by David Edward
The disruption to the enemy frequency flight belts was intermittent. The Songbird units had to keep moving, and they were receiving attacking enemy fire directed at them from time to time. They could not simply remain stationary over a target as they would drop below the speed of sound, and even an etherreal could not survive the gravity forces of accelerated flight in a tight circle or with incredibly rapid changes of direction.
The Redbird flying wall came within hand cannon distance of the sputtering automatons.
The enemy automatons were not helpless. They began firing their heavy shooters, sending charged bolts at the wall of androids, but their aim was greatly affected.
Several shots made contact on both sides. The Redbirds gave the better of the volley. Explosions rocked the automatons, destroying them on direct hits and damaging them on a near miss, where the concussion from the detonation caused pressure waves to expand out in rapid devastating circles.
Smoke hung in the sky, and smoke trails hovered in the air where automatons had been impacted and fell to the ground. There were many different types of smoke trails, some straight to the ground, some a gentle sloping curve, some wildly spinning in multiple directions before impacting the ground or just shooting up into the air.
The Redbird wall accelerated through the smoke, and the remaining formations of series 8 units were still heading to the Opportunity One location, whooshing by enemy automatons who were continuing to have a difficult time initiating precise movements.
The Redbird squadrons had destroyed just under half of the enemy automatons in their single devastating volley.
X7 split off three of the remaining seven Redbird squadrons of androids to make a new pass at the disheveled airborne series 8s. They were already close and performed another coordinated volley of hand cannon fire, sweeping up from their lower elevations and attacking the remaining sputtering enemy from below.
The ordnance burst in and around the enemy automatons, creating loud explosions in addition to the constant oppressive sound cones being generated from the fast-moving E2 Songbird units. It was enough hand cannon fire to destroy the remaining eighty enemy units, which individually exploded and fell to the ground in a great show of devastation.
All at once, several hundred new combatants rose quickly from the forest floor. These were not more automatons; they were Baytorian shock troops in full combat loadout. Their armor glowed green with an energy shield, and they were using the same magnetic quick-flight technology that was in Logan and Odessa’s combat armor. However, Baytorian shock troop armor was much more advanced and heavier than what Logan and Odessa had access to.
At the same time, the small combat ship that had attacked the Thorik emerged from a hangar on the mountain area on the right side of the combat zone, the mirror to the higher elevation Opportunity One area the original series 8 automatons had launched from.
The ship had the name and registration on the side in common; it said Montus, even though it looked like an oldtech remnant otherwise. It was using frequency drives but was not affected by the E2 Songbird units, as the drive system of the Montus was too large and sophisticated.
The Montus slowly climbed and positioned itself in the middle of the battlefield, equal ways between the mountain range Logan and Odessa were on and the range the facility was built into.
Several things were now transpiring at the same time.
The wall of Redbirds reached the high mountain Opportunity One and were bombarding the hangar structure so that it could not be used to launch enemy automatons again. Given the power of the hand cannons, it was being obliterated.
The Baytorian shock troops were expert combatants, using their quick-flight belts to individually target the remaining Redbirds, the three squadrons that had finished off the automatons, and the three squadrons that were lower to the ground. The androids were not equipped with hand-to-hand weapons, so the Baytorians had selected a good strategy.
The individual fights would take a toll on the Baytorians, but their numbers and armor meant they would be victorious with only minimal losses in the long run. Something needed to be done about them quickly.
At the same time, the Montus reached its position over the battle area and hovered in place.
It appeared it was going to serve as a floating combat platform. The back ramp opened, and more shock troops floated out to attack the Redbirds from above while the original shock troops attacked them from below.
“Phase five,” Logan said calmly to X7. “Let's get the hand-to-hand Blackbird units in there now. We can initiate phase four after we clean some of this up.”
X7 nodded in the affirmative. “Yes, sir. I have labeled the ship Opportunity Two and the hangar it emerged from Opportunity Three in the CIC system,” he said, agreeing with the approach.
CIC was the Combat Information Center. Normally this would have been the communications hub on the ship for large engagements and the bridge of the ship for smaller engagements. What was happening now was a large engagement. It was a demonstration of X7’s effectiveness that he was able to manage the entire battle as the CIC over peer-to-peer.
In planning, a different flow had been anticipated and talked through. They were thoughtful about it, though, and had organized the androids so that there was enough flexibility in their strategy to adjust.
The sonic booms intensified as thirteen new flights of the Blackbird combat androids flew in from the reserve area, decelerating and joining into the fray from the battlefields left.
The combat android design was rugged and destructive. They were more than a match for the Baytorian shock troops. These were machines built for war, and they looked the part.
The Redbirds currently fighting were tough; the combat models arriving now as the Blackbirds were several orders of magnitude more durable and robust.
It had been Odessa’s idea to divide the two hundred forty combat androids into two waves: one with hand-to-hand as primary and one with devastating super heavy weapons as primary. While the combat models could equip for both types of fighting, they also had a secondary configuration, and it took a few moments to switch between the two.
The flights of Blackbird combat androids broke formation at X7’s orders and entered the melee individually just as the Baytorian shock troopers had, picking a target and accelerating into them with the sharp bracings trying to penetrate the armor.
The sky was full of hundreds of individual contests, such as androids fighting troopers in hand-to-hand combat high in the air.
The individual fights were a combination of grappling and short speedy belt bursts designed to target an individual, jamming one of the bracings’ points through their defenses to impale them.
It was brutal chaos.
“Land the Songbirds on the ship Opportunity Two. Let’s start to give them a second front to worry about. See if the Songbirds can capture the ship,” Logan said to X7, who gave the order over peer-to-peer.
They had not planned for the ship.
Logan realized he should have. It was an obvious oversight.
He knew of the ship, and upon escalating the conflict, it would be a natural decision to include it, given the offensive capability it had.
Neither Odessa nor X7 had thought of it in planning either, not that their oversights made the mistake any less dangerous.
Logan was angry with himself for not thinking about including a contingency for the ship.
“What do you think they are going to use the ship for?” Odessa asked Logan while he was still in thought.
After a moment, he answered, “Looks like an aerial platform at this point, although we know it has direct target missile capability, and it sent a couple tracking missiles at me when I was using the localhub. So, missiles, and at least two kinds of targeting arrays,” Logan returned.
“Sir, “ X7 said to Logan, “I am getting some latency in the peer-to-peer. It is not designed for over two hundred individual sessions. Not in real time like this, during combat.”
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“Send all the squadrons simple hunter-killer instructions until they can reduce the size of the engagement. Then we can pick central command and control back up,” Logan said back to X7, putting his hand on X7’s shoulder.
X7 sent the command.
After confirmation was received, X7 used this brief moment, since the battle had started, to crossload anything of real complexity. “Sir, do you want to destroy the hanger bay, Opportunity Three, that their ship came out of?”
Logan thought for a few moments as the battle raged on above them. “No. Not yet, anyway.”
Odessa spoke up, “If we cannot capture that ship, we may need to destroy it. That could block the ground-level facility entrance. That hangar may be our only way in if things don’t go perfectly.”
The battle had devolved into a disorganized fray.
While the enemy Baytorian shock troops were a competent and sophisticated field presence able to best etherreals and standard androids, the outlawed combat androids of the Blackbird wings were more than their match.
Logan knew his side would take heavy losses. He rationalized that the combat droids would defeat the Baytorian shock troops even though the Baytorian shock troops currently had the numerical advantage.
The Baytorian strategy of hand-to-hand was well thought out. It demonstrated an enemy that had combat experiences and could adopt strategy in real time.
It had forced the Redbird androids in the wall formations to momentarily pause. They had hand cannons and heavy shooters, which were not precise enough weapons to target the enemy shock troops from a distance.
X7 made a recommendation to Logan. “Sir, I suggest we repurpose the Redbirds to assisting the E2s in securing the enemy ship. They are otherwise unengaged.”
It was a good idea. As Logan started to approve it, a huge noise suddenly filled the valley.
The Montus fired a massive barrage of missiles at the thirteen formations of Redbird androids, who offered an easy target.
The missiles did not have far to go, and there was no time to react.
The volley was also excessive—several times the ordnance that would have been necessary to destroy all of the hundred remaining Redbird units.
This was not part of the plan. The Redbirds were no longer a distraction.
Smoke, rocks, and fire exploded from the mountainside.
It filled the air and obscured the view.
There was suddenly a loud ground rumble that started almost immediately after the missile impact. It sounded like a huge landslide, further obfuscating the mountainside that had already been bombarded and decimated.
“That’s not good,” Odessa said, looking upset.
Logan turned away from the massive blasts. “X7, we still have the Bluebirds, the remaining combat androids we were going to use for phase four. They are still in reserve. Order half of them to switch to hand-to-hand and have them land on that ship and get control of it. The E2 units are struggling up there.”
X7 nodded, and within moments, six wings of Bluebirds, half the remaining reserve of combat androids, sped in from the right side of the battlefield, closest to the Montus ship Opportunity Two.
This was the side of the rising luminary, so they came in with the luminary at their back.
The original plan was to surge the Bluebirds in the middle of the battle to create an overwhelming volley of destruction. The Montus had taken the initiative, and that was exactly what they had just done, hammering the Redbirds out of existence.
Logan, Odessa, and X7 had predicted the flow of battle but lost the initiative.
A counterstrike was still possible with the remaining units, but the enemy strategy of going hand-to-hand instead of formation to formation had disrupted the current strategy.
Things could swing back, and the original strategy might still hold as a final charge, but with only half of the number of units of Bluebirds given the new objective of taking control of Opportunity Two.
The Montus had closed its rear doors before the volley of missiles were fired. The sixty Bluebird combat droids flashed in with the sound of the sonic booms, landing on the top of the craft and starting to pull away its top armor to breach the interior. This was a brutal show of force by the attackers. Combat androids were perfect for this very tactic.
The Montus hung in the air. Shock troops were deployed from the inside of the ship, exiting from the bottom and flying around to attack the Bluebird combat androids who were on the top.
After a few moments, the Montus began firing dozens of missiles into the large aerial brawl.
They were scorching the battlefield, destroying both the combat androids and their shock troops in equal measure.
The missile fire rained down on the whole combat area quickly. It looked like the Montus had fired near everything it had. The volley was astoundingly violent, with missiles and rockets exploding in the air, on contact with a combatant, and further hitting the ground and blowing up dirt and rocks from the forest floor.
“I think they just fired everything they have. They are scorching the field, destroying their own troops along with ours,” Odessa said in an excited voice, more panic than optimism.
This was not expected.
They had not planned for the ship but would never have devised a scenario where the enemy forces started destroying their own troops in equal measure to the androids.
As the combat androids on the Montus pulled away large portions of the ship exterior, they were dropping into the ship interior from the holes they had created.
X7 reported, “We have breached the ship.”
Logan, Odessa, and X7 looked on. The battle had started off well, going as planned.
However, the ship was swinging the tide against them. If they could take the ship or neutralize it, they could regain control of the battlefield.
The combat androids were powerful, and if several could make it into the ship and to its command center, there was an extraordinarily strong chance of success.
The tide of the wider skirmish fights was slowly turning for the better.
Hand-to-hand sky fighting was a slow process.
The combat androids were winning their individual contests at a rate of nearly two to one.
It would be another few micro cycles before the numbers started to shift in their favor, given they started with a numerical disadvantage to the shock troops.
X7 suddenly frantically started yelling audibly as he rushed over to Logan and Odessa and yanked down on their helmet visors, “The combat droids are reporting—”
Before he could finish the statement, the Montus exploded.
It was an absolutely massive concussion explosion, blowing parts of the ship in every direction.
Several secondary explosions went off almost immediately after the primary one. Hanging in the air, the ship, slowly losing to gravity, started to fall since the frequency drive was destroyed in the initial blast.
The first of several pressure waves raced out from the center of the detonation.
Thunder-flashes filled the area between the mountains.
The ground shook, and the pressure from the discharge expanded out instantly in all directions.
Everything in the area was blown out or smashed down into the ground.
The trees closest to the Montus were vaporized. Farther out, they radiated from under the Montus in a circle, all driven flat to the ground from the pressure waves.
Logan, Odessa, X7, X4, and the E2 units standing with them were all blown back and pushed down to the ground when the first shock wave hit.
It was a violent rumbling impact.
Logan and Odessa would not have survived except for their combat armor and closed visors.
The armor was strong enough to protect their bodies from the power of the pressure waves. It was bent and broken here and there, but its inner core held.
The two Machians were violently knocked unconscious, but both still lived.
X7 saved their lives.
Regroup
Nothing happened for a very long time.
It became almost completely silent.
The wind did not blow.
The luminary silently cast its light and rays, slowly moving the day forward.
The facility in the lowlands was visible now, with most of the trees destroyed that had hidden it before the explosion.
The Montus had been partially over the facility when it had detonated. Parts and wreckage from the ship had collapsed over the facility and ruined it.
Everything was distressed and nearly unrecognizable. It was not possible to make out what had been structures on the ground and what was the wreckage of the ship.
The pressure waves from the explosion devastated the things closest to it the most.
One of the mountain faces, where the Opportunity One exit had been, was just a huge rockslide now. Nothing like the majestic landscape it had been before the battle. Just piles of rocks, big and small, and smoking gravel.
Series 8 automatons, androids, and Baytorian shock trooper armor, parts, and weapons were scattered everywhere.
The automatons and androids were smashed and in pieces. Some sparked, some smoked, some just laid there.
The shock troopers' remains were much more gruesome. After all, they had been living flesh and blood biologicals in the suits when they were blown apart.
The scene was grisly and messy.
Time went by.
The luminary reached its apex, halfway through the daily cycle, when Odessa finally stirred.
She awakened slowly, disoriented.
Carefully lifting her head to survey the surrounding area, she could see marks in the snow where she had slid several measures on the ground, ending up pushed back against a large rock at an awkward angle.
As she tried to sit up, she realized that she felt terrible and that every part of her body hurt.