guarding an overland evac route, with numerous vehicles pouring out of the city.

  “Ok, time to play truck,” he said, daring to be reckless and moving off again, this time towards the convoy route and floating barely 10 meters off the ground. He couldn’t move very fast that low, for there was a bit of elevation change that would have him bumping the ground, but he aligned himself with the evacuation corridor and got in close to the mechs, hoping they’d give him some air cover.

  It wasn’t enough, and a pair of Skarron fighters poured plasma into his topside shield, eventually breaching it with three blasts before he got near the intact anti-air turrets in the city and they killed one of them…which almost fell on top of his dropship. The other peeled off, giving him a straight shot into the city.

  He got a message indicating that the spaceport had been taken, then revised landing coordinates from an Archon that wanted him to put down on top of one of the lower buildings near the city’s edge. Glad that someone had a plan he could execute, Davi flew to the small four-story building and landed on an auxiliary pad…or rather hovered over it, for it wasn’t really a pad but a parking spot for hover vehicles and too small for his dropship. He lowered the main ramp and parked his dropship on the edge of the building so the ramp set down on the pad while the rest of it hovered over the drop off.

  This time he stayed in the cockpit to maintain the precise altitude and keep the ramp steady. He got on the comm and communicated to those ground troops in the building, instructing them of what he needed them to do…then a few seconds later the first of the evacuees ran up onto the roof and into his dropship.

  Halfway through loading he got a comm from the Archon indicating that they had gotten everyone onboard, but with a glance from Davi at his hold cams he saw that they had plenty of room to spare. As he raised the ramp he asked if there was another location they could pick up people at and he got a second waypoint…this one on the ground just outside the city walls.

  Davi blew out a breath, realizing how reckless this all was, but went for the second group anyway. He flew over the city edge and set down, picking up a host of commandos that were fighting a rear guard action. Before they were even all up the ramp he got the signal to go and didn’t hesitate. He moved the dropship forward, triggering the ramp closure, and took off towards the rear of the convoy that was now making good speed away from the city…with no one else staying behind aside from a pair of chewed up madcats covering for him, and they were now running in retreat as well as the enemy infantry swarms were closing in around them and bathing their armored hulks with tiny plasma blasts.

  One of them got hammered by a nearby Type-4 walker, but it didn’t go down and accelerated up into a sprint that threw off the enemy’s targeting enough for it to break free…then it started peppering the sky with anti-air fire as a quartet of fighters came in towards the dropship.

  Knowing that he couldn’t just sit there and fly a straight line, Davi pulled up and did a corkscrew to starboard, hopefully putting the fighters between him and the nearest walker. The part of the ship the enemy had been shooting suddenly disappeared from sight as he flipped the ship upside down as he continued to accelerate ahead and into a weave over the convoy as a few more mechs turned around and added to the anti-air.

  The underside shields on the dropship held up until a lachar blast from a walker penetrated them and vaporized half the hull armor. Davi completed the corkscrew and dropped back down to the surface, zipping over top the convoy vehicles and seeing two of the fighters go down behind him. That left two more on his tail, which a lone skeet came up from the ground and distracted, giving the dropship a few precious seconds to accelerate ahead and get a gap on them.

  That skeet blew apart and crashed nearby the convoy, with one of the enemy fighters surviving and coming back at the dropship. It was out of weapons range but closing distance again, with Davi squeezing every bit of acceleration out of the Falcon that he could…but seeing that it wasn’t going to be enough.

  He held out as long as he could, not going evasive and wasting precious seconds of their lead, then the Skarron fighter caught up to them and started hammering his aft shields.

  “Shit,” he said, pulling up hard and angling into the sky. The Skarron trailed them easily, continuing to pound the rear of the dropship and broke through the shields just as Davi reached his apex and flipped the aerodynamic nose of the craft down to the ground, with the flat top catching the atmosphere and braking it hard…forcing the dropship back and almost into the fighter, which dodged evasiv
ely.

  Then Davi used the one advantage he had and pulled on the planet’s gravity well with his craft’s binary drives, putting it into a descent so fast that the Skarron fighter couldn’t match with gravity alone. At the end of the sudden fall he braked hard and angled them back onto a course towards the nearest city pushing his ship for all it was worth and getting abrasion warnings on the hull, given that it didn’t have any shields left to cut the air with…for those had burnt off in the rapid descent.

  They reformed a few seconds later at low power and created the needle nose shape that added to the craft’s aerodynamics, allowing Davi to regain a bit of a lead on the Skarron, but it fell in behind him again, gaining rapidly.

  Fortunately there were mechs ahead, further up the long ground convoy, that signaled him to come to them. He gladly did so, literally parking the dropship in with their convoy vehicles and baiting the fighter in…with it subsequently blowing up and its shredded hulk impacting like a meteor nearby.

  “Thank you,” he commed them before heading back off towards the destination city and accelerating to amicable speed with no further pursuit.

  “Davi, you can be so stupid sometimes,” he berated himself.

  “I’d call it badass flying,” the Archon said, coming up behind him in the cockpit.

  “And a lot of luck,” he added, still not accepting that what he had done had been anything other than reckless. Fortunately it had paid off.

  The silver-clad Archon put an armored hand on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “Ditto. I only move stuff around, you’re the one killing the Skarrons.”