Star Force: Headstrong (SF72) (7 page)

When he eventually quit he realized he’d spend the
past 4 hours in the gym. He’d expected to be there half an hour and had to rush
several other training elements before reporting for mandatory scripted
sessions. He didn’t like having screwed up his morning’s workouts, but realized
that the tradeoff was more than worth it. He’d made a huge rookie mistake and
now was wise to it, with the ironic part being that he probably wouldn’t have
gained that insight if
Kleeva
hadn’t embarrassed him
with that accidental collision.

He’d heard stories of accidental training insights
from others, and now it seemed he had one of his own to tell. He liked that,
but more so he liked the increased capability it would give him, for he could
apply the same insight to other areas even after he mastered the head ram. It
was one of the unique combat tactics to the Protovic and he’d been feeling inadequate
for not being able to do it up to requirements. His scores weren’t high enough
to meet them yet, but it was just a matter of time now that he knew his mistake
had been countered.

Regardless of any sexual liaison with
Kleeva
that would result from this, his crotch knock had
been worth it. He knew he’d never say that in the moment of pain, but it was
now past and he still had his training insight going forward. It had sucked,
and he wouldn’t be living down that stigma anytime soon, but on the battlefield
things like that didn’t matter. Skill and ability did, and he’d just increased
his slightly, however accidental it might have been.

7

July 5, 2888

Ventrol
System
(lizard territory)

Treymit

Nephit took cover behind a boulder, tucking his
appendages in behind as much of it as he could as his fellow Bsidd did likewise
in four other spots. The lizards they were facing were being more stubborn than
normal and weren’t walking out to their deaths like normal. They had numbers on
the Star Force troops but not enough to really press the issue. Instead the
lizards were operating in hit teams that were carrying one of their newest
toys…a rocket launcher that did more concussive damage than shrapnel. Even a
direct hit wouldn’t take down Nephit or his fellow Betas if their shields and
armor were full, but that’s not what the lizards were going for.

The stupid explosives would physically move the Bsidd
they hit, knocking them over or even flinging them through the air when the
lizards shot at their feet. If they got a good bounce the lizards would rush
them when they were out of position, and the little bastards were getting good
with combos, making it necessary for the Bsidd to not group up too much and
keep to cover whenever possible. His team had two snipers in the back that were
working through the enemy ranks, so right now they just needed to buy time.

They had two Archons with their unit of some 500
Bsidd, and they’d ordered them into a defensive position, telling them to
turtle up and hold ground. Ahead of them was a lizard stronghold they were
trying to knock out, one that still had anti-air cover to keep the aerial
division back, so they were going to take it down the hard way. It hadn’t
occurred to Nephit unit a few minutes ago that the lizards had flanked them
with reinforcements and now surrounded them on all sides…hence the turtle
maneuver.

He’d fought in a few of these situations before,
knowing they were dangerous if they screwed up, but more often than not the
lizards would overcommit and turn their advantage into defeat. That wasn’t
happening here, for the little green vermin were fighting smart and chucking
rockets into them whenever they could. His armor had taken a gash on two of his
appendages, but his shields had reformed over it before it could get worse.
Others had also taken some armor damage, but everyone was still combat capable
so he wasn’t worried too much. If they were in trouble the Archons would tell
them what to do, and right now they were just holding ground as they’d done so
many times in the past.

A phaser shot skipped across the boulder’s surface,
blowing up a spray of molten dust as it passed and partially hit him in the
helmet. His shield caught it but he ducked down a bit further, having thought
he was too low to be shot already. He got a ‘hand’ signal from another Bsidd
across a gap and hiding behind a dead tree on the otherwise rocky terrain,
prompting him to curl up his appendages and roll like a ball out into the open.
When he took fire, as expected, he just kept rolling like a tumbleweed as four
others stepped out and returned fire. He didn’t see how many of the lizards
were hit, but when he got to the other side and took cover behind a rock near
the tree those there gave him a nod of respect, meaning that the maneuver had
been worth it.

Nephit checked his shield gage, noting it had dropped
under 25%. He needed to stay down and recharge, but the lizards weren’t going
to cooperate. A rocket zipped by his head and hit a boulder behind him,
blasting it apart and turning the pieces into light shrapnel that bounced off
the twenty some Bsidd in the area. Those that were now denied cover ran
multiple ways as two more rocket shots came in and physically moved three of
them out of position with hits to the ground nearby.

Nephit got slammed up against his cover rock by the
concussion wave, then a sea of green rushed into view to his right as the
lizards came forward and tried to take advantage of the situation, firing
dozens of phaser shots into the downed and disoriented Bsidd that were out in
the open. He and the others rushed out and engaged them hand to hand, with a
few getting there first and interposing themselves between the attackers and
their targets. Nephit came out into the flank of the group and took a shot to
the helmet as two of them turned on him just as he saw a
sammy
sniper shot come down and hit a lizard to his
right in the head.

It fell to the ground dead, with Nephit seeing the
det
pack on its back. He cursed and kept fighting,
realizing how he and the others had stupidly been baited into a trap…one that
their sniper had just saved them from.

Thirty seconds later half the lizards there were dead
and the others fell back to the horde that was waiting further up the plain.
They’d just been poked, not fully engaged, but he and others had taken a lot of
shield depletion and some bad armor hits. He was ok for the moment, ducking
back into cover as long range phaser blasts peppered the area, breaking up the
short-lived melee.

After a few seconds of cover and him seeing his shield
strength bar begin to creep back up his
comm
broke
open with some type of music he wasn’t familiar with. It was loud and obviously
a battle song, but he didn’t know what it was for until he zoomed out his
battlemap and saw a host of new icons approaching.

“Yes,” one of the Bsidd next to him said with
eagerness as orders from the Archons began to come through in the form of
waypoints and target beacons. The unfamiliar song kept repeating the phrase
‘back off, I’ll take you on” and Nephit liked it immediately, especially because
the orders were indicating that they were abandoning their turtle formation and
pressing the attack. He and the others waited as instructed until their
standard bearers came up in the form of an Archon striker that was not assigned
to them, but was probably one belonging to the Protovic that were reinforcing
them.

The battle song kept playing for several minutes as
they approach, with that lead Archon running out into the open where Nephit and
the others had just fought that brief scrap and setting his feet into the dry
dirt and holding position as the lizards peppered him with pink phaser strikes.
The next thing the Bsidd saw was a blur of red/grey armor flying through the
air past the Archon on what was probably a telekinetic grip, for the Human’s
arm went in the same direction as if he was flinging the mass forward.

Immediately Nephit got the order to push and he jumped
out of cover as the Archon beat them to the front by two steps, following the
Protovic he’d just threw into the group of lizards ahead that had been bowled
down from the physical impact. A red energy shield burst out from that Protovic
into a flat wall blocking most of the firing coming in at him. Those lizards
nearest him on the ‘friendly’ side turned and shot him multiple times but he
just held still, carrying a large shield emitter backpack as the Archon
telekinetically ripped two of them off him and the Bsidd shot the others dead.

Behind Nephit more Bsidd followed along with a column
of Protovic. They looked like Humans and wore almost identical armor to their
commandos, with the coloration being the only major difference. A specialized
icon flashed directly over top the Bsidd on the battlemap, with it
materializing on his HUD as an area of blue sparkles surrounding him. He knew
that meant to make gaps to let the Protovic through, with the smaller allies
sprinting up between them and running directly towards the lizards as the
shield carrier either lost his charge or deliberately dropped the energy
matrix.

Half a dozen of the Protovic ran by or jumped over
him, then weathered a storm of phaser hits before diving and ramming the lizard
groups head first and knocking several over per hit. Nephit and the Bsidd
weren’t far behind and used the disruption to shoot down some at range then
jump in on top of the others and fight them hand to hand using their plasma
rods. What looked like a sea of blue lightsaber blades lit up, six per Bsidd,
and began lashing the lizards with pointblank plasma hits.

As was expected, the lizards didn’t back down like the
song suggested. Those hidden nearby emerged and swarmed the Star Force troops
in what looked to be an even battle for the moment Nephit had to glance around,
then he was too occupied with the lizards on top of him to pay attention to
anything else. He fought them as he normally did, but there were rockets flying
everything disrupting their formations…though they had the Protovic doing the
same to the lizards with their own bodies. He’d never seen a Human fight like
that before, but these troops were and taking a hell of a physical beating
doing it. More than once he saw an Archon pick one up and throw them like a
rock at the lizards, and not all of them had shield packs.

Some of those ramming tactics paid off for Nephit,
because they set up kills for him. The Kamikaze-like behavior was something the
lizards hadn’t seen Star Force use before and it seemed to shake them up even
as they were chucking rockets and pouncing on anyone they caught out. More
Protovic were grouped up into fireteams and were assisting hunting the lizards like
typical Human commandos.

With me
, an
Archon said telepathically as it passed Nephit and tapped him on one of his
appendages.

A bit shocked by the voice appearing in his head
rather than his helmet, Nephit did as instructed and followed the Archon
through the melee and up to the front with two Protovic flanking him. They
didn’t stay there long, having to divert to knock down groups of lizards coming
towards him but the Archon didn’t stop moving and neither did Nephit until they
ran up on a crevice that ran between two monoliths of rock that stood 6 meters
high.

Kill them as
they come out
, the Archon said as he turned around and protected the
Bsidd’s
flank.

Nephit trusted in his judgement and faced directly
into the crevice that was barely wide enough for two Betas to stand side by
side, but he had just enough room to stretch out his appendages and swing
freely as he bullied his way into the line of lizards coming up out of a small
hole in the rock wall on the left. He cut down two with plasma rods and shot
the rest as he moved his way up to the hole as another quickly climbed out and
tried to roll away from him. The Bsidd reached out and jabbed it in the chest
with a plasma rod as another climbed out and tried to get away, firing a shot
into his chest section as it scurried to clear the hole.

Nephit understood what he had to do and backed up a
step so they couldn’t shoot out the lateral tunnel at him, then he used one of
his two rifles to shoot the lizards that had come out while he jabbed the next
one crawling out of the tunnel. He remained them, fighting furiously to knock
them all down and not let any through while the Archon covered the entrance to
the crevice…though he couldn’t see him. The lizards were climbing out so fast
he couldn’t pay attention to anything else, trusting that the Archon would know
what he was doing and Nephit understanding that he had to be the mauler taking
down this line of reinforcements as they were vulnerable coming out single
file.

It was a sweet spot for an ambush and required him to
rack up an insanely high kill count, which is exactly what he did up until he
ran out of ammo, but by then there were other Bsidd standing behind him ready
to take his place, for they’d already advanced this far and secured their
foothold…with the lizards below ground apparently unaware and still sending a
string of reinforcements out to a quick death as the crevice filled up with
bodies.

Jenran dove into a group of four lizards, hitting one
in the chest with his helmeted head. Rather than rolling to either side he just
let him momentum carry him into and over the lizard as it went down. He rolled
through a rough somersault and kicked out his armored left leg to catch a third
lizard, for a second had been bowled down by the first as it was knocked
backwards.

The Protovic didn’t even bother to try and fire his
rifle, clinging to it with one hand as he kicked and rolled, knocking down as
many lizards as he could until blue plasma streaks filled the air directly over
him and the surrounding lizards went down from the hits. Red/grey suits of
armor ran up to and past him as Jenran got to his feet and fell into line
behind them.

They didn’t have far to go to get to the next group of
lizards, with someone else pulling the same maneuver he just had. Using his
rifle, Jenran moved forward and shot one of the lizards that had been knocked
down while the others engaged a group of 50 or so situated in a circular
enclosure within the rocks. It was an ambush position but the Protovic didn’t
care, they just pushed their way in, knocking down the leading edge of the
lizards and ramming a shield carrier into the worst of it. That bit of tech was
one of Brad’s unique additions to the Protovic, which essentially put a heavy
cradle over top of the commando armor that made the carrier extremely
unagile
and incapable of most hand to hand combat…but the
tradeoff was worth it when paired with a fighting unit.

He’d said the Protovic were ‘headstrong,’ hence the
signature battle song he’d given them, and had crafted their ground combat
tactics accordingly. They carried more armor than Human commandos, making their
suits slightly
more stiff
while needing less internal
padding given their
exoskeletal
segments. And while
they were trained to be agile, their ability to simply ram their opponents and
not get disoriented by the collision gave them an advantage that Brad had told
them to use often in group combat while still training them to be conventional
commandos with a full range of evasive combat techniques.