Authors: Max Feinstein
The assault ended when the Chimera’s defensive fire failed to destroy the missile aimed it at. It was quickly apparent that the missile’s body had been designed to defeat incoming laser fire. Every laser bolt that struck the projectile got deflected in another direction without causing the weapon any noticeable damage. At the last moment the tank’s driver tried to avoid
getting hit with a series of rapid turns and accelerations, but it was to no effect. The enemy warhead fell on top of the tank and triggered its detonation just above the heavily armored vehicle. As with the previous IFV, the shields flared for a moment when the initial burst of energy erupted from the core of the missile’s warhead. They proved useless in stopping the singularity that formed milliseconds later and swallowed the Chimera whole. In a second the swirling black hole collapsed into itself, leaving only a symmetrical crater in its place. The entire crew of three would never be seen again.
While this was all happening the alien fighter
flew closer and closer to the cloak field boundary, firing its energy weapons without pause. Most of these slammed harmless into the grassy plains below, but a lucky few actually hit a number of military and civilian vehicles. Being unshielded the civilians suffered the only casualties when some of their transports were strafed. The attack ceased immediately an anti-air missile caught the Alpha from underneath and exploded against its heavy shields. It was not enough to destroy the craft, but caused it to start an evasive pattern as more defensive laser and particle cannon fire raced up towards it.
The fighter struggled to avoid the endless amount of fire directed at it and finally pulled up onto its tail
to gain more altitude. It was the pilot’s second and last mistake, the first being forgetting the redistribution of shields after transferring entirety the field to the front during the initial attack. This mistake allowed two particle beams to slam into the fighter’s exposed rear, destroying both of the ship’s propulsion units and its shield generator. Defenseless and tumbling out of the sky it was an easy target for a single MAP-365 ‘Avenger’ multirole missile, which struck the Alpha on one of its sides and shattered it into pieces.
With this last obstacle overcome the entire convoy, still shrouded within the cloak, surged forward. Jonathan reached out to grab the seat in from of him as the command carrier accelerated forward with the rest of the civilians. This was another part of the Rapid Action plan, in which the civilians were shepherded to Bastion at the fastest pace possible. Being in command, Colonel Hallsworth would proceed with the convoy while a shielding force followed behind and kept any enemy pursuers at bay.
At top speed the convoy would only take fifteen minutes to reach the emergency underground complex, but it would take twice that amount of time to get every person inside it.
The Bastion complex was a large command and control bunker built under a dense mountain range similar to its much larger cousin, the Kalka Command and Control Center. Over the years Frontiera’s civilian population expanded rapidly and the bunker was in turn adapted to house a sizable portion of the nearby population in case of an emergency situation. What had begun as relatively small command center had turned into a sprawling underground city. It descended over a hundred meters down and
stretched out over half a kilometer in certain directions. Worst case the complex could house almost fifty thousand people for a year’s time.
Jonathan held the overhead hand grip to keep from falling as another strong gust of wind hit the Beacon command vehicle. At its present speed the winds seemed more forceful than they would normally be. The civilian transports had an even rougher ride, however, and some were starting to slow down from their top speed in order to
keep from getting tossed around. It was tough job keeping everyone moving together in good order, but his troops seemed to be doing a fine job of the task laid out before them. Every soldier knew the importance of this mission and was more than ready to lay down their lives to protect the unarmed civilians they were charged with.
Having already lost four soldiers and more than two dozen civilians, Jonathan hoped upon all else to not lose any more men, women, and children, but there were still ten more minutes left in their tumultuous journey.
Behind them, large clouds of smoke and ash rose into the darkening sky above from a half dozen craters of various dimensions. These craters were evidence left over from a failed orbital bombarded that had taken place only minutes after the convoy departed that part of the mountain passage. That bombardment also affirmed the fact that the two patrol Alphas had transmitted their findings to their commanders prior to being shot down. Jonathan knew it would not be long before more alien ships were sent to investigate the matter further.
“Colonel, EW Three is detecting a
Gamma on approach. ETA ten minutes. Flight path analysis shows a direct trajectory towards out rear guard elements,” Charles stated while monitoring the tactical display.
The holographic tacti
cal screen zoomed out to show a more pronounced view of the surrounding area. At first only the valley and a few mountains surrounding the pass were visible with representations of the entire evacuation convoy situated between them with most of the forward most vehicle already disappearing into Bastion’s large entranceway. Soon more of the mountain range appeared on the screen, stretching out from the southeast to the northwest to create a natural continental boundary line. The entire length of the mountain valley appeared in the next second with three triangular icons glowing atop a similar number of mountain tops at the valley’s entrance. These icons represented a series of early warning sensors installed there to keep rear watch on the convoy. Finally, as the display stabilized, an image of a single alien gunship appeared. Codenamed Gamma, the heavy armed ship was shown to be flying towards them at a medium altitude from the direction of Destona.
Jonathan acknowledged the data and cursed inside at another thing going wrong. They were so close to their destination, but the enemy was not making it easy on them. There was only one thing left to do now, stall the gunship as long as possible so that the civilians could get inside the bunker complex and into relative safety. With no time left to lose the colonel
contacted what remained of his command staff and together they set to work on devising another plan to help the mission succeed.
“Transmit the orders to Rear Guard, Mr. Ceasaris,” Jonathan commanded when the
gunship was only five minutes from Bastion, “Wildcats you are clear for launch. Good hunting.”
A battle cry screamed out over the carrier’s interior speakers as each Dragonfire pilot tilted their craft’s nose and punched the throttle forward. The four assault fighters rocketed upwards and through the cloak field at high speeds. Once outside the still shrinking deception cloak they split off into two pairs and accelerated towards the incoming gunship. Each pair of fighters flew as close together as possible in the hopes of fooling the enemy sensor systems into thinking they were single ships.
As the fighters settled into their flight path they locked onto the ovoid alien craft with both lasers and optical sensors and transferred this information to their onboard missiles before initiating the preplanned launch sequence.
When initiated the missile launch proceeded automatically. A set of bay doors popped open along the underside of each fighter and two warheads were ejected one second apart. The first were
DP-75 Starburst directed pulse weapons, while the second were MS-230 Arinna TMWs, Tactical Multipurpose Warheads. Each one fell towards the ground below before finally igniting its thruster at a low altitude of just fifteen to twenty meters and accelerating ahead towards the target. They all used internal maps and sensors to guide them across the uneven terrain in order to stay hidden as long as possible. One missile from the first wave suffered a mechanical failure, mostly likely due to age and improper handling, and slammed into the side of a mountain.
As the remaining seven warheads proceeded to their target, elements of the Rear Guard opened fire on the gunship from behind various forms of cover. Red laser bolts flashed across the purple hued sun setting sky and were joined seconds later by familiar bluish particle beams from each of the four Sentinels. Scattered across this intense defense barrage were tiny puffs of missile thruster ignitions as a number of
surface-to-air rockets joined the sustained attack. Detecting the weapons fire almost immediately the large fifty-six meter long gunship began to slide sideways evasively, but it was already too late. Traveling at almost the speed of light most of the energy based weapons struck the ship before its maneuver was even initiated, triggering a distinct ripple effect along the Gamma’s forward shields.
The heavy shields held for the most part, but as most of the particle beams found their marks small holes began to form. A few beams would slip through these failures
before they would seal and glanced along the Gamma’s thick hull armor. One managed to strike a sideways jotting projection of the hull and exploded against it, sheering that piece of the craft clear off. The rest of the laser fire missed a little wide as the gunship undertook more evasive action, but the guided anti-air missiles had no trouble matching the maneuver. They were instead met by a wall of yellow-orange energy beam fire. The long beams of deadly energy sliced through the sky in an effort to knock out the incoming missiles. Two high explosive shaped change warheads were successfully intercepted and exploded early when struck, but the rest continued ahead unscathed. With only a hundred meters to go until the Gamma’s shield boundary, however, a large energy surge was detected emanated from the alien craft and the entire flight of four interceptors got pushed away in all directions. It was almost as if they had hit a wall and were made to bounce away. Not only did they get pushed away, but all of their systems shut down within seconds of the energy surge, as such they fell out of the sky dead and powerless.
There was a long second of respite before the gunship let loose with projectiles of its own. A dozen enemy missiles fired out from launchers along the craft’s curved sides. Half of these accelerated towards Archers One through Four
and a number of other army vehicles, while the other six split into two groups and proceeded on intercept missions of their own at the incoming Dragonfire fighters. All of the anti-air fire instantly adjusted to this new threat and the Sentinels began to scatter from their current positions. With both forces now so close together it did not take long for those missiles to reach their targets. Two were actually caught in the defensive fire, but four large explosions still rocked the entire valley below as the rest struck their targets. Archers Two and Three were the first to parish in mushroom cloud explosions. Four Centaur IFVs and a single Chimera tank disappeared in similar blasts milliseconds later. Thankfully most of their supporting troops had been offloaded before their Rear Guard deployment.
At almost the exact same time that the enemy missiles took off towards their objectives the
fighter launched Arinna TMWs ceased their terrain following mode and arched up into the sky towards the Gamma gunship. They closed the distance rapidly from the ship’s underside as their afterburners ignited. If the Gamma’s crew was surprised, it never showed as another energy surge was detected in response to the new threat. As before a wave of energy released from the gunship towards the missiles, but this one was weaker than the previous one. It struck the incoming Arinnas nonetheless, causing two of them to shut down and the rest to veer off course slightly.
The two surviving Starbursts and three
TMWs quickly adjusted their course back towards the gunship. Their systems were much more heavily shielded against interference of all sorts, allowing them to endure a higher level of punishment than the ground based Avenger missiles used by the Sentinels. Even with the slight course delay it only took a second for the first warheads to reach the gunship and two small flashes of white light finally sparked in the dimming sky as the pulse weapons detonated. The wave of magnetic radiation that followed washed over the Gamma’s underside and disrupted most of the ship’s internal systems to various degrees, most notably those on the ventral side. Shields along the entire lower half of the ship flickered brightly as their projectors tried to compensate, but it was already too late and three much larger bursts of light lit up the entire surrounding area.
Kilometers away Colonel Hallsworth watched the blooming detonations on one of the command vehicle’s internal displays. The
darmatium warheads of the MS-230s were quite distinct and instantly recognizable to those that had witnessed them before. Even so, Jonathan knew that the explosions could have been brighter still if the weapon’s safeties had not been engaged. Federation military law put limits on how much explosive force could be used on habitable planets, especially ones already colonized. In order to comply with that law all heavy weapons launchers and platforms were fitted with automated arming systems that could adjust a weapon’s explosive yield based on a variety of factors. One of these conditions was whether the launcher was in space or within a planet’s atmosphere.
Even at a decreased power setting the sight was impressive to see and Jonathan’s eyes were glued on the display to see what had become of the gunship. The entire craft disappeared for a second within a blanket of blinding light. The Arinna warheads were actually two stage weapons. Upon detonation a strong force field was generated for a fraction of a second and directed most of the explosive force towards the designated target
. This allowed the missile to cause more damage even at a lower yield.