|
|
New World Order
Start of a HUGE Alternate Universe story
by The Nice Guy |
|
System Einstein, Deep Periphery
System Transit
Warship Blue Aerie
“Star Commodore, we have just received the signal to commence our attack.” A commtech reported to Valten Folkner, strapped in snugly in his command seat.
He asked, “Is it verified?”
“Aff, it is in authenticated code.”
“Very well.” Valten swiveled his chair around to face his helmsman. “Helm, 80% thrust. All gunners, standby. Fighter control, launch fighters in ten minutes. All ships in wedge formation.”
“Aff, Star Commodore.” His men hastened to their tasks, as a steady pull was quickly felt by the entire bridge. The massive warship was accelerating, with its sister ship White Aerie beside it, and a horde of lesser dropships swarming behind. It was an impressive sight for any observer.
Valten knew it would not be enough to defeat the enemy ship. The two warships were still carrying wounds from the last fight, and many of the dropships had yet to be repaired. They needed the additional ground to orbit support, as well as a surprise Lizabet Danforth had promised him. He only wished he knew what she meant by that.
He cursed under his breath. He had half a mind to order one of the jumpships holding position at the nadir jump point to go back to the occupation zone in case they lost the battle. However, the information he had received on the enemy warship had suggested that it would be useless to do so, because if they failed, then the enemy warship would be able to chase the jumpship down anyway.
The full story as related to him by Daniela Mattlov and Lizabet Danforth had him shocked at first. Aliens, civilization destroyers, advanced jump capability, etc. He remembered feeling a bit lost as they threw a whole load of information at him all of a sudden, and then poring over the data for hours trying to make sense out of them.
In the end, he had managed to glean enough information about the enemy warship to know exactly what was needed to defeat it.
It had defensive shields, everybody knew that now. An energy shield capable of blocking projectile and energy weapons of all categories. Backing up the shields further was something called a shield hardening device, which would boost the shield regeneration rate and reduce the damage from shield piercing direct fire weapons, or whatever they are. Even so, Valten wished he had some of those shield piercing weapons, which would even up the odds greatly, considering the weak armor plating of the ship. He had lost his temper when he had realized that he had the alien warship almost crippled in the last fight.
If only I had pressed the attack for two more minutes! The thought ran constantly in his head for the last few hours. If he had done so, they would not be in such a predicament, and the aliens would had been no more than a side note in the eventual Falcon victory.
Things had not turned out that way though, and all he had to show for the previous battle were two badly damaged warships, dozens of dead pilots, and several destroyed dropships.
The enemy warship, in stark contrast, was back to peak efficiency, if reports from the base concerning its self repairing abilities were correct.
Nevertheless, Valten Folkner was a Jade Falcon, and he would never admit total defeat while he could still fight. His men were much of the same mind, and even some of the Inner Sphere dropships which had joined them were eager to rescue their comrades.
“Star Commodore, enemy warship will be within firing range in ten minutes!”
He acknowledged the report. “Aff. Continue on course.”
Einstein, Deep Periphery
Copernicus Caldera
Planck’s Quantum Hole
Squeezed into the cockpit of his Seraph, Galietra Binneti was feeling rather apprehensive as he taxied the fighter to the launch bay.
True to his word, Frank Meronac had gotten the techs to fix up the fighters for human use. Gal and his men had spent a lot of time trying to get themselves familiarized with the weapons systems, which were quite different from human ones, using the flight simulators.
Problem was, they had no way of approximating the effects of the exotic alien technology with human combat scales. In the end, he had to concede that they would have better off sleeping through the last few hours.
There was a ‘slicer’ cannon which fired a continuous plasma beam, and another called a phaser, which was akin to a laser except for its vastly superior energy output. His craft carried a pair of both weapons in the wings, while the nose packed more weaponry in the form of quad mass drivers, which were described to him as smaller and more efficient gauss rifles.
There were also two score of missile racks placed above the fuselage, capable of firing a deadly swarm of high velocity missiles with the range of LRMs and the damage profile of SRMs, coupled to an integrated image recognition targeting system. Unfortunately for their ground troops, the missiles could only work in space. The specifications for the fighter had indicated that the launchers could fire 15 salvos before running out.
Last of all, there was the single heavy missile capable of puncturing through the enemy shield, though it required the launching unit to maintain a straight line to the target ship for a certain amount of time for the missile systems to figure out the shield frequency pattern in order for the penetration device to kick in. The ‘torpedo’, as the techs had dubbed the special missile, was slung under the belly of the fighter.
Seraph, the Inner Sphere pilots had named the fighter, after they had tired of just calling it ‘the alien fighter’. In the end, everybody had accepted the name, and some techs had even painted out angels on the fighters, wings and all, decked out with swords and shotguns, in a show of artistry.
Gal had thought their efforts a waste of time, but he did appreciate their dedication at getting the fighters to work with human interface systems. Even so, they had warned him and his pilots that the connections were not fully reliable, and could fail at any moment, due to inadequate testing. They said they needed more time to work out the bugs in the system, but circumstance had forced them to deploy the fighters regardless of any problems that still existed.
What that meant was something Gal did not want his mind to dwell on.
As the engine beneath his cockpit throbbed with life, he was reminded of the sheer technological advantage the aliens had conferred on them. The quantum engine was capable of pushing 30Gs, an incomprehensible level of acceleration which could instantly crush a human body.
Except that they had another nifty piece of tech called inertial compensators, which could counteract the G-forces. Evidently, the aliens were as vulnerable to physical forces as human beings.
There was a dial set up near the pilot seat to control the amount of compensation. Some pilots had advised setting it to about 98 or 99%, which would still leave the pilot with a ‘feel’ of the Seraph in movement, instead of blocking out the G-forces completely. Gal had agreed, though he knew some idiots who had turned their compensators to the max.
Due to the special properties of the quantum engine, the principles of which Lorik was still trying to understand, the Seraph could also remain indefinitely in combat without any fuel dependence, making it the ultimate endurance fighter.
Not just that, but the ultimate combat fighter, Gal admitted to himself. There was nothing in humanity’s arsenals that could have matched up to the Seraph in terms of speed, firepower, or defensive strength. Which brought him to thinking about the defensive items on the Seraph.
The fighter was covered with an extremely dense material they called ‘neutronium’, which Lorik had described as “basically like the surface of a neutron star, but thankfully not as dense, and gravitic effects are counteracted by anti-gravity devices embedded in the hull”. Which still left Gal with no idea of what exactly the material was.
And before the armor could even be touched, attacks would have to go through the much lauded shield defense system, which enclosed the entire fighter in an energy shell which could absorb what seemed to Gal to be obscene amounts of damage before going down.
Another feature for Gal to be happy about was the lack of overheating in the fighter. Instead of heat problems, Gal had to contend with energy generation ones. The massive amounts of energy demanded by the weapons, thrust engine, and shields meant that he had to carry out a precarious juggling act between the energy allocation to the various systems for maximum effectiveness.
Each Seraph was 75 tons, a remarkable weight for the sheer amount of firepower and armor it packed. The ejection mechanism consisted of a detachable escape pod from the entire fighter, complete with its own small propulsion and life support systems capable of lasting for up to 48 hours.
As he taxied the fighter to the launch pad, which would tilt the fighter towards the skies, Galietra reviewed his assignment of the pilots for the coming battle.
He had tried as much as possible to pair up a strong pilot with a weak one, forming fifteen pairs of fighters. Seven pairs were assigned to one squadron, with one pair selected as the command pair for the squadron, and one member of the command pair being the officer in charge of the squadron. The last pair was his own, with him in overall command.
His wingman Trisha Sawyer was a rookie Inner Sphere pilot who was shot down early in the battles between the Falcons and the mercenaries and captured as a bondswoman. Gal had to push the young pilot hard during the simulator exercises to drill her in the proper dogfighting techniques, which she was sorely deficient in. Overall, teamwork drills and formation flying were largely neglected, due to the lack of sufficient simulators to work with.
Galietra could only hope that their lack of coordination would not hurt them later.
As the Seraph reached the area marked out by paint on the floor, Galietra halted his fighter. A low whirring sound precede the raising of a patch of the floor behind the fighter, for it to brace against when tilted.
“Five minutes to launch.” A tech called out over the communications set.
Gal nodded to himself, as he felt the fighter tilting upwards. Leaning back into his seat, Gal looked around the launch bay, and saw the same thing happening to all the other Seraphs.
The plan called for them to carry out a standard Combat Air Patrol, with the elimination of enemy fighters being their main task. With an estimated 400 enemy fighters still remaining, it would not be an easy task even with the Seraphs backing up the fighters from the Falcon warships.
A torpedo run was up to their own discretion, but Gal had the feeling that the longer lock times required practically mandated the removal of more enemy fighters before they could start any such run.
Gal was shaken out of his ruminations by the commtech. “Launch in two minutes!”
Taking the opportunity to recheck all his systems one more time, Gal also uttered a quick prayer to the Kerenskys for luck. Although Jade Falcons were rarely superstitious, and never did put their faith into the notions of chance and fortune, Gal was worried sufficiently by the imminent battle that he felt asking for a bit of divine intervention would not hurt.
“All units,” the tech called out again. “Launching in twenty seconds!”
“Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…”
Gal gripped his Hands-On-Stick-And-Throttle tightly with both hands.
“Twelve, eleven, ten, nine…”
He tried to blank his mind of all feeling, of all emotion, focusing only on the huge wall in front of him.
“Eight, seven, six, five…”
The walls before the Seraphs suddenly parted, giving them a good look at the bright sky beyond. There were few clouds, and Gal thought he could glimpse a look of the fusion flares from the arriving warships.
The tech was shouting out the countdown. “FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE…”
Here we go.
“LAUNCH!”
Gal shoved his HOTAS forward. The Seraph shot forward into the sky instantaneously, sounding like an avenging banshee as it screamed into the skies. Gal had thought himself prepared for the acceleration of the Seraph, but it still amazed him to realize the sheer speed of his flight.
He did not need to check his screens to know that 29 other identical fighters were right alongside him as they dashed into space, gradually forming up into an attack pattern with Gal in the lead.
As they left the planetary atmosphere, Gal could see the enemy warship moving towards two Black-Lion warships, while a whole wave of black fighters headed towards him. He brushed his triggers lightly with his fingertips, eager to do some hunting.
The machine intelligence was not at all prepared for the sudden appearance of the new fighters, packing advanced technology that could only be the work of the Qlictorio. It quickly accessed the situation, and it came to a distressing conclusion.
The flesh beings had managed to recover and utilize some of the technology left behind in the base.
Its drones had enough trouble fighting against the flesh beings with their present tech levels. With the advanced weaponry now available to them, the machine intelligence’s task would be even more difficult.
Thankfully, it had two more sets of reserved special drones, one of fighters and one of mechs. It had wanted to hold them in reserve until absolutely required, and the present situation certainly looked like it needed something to tilt the balance back towards its drones.
It commanded its command vessel to depart the sea in which it had hidden for eons. As the craft broke through the surface, fighter bay doors opened in the hull.
Fifty night-black fighters, sleek and deadly, blazed out of the doors, angling up towards the raging space battle.
“Tell the Bayer to scatter its explosives now! Helm, hold steady! All gunners, continue to fire at will!” Valten clasped the edge of his seat tightly as the conflict unfolded before him.
His fleet had bored in straight at the enemy warship, with the White Aerie taking point in front of the Blue Aerie as they closed in. The White Aerie had turned quickly to present its undamaged starboard flank to the enemy, while the Blue Aerie, still lacking armor on both sides, engaged at long range, using the White Aerie as a shield to block incoming blows. Valten had the Blue Aerie delivering one broadside after another at the alien ship, hammering away at its shields.
They were concentrating fire as much as possible on the enemy warship, but it kept shifting about, causing them to fire on the stronger shield sections instead of the weaker ones.
Valten had countered by sending his dropships in an enveloping movement, while using them to seed the areas around the warship with lifeboats packed with remote controlled explosives. He intended to direct the lifeboats towards certain weakened shield sections once there were enough of them scattered in any one area.
The entry of Galietra Binneti’s aerospace squadron was the most surprising, and the most welcome. They had torn into the enemy fighters with a vengeance, swiping away the drones harassing his dropships with considerable ease. Valten almost wished he was a simple pilot again, flying one of those awesome Seraph fighters.
The bridge trembled as an enemy fighter claimed a piece of armor near their position before a Seraph swung in and blasted it out of existence.
Valten was furious. “Tell Star Commander Pendiv to keep those stravag fighters away from our bridge!” Warship fighter cover was supposed to be the responsibility of Pendiv’s aerospace star, while Galietra Binneti’s squadron already had its hands full trimming down the enemy fighter population.
He added, “I do not want a Radstadt to happen to us!”
Everybody picked up on that. Free Rasalhague Republic pilot Tyra Miraborg had slain ilKhan Leo Showers by ramming her fighter into the Dire Wolf’s bridge during the Battle of Radstadt, and earned eternal fame and even several lines in the Remembrance for her courage. Nobody wanted that to happen here.
“Sir,” The radar operator yelled, “picking up more contacts approaching from the planet!”
Galietra Binneti pushed his throttle forward as he picked off the fighter that had been attempting to shoot at the bridge of the Blue Aerie.
Swinging away from the massive Black Lion, he veered back into the thick of the action, firing his plasma slicers and phasers all the while, claiming two more black fighters. His wingman Trisha kept her fighter close, ready to support him if he ran into trouble.
Their initial strike had been an unqualified success. The enemy fighters had been sent reeling by the firepower of the Seraphs, and together the human fighters had destroyed almost a third of the enemy fighter strength.
But there had been losses as well. Three Seraphs had been destroyed by enemy fire due to interface problems, as the pilots suddenly lost control of their craft in the midst of combat, while another two had been downed by overwhelming firepower from the enemy fighters.
His communications set suddenly crackled. “Seraph Lead, this is Command! We are picking up enemy fighter contacts from an enemy atmospheric cruiser. Ally thinks they are probably advanced enemy fighters, with shields and heavy weaponry!”
Freebirth! Still, we have been warned of such a possible move by the enemy.
“Aff.” He replied. “All Seraphs, regroup and form up on me!”
He pushed his HOTAS to the upper right hand corner, sending the Seraph into a corkscrew towards the incoming enemy fighters. The other surviving members of his squadron followed him out of the swirling melee.
Gal hoped the other human fighters would be able to handle the black fighters on their own, while his own unit dueled with the newcomers.
He spoke to his squadron. “Watch out, people! These are advanced fighters, and probably on par with our own. Cover each other as much as possible, and focus on staying alive. And no matter what, stick to your wingman!”
“Here they come!” Peggy called out unnecessarily as the black dots came into view.
The two fighter groups fired at extreme ranges simultaneously. Gal decided not to hold back any more, and unleashed the missiles he had been hoarding since the start of the battle.
It was the right decision. His direct fire weapons slammed uselessly into the forward shields of the enemy fighter he had targeted, but his missiles managed to crash through the weakened shields, killing the fighter as they destroyed the front section of the craft.
Before it died, the fighter replied with its own weaponry, a combination of phasers and missiles which reduced his own shield protection by more than 80%.
Gal twisted his Seraph away as a second wave of black fighters appeared, trying to protect his forward section from being denuded by further attacks, as the charge dissolved into a wild dogfight.
He found himself covering Trisha as she went after a black fighter, hammering away at its aft shields with her mass drivers firing one after another, using the sheer volume of fire to compensate for her poor accuracy. Flashes of blue energy around the black fighter greeted every one of her attacks that connected, while his own sensors indicated that she was close to punching through the shields soon.
“Trisha, break hard left!” He yelled as he spied two black fighters approaching from 9 o’clock position. She reacted immediately, her Seraph turning away into the enemy position and taking them by surprise as Gal opened up with his own guns on the flank of one of the enemy fighters.
He failed to punch through the shields this time, but he managed to swing around on the black fighter’s rear, with Trisha covering him his back and returning the favor.
As they fought, Gal realized that the presence of the shields had changed the complexion of the battle completely. The regenerative nature of shields meant that ships could recover effectiveness after a period of time, and this led to longer dogfights.
The cooperation between the human pilots was proving to be crucial, as they were able to ask one another for cover once their own shields were down. Gal could count fifteen enemy fighters down, while he had lost only five more Seraphs, to both equipment failures and enemy fighters. It was very tough going, and he doubted they would be able to make any more contribution to the ongoing warship battle until they had eliminated the advanced fighters first.
As he broke off his pursuit of the black fighter on another warning from Trisha, he spied a series of flashes off to his port side.
Forsen Mandela’s jumpships had arrived.
Captain Helene Rice wiped the sweat off her face as the crew of the Sevoto struggled to bring the jumpship around to bring its thrusters to bear on the enemy warship. She looked around the view screen to see the other two jumpships that had followed them trying to do the same. The Tayo had remained behind as its jump drive had been damaged in the earlier jump into the asteroid field.
Conventional spacecraft piloting rules dictated that the operators keep the vessel’s drive venturis well clear of any other ship or facility, as the hydrogen ion exhaust from the primary thrusters could inflict quite a bit of damage.
The rules were all thrown out of the airlock now. That crazy clanner Valten Folkner wanted to use her jumpships as the biggest goddamned PPCs in the galaxy!
Star Commodore indeed, she thought. Weren’t clanners, especially Jade Falcons, sticklers for rules? The order from Forsen Mandela for her to jump in with her jumpships to act as ‘fire support’ for the Jade Falcons had been last and greatest surprise in a journey fraught with unpleasant surprises.
Wait for my order, the Falcon had commanded. Until then, they were to hang back and simply watch the battle in progress.
She prayed for the enemy to continue ignoring her small fleet, which they were doing thus far in favor of the more dangerous dropships and warships. Of course, that was only because her ships did not pose any threat. Yet.
Then a series of jump flashes signaled the arrival of the other jumpships, which had been captured by the Falcons when they had just arrived in the system. Helene could only sympathize with the other jumpship operators, who had been forced by the Valten Folkner into his harebrained scheme.
“Star Commodore, the White Aerie reports that they have lost all starboard armor!”
“White Aerie to pull back! Helm, 20% thrust! Tell all damage control crews to prepare for weapons damage!”
The drive thrusters of the Blue Aerie flared, as the ship started to move forward again, closing in with the enemy warship while the White Aerie backed away. Valten could see the terrible scars the enemy warship had wrought on the White Aerie, gaping holes where armor plate once existed, the melted and reformed twisted alloy forming crazed patterns along the hull. A huge piece of half solidified Harjel floated past his bridge, testament to the ferocity of the battle.
All three ships were flinging tremendous amounts of firepower at each other, a virtual light show in space as bright volleys of light erupted from the enemy warship, replied by multi-ton missile swarms and autocannon slugs, only for them to impact futilely on the shields, causing ripples of blue energy as the kinetic energy of the human weapons was dissipated and reflected back into space. Meanwhile the space around them swirled with masses of fightercraft, seeking a way to tip the balance once and for all.
All to no avail, as the alien ship now hung with the crippled Black Lion, pouring laser fire into the exposed superstructure of the ship. Ominous buds of orange were seen blossoming within the interior of the White Aerie, and Valten began to fear the worst.
“Sir, White Aerie is suffering internal damage! Her captain estimates another ten minutes before she blows!”
Valten swore bitterly. The arrival of the new enemy fighters that had drawn away Galietra Binneti’s squadron had been the crucial factor. He really needed the ground fire support now, as the movement of the enemy warship had the merchant jumpships scrambling to readjust their own positions. He also did not want to use the explosive lifeboats so soon, but he could see little choice if the present situation continued.
He had lost three more dropships already, while the human fighter forces had been pared down to just three and a half stars remaining, against just slightly more than a hundred left for the enemy fighters, not counting the advanced fighters still slugging it out. If the White Aerie was destroyed, it would become nearly impossible for them to destroy the enemy warship.
But there were some good news. From all indications, the ground units had already been formed up and were holding off the enemy drones, but the surface-to-orbit cannons still needed some time to deploy and power up their energy reactors.
“Helm, port turn 60 degrees, and then 50% thrust!” He ordered. “Move between the White Aerie and the enemy warship! Cut the engines once we are in position! All gunners, fire as you bear!”
His choice of maneuver could only prolong the White Aerie’s agony, but he would do his best to keep both Black Lions in the game for as long as possible.
Come on, his mind urged the ground batteries, hurry up.
Einstein, Deep Periphery
Orbital Cannon Site A
Frank checked his radar screen nervously as his combined forces battalion, designated Battlegroup A, took up defensive positions around the orbital cannon.
The Raiders were short one lance due to Bryan’s lance having been assigned to message duty. Descartin Winters and his small unit had taken up the slack, giving them a force of eleven mechs to work with.
Also present were the Death Dancers, a mixed Partisan, Patton, and Vedette tank company. Having lost a few units during the rescue of the Falcons, the company had been restored back to full strength by the surviving Brutus tanks and SRM missile carriers off the Nile, and were now more accurately a reinforced tank company. The tankers covered one flank of the facility, while his mechs guarded the other.
Last but not least was an infantry company, the 5th Firemouths. While Frank didn’t think they would be very useful in the battle ahead, they served an important purpose in holding the weapon facility in case of Spidercrab drone attacks. Even better was the fact that one platoon was anti-mech trained, though Frank privately hoped that their skills would not come into use. They held positions in and around the facility itself.
The cannon took the shape of a massive nondescript artillery barrel 15 meters wide and 40 meters long, sticking out into the sky and supported by several huge pylons. Below it was a building that housed a quantum reactor, which would provide the energy required to power the phaser weapon, as well as the machinery for producing the phaser beam itself.
Not only that, but the facility also possessed a directional shield that protected the cannon itself from orbital strikes. However, the protection of the shield did not extend to ground level. Which made ground defense of paramount importance.
Not for the first time, Frank wondered at the intelligence of the alien creators when he found out that they could only start up the power source after the facility had deployed to the ground from its hole, and that it would take about ten minutes for them to spool up the engine and get the weapon ready to fire.
That’s so stupid! The whole point of orbital cannons are for them to be ready for firing once they deploy! Not to sit on the ground waiting for enemies to take them out! Frank remembered thinking that when he found out about the setup procedure. His opinion had not changed.
“Contact! Bearing two-forty, in a large group of at least ten mechs!” Yoshino called from his Nobori-Nin.
Frank was not going to let such a good opportunity to thin the enemy ranks pass him by. “Ten mechs aren’t going to get past us. Let’s get them!”
The entire company moved into line position, their extended range weapons already seeking targets eagerly.
Frank had swapped out the ultra heavy autocannon in the Night Gyr’s right arm for a gauss rifle, exchanging weapons with a Falcon warrior who wanted more short range punch for his Masakari. This gave him incredible long range punch when combined with his extended range large lasers.
Settling his sights over an advancing Smasher, he waited till he was absolutely sure of his shot before firing at the black mech, which was the SRM version. The large lasers boiled off armor all over the mech’s upper body before he followed up with his gauss rifle. The energy capacitors of the weapon went to work, flinging a nickel iron ball the size of a melon into the air. The weakened torso armor did little to stop the gauss slug from penetrating to the interior and setting off the volatile ammunition stored there.
The massive explosion of the Smasher’s death seemed to be the signal for the rest of the company to open up. ER PPCs and long range lasers dominated the field, as the human warriors made their range advantage count, hammering at the heavier enemy elements or those variants equipped with LRMs.
It did not take too long. It was a scant thirty seconds before Kety reported the last enemy mech destroyed, a lightweight Ant. Frank found himself strangely eager for more enemies to appear over the landscape, a taste for more combat on his tongue.
It was unsettling to him, to say the least.
He quickly checked his map feed, which was constantly updated with information from the main base’s sensors. He already knew that there were two enemy groups of at least a fifty mechs each relatively near their position, but they were both in pursuit of other human forces which were trying to flee into the underground tunnels.
That had changed now. Both enemy groups were en route to the orbital cannon, judging by their movements of the last minute. One would be arriving in just two minutes time, while the other had an ETA of thirty minutes.
Shouldn’t be a problem, Frank thought. Nine more minutes would have the orbital cannon up and shooting at the enemy warship up there. They had gunners from the dropship crews assigned to the naval weapons, on the basis that there was not anybody else truly qualified for such work.
The other battlegroups were also doing quite well. Their sudden appearance had instilled a certain amount of panic in the enemy forces, as they struggled to cope with the wide dispersal of many of their units, spread out over the lands in the course of their fruitless chase of the human soldiers.
Ian Dorlacen and Daniela Mattlov had been assigned to Battlegroup B, another of the ad hoc groups formed when Descartin Winters and him had argued for mixed forces instead of the ‘pure’ compositions that Lizabet Danforth favored. Having warriors from both sides fight alongside each other would allow a much more homogenous mix of technology and manpower, with the advantage from clan tech and clan expertise being spread out evenly among all the battlegroups.
They were doing all right so far, but the battle upstairs was taking a decided turn for the worst. Frank feared the surface to orbit cannon might be deployed too late.
He was shaken out of his thoughts by the insistent beeping of a small red light to his left, indicating an urgent transmission from the main base. Pressing a button to his console, Frank prepared himself for what he was sure would be bad news, about the only time anyone would bother to send urgent messages.
He was not disappointed.
It was Pascal Thome. “Raider Lead, this is Command! I’ve got bad news!”
“I sorta figured that one out already.” Frank replied sarcastically.
“No! Listen! This is really big trouble! Switch your sensor feed to check for atmospheric aerospace deployment on the planetary map.”
Frank did so, and was surprised to see a fast moving blot heading towards them. It stuck out like a sore thumb from the other slow moving blots on the map .“What the heck is that? That’s moving too fast for a saucer!”
He suddenly recalled a piece of data from the archives. “No wait, I remember now! That’s probably a enemy fast deployment craft, normally used as command ships for the rest of the saucers.”
“Right. And it’s going to be right on top of you in about 4 minutes. Ally thinks, and we agree, that the fact that it lacks guns and armor could only mean that it’s going to be dropping more mechs into your laps, because that’s all it’s good for.”
Frank came to a rather ominous conclusion. It’s also not going to drop them anywhere else because its warship is also hanging right above us! It forces us to deploy the orbital gun, but by doing so, we have also allowed it to dictate the place of battle!
“What’s the expected loadout?” Frank hoped Pascal or Ally would know what mechs the enemy craft was carrying.
“No idea. Just be careful.”
“Roger that. Keep an eye on the ship. When it gets near us, inform me ASAP.”
“Wilco. Command out.”
He switched to the tactical frequency, where he had plugged in his conversation with Pascal. “Everybody heard that?” A series of ayes answered him.
“Now let us concentrate on matters at hand! Mechs incoming!” Descartin yelled as the next group of ninety black mechs appeared on their scopes.
Frank did not take the time to settle into his shot, firing his gauss rifle and lasers simultaneously once the enemy machines came into range. He missed with the gauss, but managed to score with two laser shots on a Lemming, melting armor off the left arm and leg.
All around him, there was the dull roar of weapons fire as they flung everything they had at the enemy. PPCs, lasers, missiles and autocannons flashed out, as the first rank of the black mechs reeled from the destructive salvo. Even the tanks had entered the battle, taking up a good spot on the right flank of the enemy advance. They used their ranged weapons to good effect, and managed to draw off part of the enemy mech force, which Frank was extremely grateful for.
The Partisans and Vedettes engaged with their autocannons, the cluster rounds from the Partisans bursting among the black mechs, and the Vedettes chipping away with their ultra AC/5s. The Patton and Brutus tanks launched swarms of specialized Thunder LRMs into the ground to weaken the enemy advance, sowing a line of explosives and shrapnel along the path of attack.
It did little to halt the black mechs. An Ant sprayed its LRMs at him, the missiles blasting off a small fraction of the armor on the Night Gyr’s right arm. Frank ignored the hit, trying to identify and kill the heavier and more dangerous enemy mechs first.
There were too many mechs for them to keep at bay, and the black mechs, true to form, came on relentlessly, ignoring the damage they were taking as they closed in. The first ten black mechs went down, but there were more than enough left as they reached the limits of their own weapon ranges.
The fact that we are defending a mole on the plains means that we can’t use run and gun tactics! Frank realized. We have to hold a fixed defense line, and we can’t budge because they’re heading straight for the orbital cannon!
Ally had already informed of the risks in using the cannons. Should the enemy manage to infiltrate their drones, namely the Spidercrabs, into the equipment, they would be able to override the commands from the base and even take over the base functions, most importantly the gate controls. And all would be lost if they ever managed to open the gates.
Both sides exchanged fire furiously, the black mechs making up for their lower accuracy with their greater volume. Napoleon, as usual, was as instructive as ever when he said that “quantity has a quality of its own”. Another one of his understatements.
And that same ‘quality’ was working against the humans, as they gave up ground grudgingly to avoid the murderous short range firepower of the black mechs, which seemed to have mainly SRM and laser equipped mech variants in their midst.
Frank triggered another salvo of laser fire as he walked the Night Gyr backwards, this time savaging armor on a Bruiser, which absorbed the laser energy easily and was moving forward ominously.
He could spot the numerous missile racks all over the mech, and he knew that it was likely to be either the LRM or the SRM boat version. He did not want to be on the receiving end of either missile system, but he knew there was not much choice as it launched a total of 60 LRMs at him.
He braced himself, gripping his joysticks tightly as the swarm of missiles crashed into the Night Gyr, blanking out even his HUD as they came in hard. The impact of more than thirty missiles threatened to unbalance the mech, and Frank had to flail the arms of his mech around for a while before he got it under control.
He snarled in anger, and about to reply with his gauss rifle when a volley of particles whipped into the center torso of the assault class Bruiser, killing the controlling algorithmic system in there and neutralizing the mech.
“Frank, you all right?” Deserk asked as his Black Hawk continued pummeling the enemy mechs with laser blasts from the his extended range lasers.
“Yeah. Gave me a good shaking, but I’ll live. We have to put more space between us and them!”
“No way. We are almost backing into the facility already.”
Frank checked his screens, and found that Deserk was right. The orbital cannon was only three hundred meters behind them, and only a kilometer and his battlegroup separated the cannon and the black mechs.
They had destroyed about more than twenty drone mechs so far, but they had taken quite a lot of damage as well. And the approaching drone ship meant that he wouldn’t have any reserves left if more enemy mechs appeared. CLG is going to be a killer, Frank thought.
His headset crackled again. “Raider Lead, this is Command. The enemy ship has reached your position and is deploying its units!”
The machine intelligence was elated at the success of its plan.
The imminent destruction of one of the opposing warships meant that the one remaining would have no chance of victory, while the super-assault mechs it had deployed meant that it would soon have possession of the Qlictorio base.
The defending flesh beings were fighting tenaciously, but they were having a difficult time with the drones already present, and were in no position to oppose the thirty mechs that were dropping right now from its bays on the other side of the facility.
A group of flesh beings were situated in the orbital cannon facility itself, but they were hardly a threat for the firepower of the mechs, nor the Spidercrabs they carried.
Victory was at hand!
Descartin Winters narrowed his eyes as he heard Pascal’s report. His Nova Cat had already taken quite a lot of abuse, with his limb armor almost in tatters, and his torso not much better in protection. Some LRM fire had hit his cockpit, and blood was now streaming down one of his legs. It was not very painful, but Des knew that wounds tend to add up. This rule applied to both humans and mechs.
“Dancers, send the Vedettes over to slow those mechs down!” Frank was issuing orders, trying to wrest back the initiative lost. However, in Des’ mind, they had lost the initiative ever since the enemy had first boiled out of the seas to attack the unsuspecting humans.
The lance of tracked vehicles sped off to their rear, where the new enemy force was landing on the other side of the facility. Des kept a cautious eye on them as he continued pounding away at the enemy mechs in front of him.
Another Bruiser stride forward, the fearful crack of its twin gauss rifles audible as it fired at Des. One slug hammered into his left leg, laying the internal structure bare to further attacks, while the other just missed his cockpit by inches.
His sure hand smoothly recovered the Nova Cat from the strike, and he repaid the damage with interest as he fired all his long range weapons into the middle of the Bruiser. The targeting computer was an invaluable tool as it gave him incredible firing solutions for his shots. Already considered one of the best gunners in clan space, Des’ unerring accuracy coupled with the targeting computer gave him the ability to place a shot almost anywhere he wanted on the enemy.
The Bruiser staggered as its gyro was hit, then collapsed as Kety followed up with his Gallowglas’ own PPC and large lasers, one of his shots entering the middle and finishing the job Des had started.
“Thanks for the help!” Des shouted gratefully, as Kety replied with a wave of his mech’s left hand.
A shriek of despair suddenly overrode all other concerns. “This is Dancer Vee-One, we are pulling back! I have never seen the likes of those. I’ve already lost two tanks at extreme range, and they.. Oh God… Help!” The transmission was cut off.
Des quickly switched to his rear view, and he saw a swarm of LRMs descend on the two retreating Vedettes. That was not shocking, but the fact that every single missile landed on target did. Streak missiles, but LRM versions, his mind informed him dispassionately.
Des felt a sudden coldness grip his body, all the way to his bones. He instantly knew he was going to die this day, and that the purpose of his whole life might been to bring him to this one battle, one in which he had no chance of living through, one in which the fate of humanity was at stake. It was something that every clansman dreamed of, a glorious fight against impossible odds, a chance at immortality in legend and song.
Still, he wondered if he had somehow accrued a lot of bad karma in a past life which was now responsible for his present predicament.
He turned his Nova Cat around, and started moving towards the approaching black mechs, all of which are showing up on his tremor sensors as being a hundred tons.
Thirty hundred ton mechs, all with advanced technology.
As he moved, he noticed Deserk in his Black Hawk beside him. Apparently, Deserk had the exact same idea as him. Des considered asking the Wolf Dragoon to turn back, but he knew that it was Deserk’s individual decision, and could only respect it as a fellow warrior.
Maybe he had already foreseen this scene in his visions.
“It is a good day to die, quiaff?” Des asked his sibmate.
“Aff.” The reply came. “Truly a good day.”
Frank tried to ignore the fear bubbling up from his guts to his heart, as well as the vomit that he could feel was on the way to his mouth in his esophagus.
Pascal was giving him some very bad news. “The specs say that each of these mechs pack two advanced particle cannons, a big fucking autocannon that we have no equivalent for, and something like streak LRMs!”
“In other words?” Frank asked.
“You guys are dead meat! Pull back now, we can try again later!”
“There is no later. The Falcons are dying in droves up there, and we are too heavily engaged to retreat! Damn it! Send me all the reserves ASAP!”
“Gotcha! They’re already on the way, one company of mixed troops. ETA is ten minutes!”
We’ll be lucky if we can hold out for another two! Frank cursed as he sent a gauss slug at an Ant, shattering its torso armor and dumping the drone on the ground.
Then he saw Deserk and Descartin Winters moving to their rear in their mechs
“Hey, what are you doing?” Frank didn’t want to think that the two had lost their nerve and were abandoning their comrades. He did not realize the alternative.
“Take out the black mechs in front of you first. We’ll try to delay the new force behind you for as long as possible.” Deserk answered.
Huh, only two of them against thirty?
“But there’s only two of you!” Frank wailed.
“Don’t argue with us! Just do as he says!” Des yelled back.
“You won’t last long!” Kety entered the running argument as the battle raged around them.
Frank saw Deserk’s Black Hawk continuing to charge forward at the newcomers as the Dragoon replied. “We don’t have to! Just long enough for the cannon to work! And Kety…”
“Yeah?”
“When you get back to Outreach, tell Reena… Tell Reena I’m sorry.” There was pain and regret in Deserk’s voice.
That meant only one thing to everybody listening.
Deserk had no intention of surviving this fight. Frank figured the same went for Descartin Winters.
He decided to try one last time. “Don’t do this! There’s always another way!”
Winters answered this time. “There is no other way, no other choice. You know how this is going to turn out. Now concentrate on your own battle!”
Another salvo of enemy fire brought Frank’s attention back to the fight before him as a Lemming fired its medium autocannon at him, the shells tearing into his mech. He sent three laser beams at the drone, one of them hitting it squarely in the chest while the other two missed miserably. Large goblets of armor ran down the drone’s chest as it moved forward.
Frank chanced a quick look back at their rear, where the brilliant flashes of light indicated a fight in full swing. He hoped that they would be able to hold off the enemy force, but common sense and logic dictated that it was doomed to failure.
Frank turned his attention to the front in time to dodge another salvo of autocannon fire from the Lemming by jumping his mech into the air. Rising up on jets of fusion flame, Frank plugged away with his pulse lasers, this time connecting with both shots to the right torso of the mech. The Lemming seemed to ignore him, and moved closer to the facility.
As he landed, he realized that the black mechs were beginning to penetrate their lines, and the battle was fast becoming a melee, with the humans pitched desperately against almost three times their number in enemies, now approaching point blank ranges.
The headset crackled to life. “Raider Lead, this is Cannon One. I am now operative and angling for a shot!”
Frank wanted to cheer as he heard the report. The sooner they could destroy the enemy warship in space, the sooner they could retract the cannon facility and pull back.
The cannon erupted with a roar as it unleashed a bolt into the heavens, the immense disrupter blast shooting up into the sky in a purple flash. Frank waited anxiously for the result.
“Sorry, I missed! Another minute before the next shot!” The former dropship gunner reported.
Frank wanted to rail at the missed opportunity, but the damn Lemming was firing at him again, this time with its machine guns added to the mix. Frank ignored the damage to his mech, and fired his gauss and pulse lasers. The gauss punched through the middle of the Lemming, while one pulse laser did its part by hitting the same location, while the other missed. It was enough to destroy the drone, its legs telescoping into the empty torso.
“Frank, there’s something screwy with my systems!” Frank could sense the fear in Kety’s voice.
“What’s wrong?” Frank felt they already have enough trouble holding off the enemy mechs. If Kety’s Gallowglas was having problems, then it would make one of his best warriors much less effective on the field.
“I’m not picking up either Des or Deserk on my targeting scopes, and they’re not dead yet!”
“As long as you can still target the drones, it’s alright!” Frank tried to push the problem out of his mind.
Frank twisted his mech’s torso around to fire at a Smasher that had pushed past the line, and took the opportunity to check on Des and Deserk’s status.
He was amazed to see the two warriors among the massive black hulks, dancing away with unbelievable ease from the enemy attacks, consisting of particle beams, autocannon, and missile fire. Even so, there was no reason why out of more than fifty weapons firing on them, not a single weapon hit!
Frank tried to ignore the growing queasy feeling in his mind, because his targeting cursor had refused to acquire the Nova Cat and Black Hawk as targets as well. He knew his systems were fully functional, because he was having no trouble shooting at the black mechs, but nothing else could possibly explain what he was seeing.
Descartin’s Nova Cat savaged the mechs around it, particularly those nearest the facility. His PPCs and lasers flashed out as he consistently hit the rear of the black mechs, setting off their ammunition stores and removing their most deadly weapon, the super heavy autocannon.
Deserk’s Black Hawk was equally potent, using the same tactics as Descartin, as they not only managed to survive the attacks of the black mechs, but were actually defeating the enemy!
Frank easily recognized their strategy. By taking their mechs into the middle of the enemy formation, the enemy mechs could not afford to get to the facility without exposing their rear armor to Des and Deserk. And with his part of the battle now taking place around the cannon facility, the enemy mechs could not walk to the facility with their backs to the orbital cannon either. So they stuck to trying to remove the two nuisances in their midst before advancing on the facility, which nevertheless didn’t quite explain how Des and Deserk were still in the land of the living.
He decided not to communicate with the two warriors, afraid of breaking their concentration. As Frank looked around, all he saw was a tableau of hell as the battle regressed to a brutal knife fight.
At least five black mechs had reached the facility, and were under fire from the infantry troops. SRM and man-pack PPC fire could be seen streaking from the facility and impacting on the black mechs, as tiny figures darted through the structures.
The turret of a Patton tank locked up as it was hit by a storm of SRMs from a Smasher, the crew electing to stay in the tank as they tried to shift the tank around to shoot at the Smasher. Another burst of large laser fire from a Bruiser into the tank consigned it to a fiery death.
Kety’s Gallowglas grappled with a Lemming, using the almost bare left arm and hand to punch viciously into the head of the drone, then wrenching the mech carcass around to shield his own mech from a deadly fusillade of missiles from a trio of Ants. A few SRMs still got through, tearing into the torso armor and rupturing precious heat sinks, as coolant fluid leaked down the sides of the Gallowglas.
A Partisan tank, seemingly out of ammunition, charged at a Lemming as the drone fired its own array of medium lasers. The laser blasts carved into the engine of the tank, and it exploded while still in movement. The momentum of the tank continued to carry the wreckage of the tank forward as it smashed into the Lemming in revenge for its death. The Lemming flopped over as its legs were hit, and crumpled to the ground.
A squad of anti-mech infantry launched their grapple rods onto a Lemming, and proceeded to carry out a dangerous crippling action. Another Lemming walked up and ran its machine guns over the frail bodies of the human attackers as they clung onto their target, even as they accomplished their job by planting their explosives among the vulnerable exhaust vents and joints of the mech. Their bodies fell to the ground as multiple explosions wracked the Lemming.
Frank saw Qing Hong Liu punch out of his crippled and burning Thor, as two Bruisers closed in, unleashing heavy salvos of gauss and SRM fire. Tracers pierced the air towards the ejection seat, as an Ant sought to kill Qing with its machine guns before Frank shattered it with several laser blasts.
Spidercrabs scuttled all over the ground, as they tried to connect into the facility systems, opposed by the men of the 5th Firemouths. The chatter of small arms fire could be heard as Frank moved his Night Gyr nearer the structure in pursuit of one of the Bruisers that had destroyed Qing’s Thor. The assault mech was unloading its load of Spidercrab drones, dumping them out of its cockpit in a rain of black metal to the ground.
It turned around at Frank’s approach, and the two mechs faced off and fired at the same time.
48 SRMs erupted from the many missile ports on the mech, almost half of them slamming into the Night Gyr. A spike of heat in his cockpit and the gout of smoke that appeared before his HUD rising from his center torso warned him of engine damage, while the sluggish movement of the mech told him of damage to his leg actuators. The indicators for two of the large lasers in his left torso flashed amber, then red as they warned of the weapons’ destruction. The mech rocked from side to side as the missiles did their work, as Frank struggled to keep his mech upright even as he fired back with his full arsenal of weapons.
His remaining large laser blazed out a trail of photons to the right arm of the mech, while the gauss rifle spat out a metal ball towards right torso. His medium pulse lasers stammered a line of emerald darts into the right torso, penetrating into the ammo bins. The Bruiser convulsed as its armor began to warp from the tremendous force generated from within the mech as the SRM ammo blew. The pent up energy was released in a brilliant glare of yellow flame, as the Bruiser was totally consumed by the explosion.
Frank jumped the Night Gyr to his right as a volley of LRMs slammed into the ground he had just vacated. As he landed, he discharged another salvo of laser fire at the unit that had fired, a Smasher LRM variant. The lasers melted armor over the mech’s right leg, but failed to hurt its internals.
We can’t carry on like this for much longer, Frank thought as he tried to line up another shot for the last of his gauss slugs.
The machine intelligence was frustrated by the inability of its overwhelming forces to take control of the facility. Even the most advanced drones were unable to remove the two enemy machines that were amongst them wrecking havoc.
The machine intelligence could not understand why its drones were simply unable to target the two mechs, or why their weapons kept missing.
Even the force that had reached the cannon facility was having a difficult time wading through the dogged defenders. The unprotected flesh beings on foot were even able to destroy drone machines by climbing onto the drones and placing simple explosives at vulnerable locations, something which the Qlictorio, who insisted on using only high technology weapons and vehicles in combat, would never have done!
The machine intelligence knew that it needed something to end the fight soon. The surface-to-orbit cannon was simply too dangerous, and its previous shot had come perilously close to hitting the warship. One hit from the ground battery would knock the shields out of commission immediately, leaving it highly susceptible to the weapons of the enemy warships. The flesh beings had been very cunning, using remote controlled personnel boats filled with explosives to delay its warship’s assault on the dying enemy warship for a few precious moments, by forcing it to devote more of its energy to shoring up its shields. Victory was still within reach, however, provided the ground cannon did not hit the cruiser, and the best way to ensure that was to capture it.
There was one way to assume full control of the ground facility, and that was to remove the two nuisances to allow the super assault drones to get to the facility, where they could overwhelm the flesh beings there.
The machine intelligence instantly came up with two possible options for destroying the two mechs. One was to employ its advanced fighters to strafe the area. The fighters were tied up solidly with the human advanced fighters, and could not disengage.
The other was to use its warship to bombard the area, which guaranteed the destruction of the flesh beings in the area. While its own drones would also be hit, the machine intelligence calculated that they would be able to withstand the barrage, leaving them able to press on to the facility and claim possession of it.
Getting the warship to move into position to bombard the area was not a problem, as the space forces of the flesh beings were in no shape to obstruct it. The only risk was in hitting the facility and possibly destroying it, but the shield directly above the facility itself rendered protection against orbital strikes, thereby removing the dangers of a miss.
Even if the warship was hit by the ground battery as it bombarded the area, the machine intelligence gauged that the imminent capture of the Qlictorio base would more than make up for the loss of the warship, which was by no means certain as the flesh beings still needed quite a few shots to destroy it even without its shields.
The machine intelligence made its decision easily. The warship began moving nearer the planet.
“What is the stravag enemy doing?” Valten Folkner asked as he observed it abandoning its final attack on the crippled and burning White Aerie to move closer to the planet below.
The White Aerie had stopped firing its weapons, and its commanding officer had ordered all his personnel to their escape pods and lifeboats, which were woefully low in number after Valten had used them in a futile attempt to damage the drone warship.
Blooms of flame could be seen burning along the scarred and torn surface of the once powerful Black Lion. Pieces of twisted armor, chunks of shattered Harjel, charred structural members, and other flotsam were slowly breaking off from the stricken warship. White clouds of water crystals were spewing from gaps in the structure, originating from the personnel quarters. Electrical sparks crackled from severed power lines, their blue arcs wildly playing on the shattered hull.
The death throes of a warship, after more than three hundred years of existence. It had survived Kerensky’s war against the Periphery, his campaign in the Terran Hegemony, the liberation of Terra. Later, it had followed him on his long journey from the Inner Sphere, along the Exodus road, leading to civil war and the formation of the clans. It had survived Trial after Trial, but who have known that it would finally meet its end around a forgotten world in the Periphery?
The Blue Aerie was firing its long range weapons for all they were worth, but to little effect. The enemy warship was moving away too quickly for the gunners to get a proper targeting lock. Adding to their problems was the fact that the enemy shields were simply too strong for the naval autocannons to take down.
Meanwhile, his XO answered his earlier question, “The enemy warship is heading for the planet. It seems to be going for a lower orbit. My best guess is that they are going for orbital bombardment.”
That had already occurred to Valten even before the officer had voiced the thought. “Can the engineers give me more thrust to intercept it?”
The XO paused for a while, turning away to speak into his headphone before replying. “Neg, our engines are not fast enough.”
“And the status of the White Aerie?”
“Star Commodore Creske Von Jankmon reports that his ship has lost all his weapons, but his engines are still capable of 30% thrust. He has ordered a ramming attack on the enemy warship once most of his crew has departed the ship.”
“Good.” Valten growled. At least the White Aerie was still useful for one last attack.
The previous miss from the only ground battery that was able to target the enemy warship had been a disappointment, but Valten had almost half-expected it. The gunners on the ground were only freebirth surats, after all, not the selectively bred and trained naval dropship crews of the clans. However, he had no choice but to rely on their dubious assistance.
Star Commander Galietra Binneti and his Seraphs were still exchanging blows with the enemy fighters, while the run-of-the-mill human fighters were down to only a star left against the thirty enemy fighters remaining.
Most of his dropships were dead in space from accumulated damage, while the jumpships were still angling for a clear shot, hindered by the constant motion of the enemy warship as they tried to rotate in space with their thrusters that were meant only for station-keeping.
There was no other choice, but to hope that the White Aerie’s final attack would open a window of opportunity for the remaining warriors in space, while he had little hope for the ground forces that were about to suffer one of the most horrendous attacks known to humankind in war, the orbital bombardment.
Galietra Binneti jerked his HOTAS hard to his left, sending the Seraph into a rapid counterclockwise roll, dodging the phaser blasts from the enemy fighter on his tail.
He bounced the Seraph down for a while before coming up and around in an Immelmann, challenging his pursuer to a full frontal assault. The two fighters faced each other in a head on pass for less than a second, and Gal fired his full load of guns and missiles as they passed within less than a kilometer from each other.
One of his phasers, two of his mass drivers, and about half his missiles missed, but they still managed to overcome the shields, the missiles shaving away all of the frontal armor before his plasma slicers cut deep into the innards of the fighter, the beams stabbing vulnerable components and control systems. The enemy fighter spun around crazily as it burned into the atmosphere, its interface and defense mechanisms shot away. It would fall apart as it fell to the ground.
He did not emerge unscathed either. His shields, except for one covering his rear, were all down after that exchange, the enemy phasers shoving them aside and even damaging the neutronium armor. A quick glance at his console displays confirmed that he had only fifty percent armor protection left for his nose and wing sections.
There were only twelve enemy fighters left, and ten Seraphs to oppose them. Trixie had punched out after her Seraph got involved in one too many scissors with the enemy, her escape pod last seen dropping onto the planet below.
That was fine by Galietra. He was good enough to fight without a wingman.
Two enemy ships flashed past his HUD, in pursuit of a Seraph that was jinking and swerving desperately to avoid the enemy fire. Gal turned his own Seraph to follow them, unleashing a swarm of missiles at one of the fighters as he did so.
The friendly Seraph slowed down, giving the enemy fighters the choice of staying on his tail and taking him down, but offering Gal the chance to open up on both enemies. Of course, they could always break away from their pursuit, but their target would survive.
They stayed on its tail.
That is why it is considered a gamble, Gal reminded himself as he tightened on his triggers, sending a salvo of missiles and azure beams towards his targets even as they pounded away at Hank Cashew’s Seraph, Hank’s rear shields flaring with energy discharges as they sought to dissipate the deadly energies from the enemy drones.
His missiles smashed into the rear thrusters of one drone, resulting in a brilliant explosion as its quantum engine unleashed its full potential in an instant. His beams lit up the shields of the other drone, but its shields held up under the assault. The drone did break away from its pursuit of Hank’s Seraph, which had just a few ergs of shield power left.
“Thanks for the assist!” Hank grunted to him.
“Thanks for the kill.” Gal replied grimly as he spied another drone slipping in behind him even as he continued chasing the surviving fighter. It fired at him with a steady steam of plasma bolts.
Galietra allowed his shields to do their job as he worked his way into his prey with plasma slicers and mass drivers. He stayed on his opponent for twenty painstaking seconds before it exploded under his fusillade of fire, topped off by his last rack of missiles to hasten its death.
He cut away down and left from his pursuer just as his rear shields gave way. It turned to continue its attack, but Peggy’s fighter cut into its flank at the same time, destroying it with an alpha strike of plasma beams, mass drivers, phasers, and missiles.
Gal took advantage of the short respite to assess the overall situation.
The enemy warship was moving closer to the planet, while the White Aerie was moving ominously with literally fire in its belly towards the enemy warship, picking up speed that Gal was sure would send it hurtling into the planetary atmosphere.
Suddenly, he saw a series of brilliant flashes from side of the enemy warship, as massive energy blasts flew towards the unsuspecting planet below. An unimpressive display for the uninitiated, but Gal knew better.
His blood ran cold as he realized he was watching an orbital bombardment in progress.
Spreading the left arm of his Night Gyr all the way out to his left, Frank tried to balance and compensate for the loss of all the remaining armor on the arm, as a gauss Bruiser hammered at him with its weapons.
He struck back with his large and medium lasers, but all they did was to scratch the paint of the heavily armored shell of the drone. A series of energy blasts from the side unexpectedly hit its legs, unbalancing the mech and toppling it to the ground.
Kety’s battered Gallowglas limped into view, maintaining the barrage with his medium pulse lasers, as he ripped at the Bruiser, the barrels stuttering out the energy darts as he tried to keep them on target on the legs, in an attempt to cripple the assault mech.
Frank added to the damage wrought with his laser weaponry, but the Bruiser still managed to lever one arm off the ground to fire a gauss sl |
|
|
|
|
| Next page >>> |
| Page :
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
