Star Force: Proving Ground (SF66) (2 page)

Hemror signaled for them to form up into a moving
cluster and the biped machines began gathering around his mech, making for a
virtually impenetrable airspace above and in front of them that the wisps
simply couldn’t survive within. The 34 mechs kept together and walked forward,
heading for the distant wall and downing aircraft while their shields began a
slow recharge. They were still taking hits from range, but with every craft they
shot down there was one less phaser hitting them…until more reinforcements
began to come out and replaced those that were lost.

By the time they reached the wall the air was so thick
above them that they could barely make out the sun. Most of the mechs no longer
had any shields and were taking hull hits, so they clustered up at the base of
the wall and used it for some cover, allowing them to focus their
sammies
into half the airspace they had been covering
before, increasing damage against the wisps while decreasing their own
vulnerability. The worse hit mechs were pushed against the wall and mostly
blocked by the others, allowing their shields to begin regenerating and
hopefully allowing the group to eventually recycle themselves back into
fighting shape.

All the while aircraft were dropping from the sky like
bugs, some of which actually fell into the mechs. Some of them were quick
enough to reach up with their four mechanical arms and grab the pieces as they
came down, but others were knocked off their feet and had their armor damaged
by the larger hits.

As they were turtled up there Hemror and the others
got a course and a destination waypoint over the wall and into the city from an
Archon. Crazy as that sounded, the Calavari were relieved because they trusted
in the Archons’ judgement implicitly. So when the countdown ended and it was
time to go, the lot of them began hovering up along the wall and holding to it
as closely as they could while still taking hits to their weak shields.

Those hits suddenly stopped as the wisps were pulled
away by a large group of Valeries and skeets that roared in over their heads,
effectively plowing a path for them to move into the city, but one that would
only exist for a few short moments.

Hemror recognized the opportunity for what it was, so
when he reached the top of the wall he set down on it and immediately began
running across to the far side that was some 350 meters away. When he got there
he jumped off, using his anti-
grav
to slow him to a
barely controlled fall, during which he transformed his jamtror back into
fighter mode and shot off across the plain towards the city’s outer buildings
only meters above the ground.

He took some fire as he went, despite the disruption
occurring above him, but he made it to the outer edge with 8% shields left and
set down there, wedging his fighter between two buildings on a narrow street
and transforming back into mech mode. Others did the same nearby, scattering to
find cover, then they began marching their way towards waypoints that he and a
few others began laying down so they could gather in some larger openings and
keep peppering the sky in groups as they forced their way towards the lizard
tank and infantry armies.

In the blink of an eye their fighter cover was gone
and the swarms reformed over their heads, with a lot of them firing down into
the streets from directly above, but with most of the skyline now obscured by
the surrounding buildings.

2

July 1, 2755

Pagaliss
System
(lizard territory)

Varasiss

Flying low to the ground two Star Force drone cutters
skimmed under what was guessed to be the minimum depression angle of the lizard
anti-orbital batteries, flying in close proximity to each other and the
Canderous transport that was trying to keep up behind them. It was manned,
while the cutters were not, and already the swarm of wisps over the besieged
colony were starting to break their holding patterns and come out to meet them.

There were multiple units already on site, ranging
from the Calavari to the Clans to even a small Scionate team that had managed
to sneak in close to the wall and deposit a mobile anti-air battery, but it
wasn’t enough. As the hours passed more and more Bsidd signals within the city
were going down, and until the massive amount of air cover was removed there
was no easy way to get troops and mechs into the city with the walls blocking
ground access…not that it would have been safe inside either, for the wisps
were shooting anything alien that moved within their sight, meaning those Bsidd
still alive were holed up within the buildings and not on the streets.

Bringing a command ship down again, this time all the
way to ground level, was impossible without drawing fire, for it was just too
big to get under the necessary altitude, so two of the smallest drones were
sent with the Canderous transport being a mere afterthought. It was headed in
with a load of mechs, all of which were the remote variety that they heavily
favored and could be controlled from orbit. It also meant that they were
expendable and the Canderians intended to use that fact to inflict maximum
damage on the lizards that had flooded what had looked to be a captive city
enroute to being fully in Star Force hands.

The fact that the enemy had baited them annoyed
everyone, but the Canderians most of all. They were sending more manned mechs
and infantry units via other means, but fast tracking these mechs via transport
in order to get them there as soon as possible, though they knew the odds of it
getting shot down before it made wall were good, hence the quick rendezvous
with the two cutters that had been deployed at approximately the same time.

Those two planned to pave the way, all the while using
their strong shields and armor to weather the phaser fire long enough to
inflict serious damage to the fighter swarm. They too were expendable, so long
as their remains didn’t fall down and crush the very troops they were
attempting to save.

When the wisp cloud met them there was a furious
exchange of fire, with the anti-air weapons on the cutters opening up and
downing handfuls of fighters per second, but their larger weapons didn’t do as
much damage, though they were also firing them off into the swarm and hoping to
get some lucky hits. As the wisps circled around and engulfed all three ships
more
sammy
fire sprouted from even further away as a
Madcat
Mark III that was jogging towards the colony opened
up with its beefy anti-air batteries in the shoulder boxes and began trimming
more enemy fighters out of the swarm.

Still it wasn’t enough and the Canderous transport was
forced to ground before making the wall while the two cutters pressed on,
dragging a good portion of the wisps away from the
Canderian
ship while it unloaded its drone mechs. A few Valeries flew overhead, poaching
some isolated fighters then running like hell before they could be overwhelmed,
but the sky was still filled with targets and even more wisps were coming into
the colony from other lizard strongholds, meaning that for as many as Star
Force shot down there was no guarantee of them ever getting through the aerial
cover to rescue the stranded Bsidd.

That was unacceptable, so while even more Star Force
troops were assembling to assault the lizard city the
Canderian
mechs ran out of their cargo bays and didn’t even bother shooting into the air,
making a straight line across the sparsely wooded countryside towards the
massive wall ahead as the two cutters began firing on it with their mauler and
talon cannons.

Huge chunks blew out with the hits, all the while the
anti-air batteries continued to down wisps, dropping them over the already
cluttered landscape like dead flies. The Canderous mechs had to avoid those,
running a zigzagging pattern at times, but they still arrived at the wall
before the cutters had even gotten halfway through it.

Seeing what they were doing, a huge chunk of those
fighters still hovering over the city detached and moved on the ships, firing
so many pink streaks into the shields that it looked like the ship was growing
a fur coat…and just the one, for nearly all the wisps’ firepower was directed
away from the second. After some six minutes of concentrated attack the first
cutter dropped from the sky and landed outside the wall, digging into the
ground and breaking in two from the impact as already melted supports snapped,
but a few weapons batteries remained operational and the remote gunners
continued to use them to shoot fighters or the wall where they could.

The flock of wisps followed the drone down and
silenced those guns quickly, then they redirected to the other cutter while the
Canderian
transport ran for its life, already having
deposited the mechs that were themselves getting chewed up from the fighters.
They were firing back now while they waited to see if the second cutter could
get through the wall before it went down, but to their dismay it didn’t. It had
blown out a trench almost all the way through when it was knocked out of the
sky, with the
Canderian
remote pilots immediately
running their mechs into the gap before the mass of fighters could redirect
their attention towards them.

They held there, having trouble walking over the
blasted rubble, but eclipsing most of the sky and firing up through the parts
they could see to keep the fighters from just parking over them and shooting
down. Meanwhile three of the mechs at the lead of the group began using their
own smaller weapons to carve out a tunnel through the underside of the wall,
which eventually took them completely out of the wisps’ firing line.

18 of the 92 mechs were destroyed before that tunnel
was completed, but when they blew out a connection to inside and could see the
lizard buildings ahead the mechs ignored the fighters above and moved through
the gash and onto solid ground…then started running like mad for the cover of
the city buildings ahead.

All of the mechs were
thors
,
specially modified to fit
Canderian
specs, and not
the fastest movers within the Star Force catalog, but they weren’t slow either,
so the wisps only had a short window of opportunity to target them. They made
use of it, downing another 36 before the rest finally disappeared within the
city and scattered, linking up with the various clusters of Star Force troops
there that already had located the best hiding spots to stay out of the fighters’
firing arcs.

It was a costly delivery, but even one
Canderian
thor
was invaluable when
facing off with lizard infantry…though more important now was the gash in the
wall, with all other ground units approaching the city directing to that spot.
Likewise the lizards did as well, sending a mass of tanks to put themselves
into blockade and ambush position just on the inside, intending to plug the
hole rather than let the Star Force troops run the aerial gauntlet and succeed
in getting a scattering of reinforcements inside.

A group of Clan
Tron
ravens
ran up a shallow river in single file, using the waterway to pass through the
forest that was too dense for them to push through on foot. The transports that
had brought them here didn’t dare risk getting anywhere close to the wall and
safely dropped them off at range, allowing them to approach at their own
discretion while a multitude of other units did likewise all around the
perimeter so the wisps couldn’t concentrate everything they had in one
location.

This group intended to head for the gash if possible,
but right now they just needed to get close to the wall and the river was the
quickest way to get to the surrounding plain. When they eventually got through
the trees and stomped out onto dry ground they saw the smoking remains of a
hoth
nearby. Its crew had been pulled out already, but the
still standing corpse of a mech was a testament to the damage that wisp swarm
could do if they chose to come out this far.

They weren’t at the moment, and had only came out
after the
hoth
when it started carving up the wall
with its cleansing beam, but typically fighters couldn’t touch a mech with that
heavy of armor, indicating that both the numbers and new weaponry involved were
escalating this battle up to an entirely different level.

That said, the ravens continued forward. They weren’t
going to throw their mechs away needlessly, let alone their own lives with a
rushed attack, but they needed to be in position to do something if an
opportunity arose. Following that logic they continued to head for the wall at
a position about 50 degrees north of the gash, intending to play this by ear.

Larissa stood leaning against a wall, taking a quick
breather after killing another 20 or so lizard infantry. The Bsidd with her
were barricaded inside one of the lower levels of a huge building that the
fighters would have a hard time tearing down even if they tried. That would
give her troops time to reposition if it came to that, but it also gave them a
fairly large playground to fight in without exposing themselves to the air
cover and she was making the most out of that advantage.

The lizards were still pouring troops into the
building despite the number of entrances that she’d destroyed to limit the
flow. There was an abundance of killing necessary and Larissa had already been
at this for 19 hours. The Bsidd were even worse off, but she was buying them
some quick naps when she could, taking the bulk of the harassment raids on
herself.

She was getting loopy though and relying on her
ambrosia to keep her going. Her
Inas
ability had
sustained her thus far, but unlike in training there was a constant flow of
adrenaline here that added to the wear and tear on her body and mind, prompting
her to grab even a few seconds of downtime when she could, with this bout
lasting all of 27 seconds before she sensed more troops approaching around the
corner in the hallway 20 meters ahead of her position.

Pushing off the wall she gathered herself and aimed
her pair of lizard phaser rifles ahead as she jogged towards them, having
expended her Star Force ammunition long ago. Larissa pulled the triggers even
before the first one showed its scaly head, with the first little pink flash
hitting it in the armored chest as soon as it came around the corner. She
peppered the next two, which had their traditional armor vests augmented with
nearly full armor, leaving only their hands, feet, and head exposed. It stopped
a few hits, but the potent phaser
blurps
eventually
burnt through and took them down.

The trailblazer would have preferred just mowing them
down, for her psionics were being stretched even more than her physical body,
so she compromised, throwing a Fornax field over the group as they spilled out
into the hallway and began shooting back, then she ran forward a went hand to
hand with them. Dropping the rifles after a few more shots, she snapped more
necks than anything, eventually leaving a pile of corpses as she sensed more
lizards approaching from a slightly different area of the building.

“Archon, we have friendlies incoming, southern street
entrance.”

Larissa paused, expanding her battlemap and seeing no
one there…but then again these thick lizard structures were hampering the
signals to no end.

“Who and how many?” she asked the Bsidd.

“Scionate and 26.”

Larissa frowned, returning to a jog towards the nearby
lizards as she searched the battlemap again, expanding it out even further…then
she finally saw them.

“Cover the northwest lobby with a strike team, hit and
fade if you can’t own them. I’ll get the Scionate inside,” she said, heading a
different direction and leaving the nearby group of lizards to her troops. As
she made her way to the south entrance she watched the battlemap, seeing the
quickly moving signals hopping from one building top to another at a speed that
she would have been hard pressed to match.

There were wisps hounding them up there, but somehow
they’d made it this far and she was determined to get them inside, though
cursing herself for not having lugged a jump pack all this way, for there was
no way she could reach the rooftop in time using the internal structure. She
would have gone up the exterior, but without a jump pack her
spiderman
wall climbing would never get her there fast
enough.

Larissa came to the southern entrance, then
telekinetically started pulling objects off the debris pile blocking the
doorway before wedging herself into the gap and using her powered armor to
throw the heavier pieces aside. She really wished they’d found the Jumat
trigger by now, but as it was Morgan was still the only one to possess that
tier 3 psionic.

Clawing her way through the mess, she eventually broke
her through into the now nighttime sky and was met by a hail of pink rifle
fire. Her shields took a few hits, then a Fornax field took down the 30+
lizards waiting outside with Larissa pulling a pair of their rifles loose and
shooting them down with their own weapons, finishing just as the first Scionate
fell over the rooftop far above her.