Authors: Steve Wheeler
Marko scrolled through the AV feeds before settling on the one in front of the major, looking out over the blunt nose of the lifter.
Basalt
was holding station with a flattened half-cylinder-shaped airship base that started to grow upwards as a number of lift envelopes were inflated: once at maximum size each segment locked against its neighbour and electrically bonded together, forming the classic airfoil shape of the dirigibles of the twenty-first century. The gases were vented, allowing a vacuum to exist inside the wafer-thin-walled molecular chain-linked graphene titanium carbide reinforced lift envelopes. They were then sequentially sealed as the craft, with
Basalt
and ten smooth teardrop-shaped atmospheric gunships in escort, all on antigravity, slid down towards the distant thick white cloud cover.
When they were still twenty kilometres above the planet’s surface, the major detached the lifter from
Basalt
which, with Patrick in control, climbed out through the atmosphere to hold itself in a geosynchronous orbit. High above them, double-winged disc-shaped landers deployed from the nearest portion of
Rick
and also started to descend.
From the rear cockpit, Glint asked, ‘Why is
Basalt
not coming down with us, Marko?’
‘You know how the boss is all for as much independence as possible, Glint. From where he will be, Patrick can give us some fire support if required, and he has our own landers on board as well. It’s smart, I think.’
They settled down for the fifteen-minute descent with nothing to look at except the horizon of cloud, the ships around them, and the inside of the lifter’s hangar. When they were five kilometres up, the gunships started to fan out, with five dropping lower and moving in a clockwise direction, and the others staying above them, moving further out in the opposite direction with wings deploying from the bodies of the craft and fat-muzzled linear cannons folding down in cupolas underneath them. Atmospheric jet turbine pods also rotated out of the rear of the craft as they readied themselves. Three smaller versions of the gunships dropped away from each one and quickly flew down into the clouds to start reconnaissance of the pick-up areas. The Games Board lander waited above them and deployed small flying camera units which looked to Marko like winged eyeballs.
Spike had climbed onto Marko’s helmet and locked himself on, jacking into his AV feeds.
‘Do the gunships have biological pilots, Marko? I know I could just access this information, but it is more interesting to hear it from you sometimes.’
Marko chuckled. ‘Fair enough, Spike. I like talking with you too. No, they do not have pilots. Not biological ones, anyway. Limited sub-AI minds which are controlled for some of the time, directly from the dirigible in this case. That craft will have at least two fully augmented intelligences but I would not be surprised if there was also at least one biological Rick on board as well. Trouble is, all comms from him sound just like him, AI or manifested. Here we go, coming up on the cloud cover. Wonder if the surface ever sees the local sun?’
‘Yes, Marko, but not at this time of year for this latitude, and it is not particularly strong light anyway.’
‘Yeah, that would be right, Glint. Just wish that we knew a lot more about possible nasties down there.’
The major interrupted. ‘All crew, we have a go on the mission. Stand by to drop in three minutes.’
Marko checked his air feeds then sealed his helmet faceplate with the outer protection folding up and around Spike from the collar of the suit. Another blister-shaped transparent shield slid over his head from the rear of the cockpit. Looking into his screens, he switched to the ground maps that the radar from the dirigible, stationed seven kilometres above, was feeding them. He then started the turbines and throttled back, easing off the power settings on the antigravity. He noted the dispersal sequence and took the controls lightly in his hands.
‘We are good to go, Glint,’ Marko instructed.
A moment later they abruptly dropped away from the lifter to be buffeted by a sudden rush of air. Marko peeled the Chrysops away to the right, its four vectored thrust jets working to hold station off the right rear of the lifter, with the other aircraft doing the same. Lilly and Jasmine in their Hangers deployed a moment later, climbing above the lifter just as they broke through the clouds to see the forest of enormous bright orange, cream, yellow and red fungus spread out below them.
At the ends of, and beneath, the stubby wings, the double rail guns folded out and extended on their gimballed mounts, targeting crosshairs appearing in the heads-up units inside the flyers’ helmets as each came online. They all did a large sweeping pass over the first of the pick-up points, a single bright blue orb hovering above it, seeing only the hundreds of Avians crouching in a great circle. The first of the landers swept in from the south at speed to flare out hard over the landing zone, and six large hatchways quickly opened downwards. The lander hovered to allow those waiting to move quickly up the ramps and within minutes the hatches were closing again and it lifted away from the spongy mass of flattened fungal material. The lander went straight up on antigravity before accelerating with its jets through the cloud cover with an escort of three gunships.
‘That looked easy!’ Glint commented.
Marko pulled a face. ‘Yeah, Glint, let’s hope it stays that way.’
Rick’s distinctive voice came into everyone’s headphones. ‘That was the easy one. It’s all uphill from here. We can see squads of mixed Avians and standard humans, with what appears to be some sort of mech in support, moving towards the next two landing zones. Remember, unless they fire on the refugees or on you, you must not engage them.’
They dropped out of the clouds again to see fire engulfing some of the fungus trees, kilometres away from the landing zone, with the wind carrying the thick smoke across the area where the blue marker was hovering.
‘Thought that that fungus did not burn well?’ Marko mused out loud.
Spike answered. ‘If it’s dead and dried out, Marko, anything will burn.’
They flew over the area of the burning trees to test if any of the ground forces would engage them, just as thousands of small flying lizard-like creatures erupted from the ground around the flaming trees. They formed into swarming balls and rapidly climbed up to investigate the smaller gunship drones as they in turn decelerated to ascertain if there was a threat. As soon as any group got too close, the drones would accelerate straight up. Marko watched with increasing interest as the creatures constantly changed tactics to try and get close to one of the drones.
As if orchestrated, dozens of different ‘groups’ converged on one drone which suddenly found itself cut off from any avenue of escape. The creatures came within a metre of the drone and ejected a sand-coloured mist. As the drone flew through the mist, it suddenly shot upwards, then rolled over and tumbled out of control to explode when it hit the forest floor, its fuel and ammunition detonating. The resulting fire encouraged even more of the lizards to take flight.
‘Wow! Wonder what that mist was made of, to take out a combat drone so fast?’ Harry exclaimed.
‘There are a few possibilities, Harry, but triflic acids would be right up there with them. Dissolves just about anything quickly. Fascinated that an advanced biological could evolve them for use, as we normally only see that in insects.’
The major spoke up. ‘Lilly is right, people, stay away from the lizards. Now listed as a natural biological hazard. Right, the Avians are moving across onto the southern ridge line. The lander will attempt a pick-up from there.’
All craft carried on orbiting, escorting the fast-moving Avians, some of whom were flying to the pick-up sites, constantly looking for threats to their sides, when Jasmine suddenly yelled, ‘Julie! Eject!’
Marko swung around in his seat to see Julie being blasted upwards from her craft just as three micro-missiles slammed into it. The ejection seat took her hundreds of metres as the nearest gunships fired down into the forested ravine that she had just passed over. A third drone swung up to catch her seat with her still in it, before it reached its zenith, and grasped the seat back with waldos, flying her up towards the lifter. Marko could imagine her grinning, but shaking at the same time from the near miss.
‘Spike,’ Marko said. ‘Watch what happens on the AV feeds and let me know how she gets on.’
More micro-missiles were fired from another concealed position as microwave beams flashed downwards from the dirigible far overhead, burning the missile warheads before they reached their targets. Hundreds of metres above them, explosions started in earnest as well.
‘Bit far away for air bursts, don’t you think?’ Fritz asked.
‘Unintentional air bursts, Fritz,’ the major answered. ‘The dirigible is knocking down mortar shells. Anti-mortar in a few seconds.’
High-acceleration missiles flashed from above, exploding on the mortar positions below, as the gunships also started to engage ground targets. The gunships howled towards the ground to scream along millimetres above the ridge lines and tree tops, firing into the mortar emplacements as well as pulling extreme internal G forces far in extreme of what any biological could withstand. From
Basalt’s
crew’s perspective it was obviously exactly the response that the enemy ground forces had been waiting for when, seconds later, two gunships, which the command dirigible had sent to investigate signatures of mortar positions, crashed headlong into fine net-like tough fungal rhizomorphs which had swung up from the towering fungal trees seconds before the gunships came into sight.
The effect was dramatic: each otherwise tough craft was suddenly seized and flung into a savagely tight loop that was terminated against the ground due to its own speed and kinetic energy. They exploded, producing impressive fireballs which ignited even more trees and agitated greater numbers of the lizards, and then millions of long streamlined double-winged iridescent red hornets.
Basalt’s
crew, on seeing them, shuddered, remembering their experiences on 27’s planet with insects. The hornets swarmed around the burning areas, then immediately attacked the two Games Board flying cameras which had come down to get closer footage of the destroyed gunships. As soon as a hundred or so of the hornets had come in contact with the cameras, they simply fell from the sky to crash into the forest. As each camera started to tumble down, the flies left it to seek out other targets, including the lizards, as an ecological battle royal started in the surrounding area with hundreds of different creatures and insects attracted to the fires. Marko wished fervently that he’d have the time to study them, hoping that he would at least get a chance to look through the Games Board’s images.
‘Julie is well, Marko,’ Spike reported. ‘A hatchway opened in the top of the lifter although she was still locked into her ejection seat as it was lowered by the gunship.’
‘Good, thanks, Spike.’
Before he could comment further
Rick
spoke. ‘We are moving further up the ridge line. My intel drone is encouraging the Avians to ditch their belongings and fly to another area, but they are insistent that they take their gear. Another larger group is now moving down the ridge to join them, so two landers are now inbound. ETA is fifteen minutes.’
Marko thought that, considering the swarming behaviour of the creatures they had seen, there must be a burning time in the planet’s year, and started to look in the forest for evidence. Looking carefully, he saw trees that appeared to have been burnt and had thousands of orbs dotted over them; he wondered if it was part of a life cycle of the native species. He also wondered about the mechanism that would ignite the trees, as it appeared to be a fairly random spread. Things were starting to settle down again as the two landers broke cloud cover and started to sweep down to the hundreds of waiting Avians.
The first slowed down and then hovered just above a large flattened area with a stone outcropping. The vehicle’s hatches rapidly swung down and the refugees swarmed aboard. It lifted away as the second large craft did the same. Nothing had attacked them by the time the remaining gunships and craft orbited. They all sighed in relief when the second lander started to climb up through the clouds with the remaining gunships in escort.
~ * ~
Three
Marko looked down at his fuel levels and wondered how soon before they would be allowed to refuel. He keyed the major’s comm link. ‘Boss, I am coming up short on fuel.’
Michael Longbow replied a minute later. ‘Yeah, just got the word. The next pick-up is some thousand kilometres away. All dock.’
As he swung the Chrysops towards the lifter, there was a huge flash from overhead and seconds later one of the landers could be seen to tumble out of the clouds some distance away. Marko ramped up his vision and watched as the ship, billowing smoke and fire from its main engine bays and obviously struggling to maintain control and altitude, appeared to gain some control as the hatches were blown off and the Avians poured out of them and away from the stricken craft to fly back to the planet’s surface.
The large ship started to gain altitude again then suddenly there was another explosion deep inside the craft. It rolled over onto its back and plummeted towards the ground. To Marko, it seemed to take forever to hit — until he realised that he had inadvertently sped himself up. Seconds after he reverted to normal speed the large ship hurtled down into a ravine with a great burst of fire and smoke. The shockwave arrived seconds later with the noise of the crash audible even through his helmet layers.