Ep.#14 - A Line in the Sand (The Frontiers Saga - Part 2: Rogue Castes)

by Ryk Brown

  “And you’re happy about that?”

  “Son of a bitch!” Josh exclaimed as he struggled with his P-Seventy-Two’s controls. “I’m losing power here!”

  “Can you set down next to the Voss?” Loki suggested.

  “I can try!” Josh replied, struggling to put his ship into a hover to the port side of the Voss.

  Threat alerts sounded, which wasn’t surprising considering the number of EDF ships in the area. A glance at his tactical display showed that two of the Reapers had returned and were moving into position where they would have a clear line of fire on the away team.

  “Fuck!” Josh exclaimed, adjusting his flight control stick to slide his hovering fighter to move in directly behind and above the Voss. “Get your ass inside, old man!” he yelled at Marcus, looking out the side of his canopy down at him as he fired away at the last two shield emitters. “Are you guys seeing this?” he asked over comms. “This is where I get my crazy from!”

  The fourth emitter exploded in a shower of sparks. Incoming fire from one of the hovering Reaper’s guns, no longer blocked by shields, slammed into the ramp, barely missing Marcus as he scrambled to get back inside. “Aft shields are down!” he yelled as he entered the bay again. “Set her down!”

  Jessica fired away on the Reaper hovering over them, but the ship’s ventral shields had no problem deflecting the weaker energy of her assault rifle. “We’re never going to make it to the Voss!” she yelled as the XK set down a mere twenty meters away. “They’ll mow us down as soon as we hit the open!”

  “They can mow us down now!” Kit argued, rising to advance toward the Voss.

  “Wait!” Nathan told him, pointing at the P-Seventy-Two sliding in between them and the Reaper that was attacking their position from above. “Now!” he ordered as the Lightning slid into position, shielding them from the Reaper fire raining down from above.

  “Josh!” Loki yelled over comms as he maneuvered wildly to shake the four Super Eagles pursuing him. “Get the hell out of there! You can’t take that much fire for long!”

  Loki dialed up a short jump to get him just far enough ahead of his pursuers to come about unaccosted. He tapped the jump button, transitioning ahead a few kilometers, skimming the waves. Remembering Josh’s maneuver the first time they flew the Lightnings, he forced his system to switch to spaceflight mode, even though his grav-lift systems were the only thing keeping him in the air. He fired his pitch thrusters, forcing his nose upward, then jammed the throttle of his space drive all the way forward, jumping yet again a split second after he began to climb. Coming out of the jump, he throttled back his main drive, allowing his vertical airspeed to decrease rapidly until he stalled, falling back toward the ocean below.

  One last time, he fired his attitude thrusters, forcing his ship level despite what the poor aerodynamics of his P-Seventy-Two were trying to do to it.

  Another blast of power to give him some horizontal speed, and Loki jumped a third time, coming out high above the Voss, falling toward it with very little horizontal movement. He stopped forcing his ship to remain level relative to the surface rushing up toward him, allowing his nose to drop and firing as soon as it was pointed at the Reaper firing on his friend’s dorsal shields.

  “Holy shit!” Josh exclaimed. “Where’d you learn that trick?!”

  “Some crazy pilot I know,” Loki replied.

  “I’ve got six Eagles coming in from the south!” Mori warned, noting the arrival of the enemy fighters.

  “Forget about them and target the Reapers!” Vladimir insisted. “Eagles suck at ground attack!”

  “Yeah, attack the fucking Reapers!” Josh seconded. “Start with the one that’s pummeling me!”

  “Hang tight, Josh!” Loki urged. “I’ve got that sucker in my sights!”

  Mori swung his turret on the next Reaper, opening fire with both barrels. The target’s shields flashed brilliantly, and the Reaper broke off its approach, fearing the imminent collapse of its shields.

  “Deeks! Can you get a bead on those ground troops?” Vladimir asked over comms.

  “I’ve only got a twenty degree sweep between the aft main gear and the ramp!” the Ghatazhak belly gunner replied.

  “And the system won’t let me move the barrels from level while we’re on the deck, so the shots will go over their heads!” Deeks continued over the intercom loudspeaker in the aft utility bay.

  “I’m on it!” Marcus announced, walking out onto the descending ramp as he unslung the modified boomer from his shoulder. He glanced up at Josh’s Lightning as it was being pounded from above, its shields flashing brightly. “You crazy little shit,” he muttered as he raised his frightening-looking, quad-barreled monstrosity. He took aim at the group of soldiers firing at the away team as they ran toward the Voss’s still descending ramp, braced himself, and pressed the trigger. The sound the weapon made as four balls of bright red plasma leapt from its barrels was deafening, and the kick nearly knocked him off his feet. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed, surveying the enemy line. Six of the twelve marines were down, dead or injured, and the rest were ducking for cover. “This thing’s a beast!” he added as the end of the Voss’s ramp struck the ground, kicking up dirt and grass.

  “Uh-oh,” Loki said to himself as six more Super Eagles jumped in to port and immediately began firing on him. “Six bandits on me; gotta go!”

  “I’ve got him!” Mori assured him over comms.

  “Get out of there, Josh!” Loki commanded as he stopped firing and pulled out of his dive in order to jump clear.

  Additional EDF marines suddenly came out of the woods to their left, opening fire with everything they had, pinning down the away team halfway between the woods and the Voss’s cargo ramp with continuous fire. Had there not been a small rise in the fairway between the away team and the marines raining hell upon them, they would already be dead.

  “You got a shot?!” Jessica yelled as she lay flat on her back, bolts of energy whizzing only a few centimeters over her.

  “I barely have room to breathe!” Kit replied. “I’m going to try and scoot back a bit. The berm is a little higher a few meters back! I might be able to get into firing position and lay down enough cover fire for you to get on board!”

  “Negative!” Jessica countermanded. “You’re too bulky! I’ve got a better chance!”

  “Thanks for noticing!” Kit joked. “I’ve been working out!”

  “Just be ready to move when I open fire!” she replied. She started wiggling her body, pulling herself by her heels and elbows over the grassy fairway and back toward the tree line.

  Marcus continued firing his modified boomer, leaning into each shot to avoid being knocked over. But the weapon required five seconds to recycle before it could fire again, and the enemy had already figured out his timing and were ducking back the moment he stepped into the open to fire. “We’ve got a lot of people crashing this party!” Marcus yelled back toward the intercom inside the Voss’s utility bay. “I could use a little help back here!”

  “I can go!” Deeks suggested over the intercom speaker above the Voss’s cockpit. “I don’t have a clear shot anyway!”

  “Nyet!” Vladimir replied, unbuckling his restraints. “We’re going to need your guns the moment we lift off!”

  “Where are you going?” Dylan wondered, shocked that Vladimir was getting out of his seat.

  “You have the conn, Mister Bindi,” Vladimir informed him as he headed aft.

  “What?” Dylan looked about, uncertain of what to think. “Oh, this is really not good.”

  After being hit repeatedly by the Voss’s topside plasma cannon, the Reaper pounding Josh had no choice but to move off, its shields rapidly weakening.

  “YES!” Josh exclaimed, noticing that the Reaper was turning away. But it was not soon enough, as their last few shots collapsed his shields and tore into the side
of his ship. “NO!” he yelled as his ship bucked and slid to the left, falling rapidly.

  Josh glanced outside, seeing that he was about to slam into the Voss’s aft ramp, possibly killing Marcus in the process. He yanked his flight control stick back as hard as he could, jamming the grav-lift power slider to the maximum with his other hand, hoping to get one last bit of lift to get him past the ramp below.

  There was a loud thud; his nose bouncing upward slightly, followed by the sound of metal being torn apart.

  Hearing the sounds of grav-lift systems straining, Jessica paused her reverse crawl just long enough to glance back toward the Voss as Josh’s P-Seventy-Two bounced off the ramp and then slammed into the ground on the other side.

  “GO!” she yelled, rolling over and rising to her feet. As unfortunate as Josh’s crash was, it gave them the cover they needed to reach the Voss.

  Vlad stumbled into the utility bay, nearly knocked off his feet by the collision. He saw the bent ramp, and Marcus struggling to get back on his feet. “What the hell happened?” Vladimir asked as he grabbed an assault rifle from one of the Ghatazhak weapons lockers.

  “My kid tried to kill me!” Marcus grumbled, climbing back to his feet.

  Vladimir ran past Marcus, weapon in hand, spotting Nathan, Kit, and a woman he did not recognize, climbing to their feet. To his right was the crashed P-Seventy-Two with Jessica running toward it, firing over the downed fighter’s nose at the marines on the far side.

  Bolts of energy zinged past him, a few of them slamming into the hull above his head, causing Vladimir to flinch. “Cover fire left!” He ordered Marcus as he himself went to the right, raising his weapon and opening fire.

  Josh pulled at the canopy release lever, but nothing happened. To his left, EDF marines were rising from their cover, moving toward him with weapons firing. Although the Lightning’s shields were gone, her hull was at least lightly armored and had a reflective coating, causing lower-powered energy weapons to ricochet off its surface when struck at oblique angles. Unfortunately, his attackers would soon realize this and fire at the surfaces of his ship that represented right angles, at which point it would only take a few hits to penetrate his hull and find his unprotected body.

  Josh furiously slapped at the underside of his canopy with both hands as bolts of energy slammed into his port side.

  A knock came on his right side, surprising him. Outside was Jessica, saying something he couldn’t hear as she motioned for him to get down.

  “MARCUS!” Jessica yelled toward the Voss’s battered ramp. When Marcus turned to her, she pointed at the canopy. “IT WON’T OPEN!”

  Marcus squinted as bolts of energy whizzed about in all directions. “The hell it won’t!” he said, raising his quad-barreled boomer to take aim. “DUCK, GIRL!”

  Jessica jumped down from the side of the crashed P-Seventy-Two, dropping facedown on the ground as Marcus fired. Marcus’s aim was dead on, and all four balls of bright-red energy slammed into the side of the Lightning’s hull and its canopy.

  The hull tore open, and the starboard side of the transparent aluminum canopy was blown open.

  Jessica waited just long enough for the rain of debris to end, then jumped back up to her feet, moving forward just enough to be able to resume firing over the top of the P-Seventy-Two’s nose. “Get your ass to the Voss!” she instructed Josh.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Josh exclaimed, sitting up and seeing the damage to the side of his canopy. He quickly climbed through the jagged hole, falling face-first down the starboard side of his fighter. “You crazy old fart!” he yelled at Marcus. “You just about blew my fucking head off!” he added as he climbed to his feet and headed for the ramp.

  Marcus ignored him, turning back to the left to reengage the enemy on the Voss’s starboard side.

  “Buistra!” Vladimir urged as he laid down a continuous rain of cover fire toward the marines on their port side.

  Nathan knew enough Russian to get his meaning and ran with all his might to get to the ramp, dragging Lynne along as bolts of energy slammed into the ground around them.

  Dylan’s eyes darted nervously between the aft camera views, his shield strength display, and the tactical display, all the while chanting, “This is not good, this is not good.”

  Another threat alarm sounded, grabbing his singular focus. “Oh shit. INCOMING MISSILES!” he yelled over the intercom as he grabbed the controls to lift off.

  “Which direction!” Mori demanded over the intercom.

  “Twenty degrees off our starboard bow!” Dylan replied, his eyes back to the tactical display. “Four of them, skimming the ocean, ten clicks and closing fast!”

  “I’m on it!” Mori announced, swinging his turret away from the incoming Reapers toward the missiles instead.

  “Jesus! Get this bucket off the ground so I can shoot something!” Brill complained in frustration from the belly turret.

  “We’ve got to lift off!” Dylan exclaimed.

  “Relax, kid,” Mori said as he opened fire, dropping the first missile in seconds. “It’s just a few missiles.”

  “Relax? Are you kidding me?”

  Vladimir moved down the ramp, sidestepping as he continued firing, handing his weapon to Nathan and grabbing the woman he was dragging along to help her up the ramp.

  “One down!” Brill reported over the intercom.

  “Vlad, Lynne!” Nathan yelled as he turned to open fire. “Lynne, meet Vlad!”

  Lynne said nothing, only staring up at the big man’s eyes as he helped her up the ramp.

  “You’re safe now,” Vladimir assured her, guiding her all the way to the forward bulkhead. “Stay here,” he added, reaching into the weapons locker to grab another assault rifle.

  “Two down!”

  “TIME TO GO!” Nathan yelled from the ramp as he fired over Jessica’s head at the marines charging toward them. Two blue-white flashes lit up the ramp, the shock wave from the displaced air nearly knocking Nathan off his feet. He stopped firing for a moment, looking up at a pair of combat shuttles, their guns rotating around to open fire on his position.

  “LOOK OUT!” Nathan yelled, diving for cover.

  The weapons on the underside of the two shuttles opened fire, blowing additional chunks out of the Voss’s ramp and tearing up her hull around the entrance to her utility bay.

  Josh rolled to his left, taking cover under the Voss as bolts of energy ripped into the ground where he had been only a moment ago.

  Jessica scrambled back to her feet, having been caught off guard by the displacement wave. She raised her weapon and opened fire at the shuttles, but it bounced off their ventral shields, barely making them flash.

  Another blue-white flash appeared, this time on the far side and slightly above the newly arrived shuttles. She almost didn’t see it, her view obscured by the airships raining hell upon them. But somehow she knew it was there, and she knew who it was.

  Loki’s targeting screen turned green, and he pressed the button on his flight control stick, sending the last of his mini-rockets streaking forward toward the unsuspecting combat shuttles. As soon as the rockets struck the shuttles’ shields, he opened fire with his wing cannons, continuing his dive as Super Eagles in all directions turned to intercept him.

  One of the combat shuttles lost its shields, emitters across its topside erupting in a shower of sparks. Without protection, the shower of energy bolts cut through its hull with ease, igniting the explosive and flammable parts within.

  The shuttle broke apart, falling to the surface and exploding on impact.

  Kit stepped onto the ramp, shifting his fire from starboard to port now that the crashed combat shuttle was providing cover to the right of the Voss.

  “Gospadee!” Vladimir exclaimed, shielding his face from the heat of the secondary explosions within the combat shuttle’s wreckage.


  The second shuttle, also about to lose its shields, had no choice but to veer off, jumping clear seconds later.

  More threat alerts sounded as additional missiles appeared ten kilometers out, but from the port forward quarter this time. “More missiles!” Dylan warned as he started to ease the lift throttles forward, readying the ship for liftoff.

  “Not yet!” Vladimir insisted.

  “We’ve got to go!”

  “NOT YET!” Vladimir repeated sternly.

  “Jesus, this is so much worse than not good!”

  “WE’VE GOT TO GO NOW!” Nathan yelled from the ramp.

  Josh crawled back out from under the Voss, running around the end of the ramp and climbing up as Jessica walked backwards behind him, firing away at the approaching marines.

  Loki’s Lightning bounced violently, warning alarms sounding as his shields failed. He pressed his jump button, but nothing happened. He immediately put his fighter into a steep dive, heading for the deck in an effort to shake the Super Eagles pursuing him.

  Altering his course radically, he dropped down to just below treetop level, guiding his ship down a snaking path between two bands of woods. As he had hoped, the EDF fighters were not interested in the additional risk the trees presented. Their target would have to emerge in seconds, at which point they could drop in on his six again and finish him off.

  Ahead of him was the Voss, energy weapons fire flying in all directions. Beyond it, more trees, another fairway, and then mountains. He would have to either climb to clear the mountains and be in the pursuing Super Eagles’ sights, or decelerate sharply and stay within the LZ, circling the Voss and attacking ground targets.

  Unfortunately, he would not last long without shields, even against the less powerful weapons carried by EDF marines. He had to get his jump drive working, or he would have to land and get to the Voss on foot.