Star Force: Evacuation (SF50) (9 page)

Ultimately her ship formed up into a convoy of 9
transports that were escorted out by the other faction that was aiding the
Humans. Shri still couldn’t get an identity on them, but their ships had the
same chrome color as their walking battle machines and they flew out to a
jumppoint with them while others were intercepting the Skarron ships that were
actively trying to get at them.

Shri’s heart nearly leapt up into her throat as a
group of six actually got within weapons range and fired on a transport…not
hers and the shields held, but it was still frightening all the same. Those
enemy ships were quickly engaged while the transports moved on, jumping out
from the planet on a brief trip to the star where they met up with thousands of
others, most of whom the computer tagged as being empty and waiting for their chance
to go down to the planet.

Only then did she fully realize the scale of the
evacuation effort. Seeing numbers on a chart was one thing, but looking at all
these ships here and knowing how packed hers was underscored just how big this
operation was…and how much they owed the Alliance for doing this.

More of the alien ships were here, guarding them
closely as a handful of Star Force warships also patrolled the area. Things
appeared quiet at the moment, with no enemy ships in orbit…as far as her sensor
feeds indicated. There was another long wait, one in which Shri slept through while
her transport slowly docked with a jumpship, before the console pinged an
update alert as they finally got moving towards their jumppoint in a much
larger convoy with one of the Star Force warships escorting them out.

Her jumpship went first, followed by the others
shortly thereafter that she was then able to detect mid-jump through their
location beacons. It took a while for them to register over the vast distances
they were coasting between, but she did see the warship bringing up the rear,
glad to have the military vessel with them and even more glad to be out of the
war zone.

Now
was the longest wait of all,
with them having
to make multiple jumps that would take weeks to get to
their eventual destination. Shri stayed in her compartment for three days
before venturing out and over to one belonging to a friend and talking with her
in person, as most of the other Elarioni were doing. Other than that she
explored a bit, finding nothing but habitats and spending most of her time in
her own and accessing the entertainment, social, and knowledge software to pass
the time.

Of particular interest was their destination world,
which she studied intently and happy to find out that it was completely a water
world with no land for enemies to occupy. If they wanted to take it, they’d
have to fight an aquatics war, which she knew her people were more than capable
of doing.

The database called it ‘Atlantica,’ which she had a
hard time pronouncing, but by the end of the trip she had it down well enough
in her own dialect and was eager to feel its waters on her blue skin.

9

November 2, 2537

Hachtat
System

Eliossa

Riona was woken from a sleep cycle onboard the TF and
groggily ran to the hangar bay, half dressing in the hallway as she went and
getting into her skeet just in time to hit the air along with a dozen others
that met up with some 100+ Voku fighters a few miles off enroute to a fresh
enemy LZ where the Skarrons were just now beginning to land transports. There
hadn’t even been enough time for an orbital battle, with the enemy dropping
into the atmosphere directly from their jumppoint and burning hard to get to
the surface past the chasing Voku vessels.

Several dozen Skarron warships broke off from the
group to intercept them, screening for the transports to get to ground and
unload thousands of new walkers onto the planet a few miles off from the
evacuation zone…and within easy walking distance for the machines to begin a
new assault from. So far, after an intense first three weeks of combat, both
the Skarron and Nestafar had avoided the Star Force foothold on the planet
while they continued to battle each other in other areas. There were a few
attempts to get at the evacuation ships over the two months that followed, but
nothing that the defenses couldn’t repulse with ease.

As was typical, that was about to change. Riona
blinked away the last traces of sleep from her eyes and focused on the sensor
readings from the LZ ahead as she and her impromptu squadron tucked in behind
the much larger Voku fighters. The skeets were faster in super pursuit mode,
but she wanted to arrive with their allies because it was going to get messy
very fast and the more anti-air that went their way the better. The Voku
fighters were more heavily armored than the skeets and could take a greater
pounding, hopefully allowing the Star Force fighters some breathing room to
maneuver.

By the time the group arrived at the LZ there were
already over 50 walkers on the ground and the fighters knew better than to try
and hit them. Instead they climbed and stretched out into a long line, some 5
or six fighters wide, and struck like a plasma streamer at one of the
descending transports that had four Type-3s suspended underneath plus who knew
how many infantry inside.

The Voku hit first, pounding and breaching its shields
as they shot past taking what anti-air fire could hit them as more and more
fighters struck the ship enroute to flying to the far side. Riona’s group was
in the back third of the lot and unloaded their maulers and what missiles they
had on the target before zipping past and out of sight as the Skarron fighters
emerging from multiple transports, most of which weren’t even on the ground
yet, poured down on them and the Voku in turn turned their attention to
neutralizing that threat as the transports continued to flow down to the
surface.

Riona’s squadron turned back after some dicey
maneuvers to avoid collisions with the Skarron fighters and dove after the now
smoking transport. Alternating between short attack runs and flanking ‘stalls’
that allowed them to pound the craft from short distance the skeets added to
the existing damage and managed to knock it out of the sky before it could
sufficiently decelerate.

The transport rammed the rocky ground, smashing the
four walkers underneath it and crumpling on impact, killing who knew how many
inside. Riona couldn’t watch long, for the enemy fighters were increasing in
number and before too long they’d be outmatched and would have to flee, but she
was content that they’d taken out those four walkers…which would mean less for
their ground troops to deal with later, though given the overall numbers the
Skarrons were deploying it seemed that it would matter little.

Riona brought her squadron back up to the Voku and
assisted them with killing several hundred fighters before the airspace became
too clogged and they had to pull back, bringing the enemy with them and
fighting an ongoing battle while retreating all the way back to the evacuation
zone perimeter defenses where the land-based mechs added their anti-air fire to
the mix and more Star Force and Voku fighters arrived from other locations to
assist.

Knowing that they had to kill as many of the fighters
now, while they could before more unpacked from the transports and literally
choked the skies, Riona flew hard and aggressive, more so than normal in order
to rack up a high kill count but the overreach eventually came back to bite her
as she risked going back into the thick of the fray with too low of shields and
got hammered by a group of Skarron fighters working in concert as the two Voku
fighters nearby her went down and left her momentarily isolated.

She saw the vulnerability immediately and tried to go
evasive, but too much plasma was coming her way and her armor could take only
so many hits. A long loop towards the ground ended with her tail being blow off
and her skeet hitting and rolling across the ground in a very pod racer-like
crash, with the numerous flips tearing off what appendages the enemy fighters
had left intact. The last few rotations banged her around inside the cockpit as
the IDF lost power, leaving her dizzy and disoriented for several long seconds
after the remains of the skeet finally came to a rest.

“Damn it,” she swore, grabbing her rifle, popping the
canopy open, and rolling out to drop onto the ground as she fell a couple of
meters, leaving her staring up at the sky.

Riona got to her feet and looked around, seeing the
fighters continuing their battle overhead but at the moment it looked like they
were ignoring her…as they should, for they had plenty of targets up there that
could shoot back. When she turned around and looked towards the LZ the pit of
her stomach sank as she saw their ground troops already in play and heading her
way…both walkers and a horde of infantry preceding them.

She figured she had about 3 minutes before the leading
elements reached her, and there was no way she could fight them hand to hand
out in the open…leaving her one choice.

Riona walked around the edge of her broken skeet and
took off running back towards the evacuation zone perimeter several kilometers
away and desperately hoping that none of the fighters would try and make a
strafing run on her. The striker armor that she wore would protect her from a
single hit, maybe two, but fighter weaponry was much more potent than the
infantry versions and this would be a very bad matchup, especially since she
couldn’t fight back, but she didn’t have any good options. Staying put was a
death sentence, so she had to run and run fast.

Riona activated the powered nature of the armor and
took off in a flash, running as fast as she could in just shorts and a jog bra,
with the heavy armor plates moving themselves to keep in sync with her body’s
own motions. After about thirty seconds she reached back and disconnected her
rifle and tossed it aside to make herself lighter and more smooth, recognizing
the fact that if she had to shoot it out with anyone right now she was as good
as dead…plus she always had psionics to use if she had to.

With that extra weight gone her speed increased a
tick, plus she threw in a few Yetu bursts that her armor matched, with her
watching the skies as much as the rock strewn ground ahead of her, choosing her
foot placements ahead of time so as not trip herself up. Riona ran for several
minutes with additional fighters dropping out of the air…most of which were
Skarron…all around her, with several pieces of debris raining down and hitting
her helmet, but fortunately they were no bigger than her finger, though if she
hadn’t been wearing armor they would have cut her up for sure.

Counting
herself
lucky in
multiple ways she kept running as fast as she could consistently manage,
tearing across the meters of ground with a speed that most biped races could
never hope to match and searching the horizon ahead of her looking for the
nearest fort/outpost that would mean a safe haven. She saw several mechs ahead,
but they couldn’t do much more than distract the enemy from her. If she was
going to get inside it would have to be at one of the outposts and so far she
couldn’t see any, though the battlemap said they were there.

She passed by a madcat that was walking the opposite
direction and firing off its rail gun with a boom that shook her steps, but the
Archon managed to stay on her feet and keep running, eventually passing two
more in that particular star before she got behind them, feeling a bit better
but still overall exposed as large dark spots began to rise up ahead of her. At
first she thought they were transports leaving, but they held a low altitude
and grew in size, coming forward towards the enemy and Riona seeing that they
were not tagged on the battlemap for several seconds before an update was made.

That meant Star Force didn’t know what they were
initially, but soon the Elarioni tags appeared just before their ring-like
warships opened fire on the Skarrons behind her with what looked like Sammies
but she couldn’t be sure. They were accompanied by huge globs of glowing blue
and purple that looked for
all the
world like a glue
spitter
.

Riona wanted to turn and look at what they were
hitting but she didn’t, knowing that she had to keep running to safety before
her luck turned from bad to worse. Eventually the warships, most of which had
an elliptical design to the rings, passed overhead with her able to see the sun
through their hollow center, as well as the fighters that were continuing to
battle it out at higher altitudes.

Eventually one of the outposts came into view and she
had to divert to the south a bit, already with her legs burning from the effort
but she didn’t care. She could rest later, and sore legs were a lot easier to
recover from than plasma burns so she pressed on until one of the gates opened
up ahead of her, allowing her to keep her speed all the way into the interior,
with it resealing behind her and the bubble shield overhead finally taking her
out of harm’s way.

Riona slowed to a stop then sagged to the ground,
landing on her knees and breathing heavily. She knew she had to get to the
command center and organize pickup so she could get back into the fight, but
right now she had to let her body recover, for she’d pushed herself far harder
than she’d intended to, with the adrenaline of the moment overriding her normal
inhibitions.

“Are you alright?” a Regular commando asked as she
came up to her.

Riona held up a ‘wait’ finger as she continued
heaving, slowly pulling her breathing back under control enough to speak.

“Yes…I need…transport…back to…the…TF,” she managed
between heavy breaths.

The commando nodded. “I’ll relay the message. Nice
escape by the way.”

Riona nodded but didn’t say anything as she ran off, preferring
to spend her precious air on recover rather than useless sentiment. She did
manage to look up and see more of the Elarioni warships passing by overhead,
prompting her to adjust her battlemap to see how much damage they were doing to
the enemy…which was when she also saw large Voku ground and air formations
closing on the Skarron LZ and their assault columns reaching out from it
towards the evacuation zone.

This was going to be one messy fight, and she had to
get back into it as soon as possible.

In orbit Paul had his hands full, but nothing compared
to what was going on down on the surface. The Skarrons had brought a sizeable
fleet escorting their transports and some of it was headed his way to try and
get at his own transports, which he was tasked to defend. That left the
offensive portion of the orbital battle to the Voku, who were doing a
remarkable job of it, but once again the Skarrons had brought with them a solid
naval punch and were milking it for all it was worth in order to get their troops
to ground…and the frustrating part was that there was no way for Paul to stop
them, nor could he send drones down to the surface to help out, for he needed
them all to protect the Elarioni onboard the transports.

He was relieved when he saw their own warships coming
up out of the ocean and moving into the fight…something that hadn’t occurred to
date, but as curious as he was to see what weaponry they employed he didn’t
have the luxury of watching. The Skarrons were getting tricky in their
maneuvers and he had to keep reshuffling his ‘chess board’ around the safe zone
in orbit to outflank any potential runs in at the waiting transports, though
some were already taking long range lachar hits, meaning Paul had to send
drones out after those attacking ships to either destroy them or force them
back out of range, keeping him constantly busy with only a moment here and
there to glance at what was happening down on the surface.

There was someone else watching, however, and watching
closely. More than a day into the battle new ships flew in, not coming from
space but from overland and depositing a Nestafar army on the far side of the
Skarron LZ, with them seeing a moment of opportunity to strike back at the
enemy that was slowly conquering their planet. They had no love for Star Force
or the Elarioni, but they recognized that they weren’t here to conquer their
world and were defending only a tiny piece of it…and if they could use the
confusion to put some serious hurt on the Skarrons then they were going to take
the opportunity before they had to face this huge relief force on their own
if/when they overran the Humans and their allies.

With flocks of Valeries following the transports out
and providing air cover, the massive ships unloaded the Nestafar walkers and send
them into the Skarrons’ grounded transport like several deadly arrows, hitting
their weak side with the enemy sluggish in response…and even then only able to
throw a few troops their way, for the bulk of them were engaged on the far side
and unable to redeploy fast enough even if they’d been free to do so.