Star Force: Survivor (SF52) (2 page)

“You ready?” Peter asked.

“Always,” he answered, seeing that he was seated on
the opposite half almost all the way up to the back.

“We’re going to have to find each other pretty quick.
There’s plenty of elite Skarrons in play, and we can’t get caught isolated.”

“Not that it’d matter,” Rio commented, knowing that by
‘elite’ Peter meant the armored versions of the quadrupeds that more resembled
walking tanks than infantry.

“It matters in how quickly we take them down.”

“Point. I’ll make sure I find your beacon.”

“Make it fast, I’ve got skirmish orders and we can’t
wait around.”

“Copy that, Pete.”

His squad commander cut the link, cycling around to
other members of the 13 commandos that would be working in conjunction with
each other. The ‘squad’ was a flexible designator and could have any number of
infantry, including Knights or others. Peter had been Rio’s squad commander for
about 2/3rds of his time with the 18th and the 308 year old commando certainly
knew his stuff…not to mention he was stronger and faster than Rio, so much so
that he looked up to the guy like a big brother.

When the armadillo eventually set down Rio and the
others exited the seats in a fast, organized flow by rows with none of the
craziness that would have resulted had there been civilians here. Commandos
moved with each other, never as a random crowd. Rio gave others just enough
space to get by while keeping tucked close to maximize available space for
others to move through as they debarked via a series of ramps into a thick,
moist atmosphere with tuffs of fog that covered the ground in places…but with
the sun overhead coming down brightly, making for an eerie feel.

Rio switched to one of his scanning modes, with the
fog cover being pierced by an overlay onto his normal vision. He immediately
felt better, knowing that no enemy was going to be able to use the ground
clouds to get the jump on him…then he groaned as soon as his boots hit the soil
and sunk in about two inches.

They had landed in a swamp. That would slow them down,
but so too the enemy…and probably more them given the commandos’ agility and
overall lightness on their feet.

Rio got the beacon from Peter on his battlemap in the
form of a moving waypoint as the other commando moved off and out from the units
assembling around the armadillo and safeguarding it from any attempt to board
or sabotage by Skarron infantry. Soon Rio broke out and away from the others,
running around a scattering of trees and passing through a thick cloud with one
other commando on his flank until they both met up with Peter inside a thicker
area of trees.

He fell into position with them, focus turned outward
as they slowly walked forward as the others gradually caught up. When all 13
were there they took off running, with no words being exchanged. No ‘good
lucks’ or ‘be
carefuls
’ were needed. They were
experienced warriors who knew the score and didn’t want to give the enemy so
much as one extra second of preparation that needless talk would consume.

Like ghosts moving through the foggy swamp Rio’s squad
moved off to an area in between the entrenched Skarron forces inside a captured
mining outpost and the armadillo that the bulk of the troops would be coming
through. Ahead there was already fighting as a couple of stars of mechs were
engaging the trio of Skarron walkers, with a large infantry battle was
occurring on the far side.

The armadillo had landed in a position to backdoor
them and Rio’s squad was pushing hard ahead to clear the way for their coming,
with the commando already spotting a couple of Hobbit scouts nearby. His squad
split up, intending to come at them from different angles and get their first
kills without slowing their run.

18 seconds later they were down and the commandos
moved on, scouting ahead and prepping the way ahead for the heavy hitters with
Knight
escorts
to come through and into the outpost
perimeter without any surprises.

2

October 21, 2548

Reesi
System

Metropolis

Davi
Jameson kept the
dropship low to the ground with the Falcon skimming the tall marshy grassland
as numerous Skarron walkers were visible on the horizon, some of which were
spewing tiny white dots in the dim light of evening, but too few. The perimeter
defenses of the city ahead were all but down, leaving a nasty fight on the
interior that was slowly becoming a losing effort. Further ahead on the
battlemap but out of visual range for the moment, more enemy walkers were
approaching as the horde of ground troops they had on planet was slowly making
its way across the largest of three flat continents.

Already two cities had fallen, with this one looking
like it was about to be the third.
Davi’s
mission was
straightforward but dangerous…get to the city and evac personnel. Trouble was
,
Skarron walkers dominated the local airspace. The few
fighters they had in the air flew about with impunity, for anything that Star
Force sent into region would be shot down almost instantly by the heavy
anti-air capability that the huge walking machines carried…but he knew there
was a window of opportunity low to the ground. Their anti-air had a ceiling
limit, and if he could stay under that he could theoretically get into the city
and out again.

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 between 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.