Chapter 218: (Foxtrot Niner Two) (2/2)
It took a little less than three minutes for Paklak to signal that the dismount crews were loaded.
”Get on the door guns. If First Cav is getting pressed, the Precursors are in strength,” Mukstet said, lifting off and hitting the thrusters. He banked, heading in the direction that Kanput had tossed up, then hit the pedal. The striker nosed down, the gravitons kicking in, and started picking up speed.
”Keep on the horn, let them know we're coming in. Foxtrot-Niner-Ten, make sure your transponder is squawking the correct codes, I don't wanna get spiked by our own air defense,” Mukstet snapped out. The striker was up to six hundred knots, staying just under the sound barrier.
”Roger, Two,” Huxmet said. ”Transponder locked. Yours looks good. Going from queriable to broadcast.”
”Tech check in,” Mukstet ordered.
--all techs in position-- 973 answered.
”All techs in position,” Huxmet stated.
At almost 700mph/1100kph, the flight in took less than ten minutes and gave the striker craft time to fully deploy their systems.
”Unidentified First Cavalry unit, this is Foxtrot Niner Two, Second Telkan Combat Aviation, inbound on your south by south-east,” Kanput started calling out. ”We will be making overflight in two, repeat, two minutes. Mark friendlies with green star cluster flare or red smoke.”
Mukstet cut Kanput's broadcast from his awareness, dropping the striker a few feet lower so he was barely skimming above the treeline. He could see the smoke coming up fast and angled toward it, Foxtrot-Nine-Ten sticking on his port side.
”Drop to engagement speed,” Mukstet ordered, easing off the throttle. The striker slowed to just over sixty mph.
”Deploy weapons,” Mukstet ordered. ”Check linkages.”
”Roger,” Huxmet said, his voice tight.
”Weapons ready,” Mukstet snapped. ”Sensors free!”
”Sensors free!” Huxmet answered.
The whole thing was melded into composite. Mass detection, thermal overlay, ferrous detection, standard light, LIDAR, RADAR, phased millimetric particle scanners, the whole nine yards into one complete picture that was put directly on the front of his helmet's faceplate. He knew the windows were showing standard visual light scans of the exterior despite the fact that armored shields had rolled into place.
”Open troopbay doors,” Mukstet ordered, hitting the toggles on his own.
”ON THE GUNS! RIGHT CHECK! LEFT CHECK!” Paklak roared out.
”Countermeasures hot,” Mukstet ordered.
”Check,” Huxmet answered.
”Thirty seconds,” Mukstet warned.
The trees suddenly thinned, revealing the battlefield.
A hastily dug in fortification, battlescreens visible from the air, was facing off against a horde of Precursor machines. As they went by Mukstet counted three heavy weapon positions and at least nine standard weapons as well as a mortar belching out chaff and smoke. Red smoke was starting to spread and someone fired off a green star cluster flare.
There were nearly two hundred Precursor vehicles, including one of the big ones with the triple snail shell. The rest of the vehicles were spread out in a half-crescent, slowly advancing on the Terran troops. They were taking heavy damage from the fighting position but were still advancing despite damage and losses.
”CONTACT! WEAPONS FREE!” Mukstet snapped out.
The pilot part of Mukstet smiled widely.
”ENGAGING!” Paklak yelled out. ”STARBOARD GUN HOT!”
The M183E5 six barrel 10mm minigun roared to life as one of the dismount team raked the Precursor machines with the doorgun. A solid shaft of light connected the side of the striker to the Precursors. The mix was five APDS rounds to one tracer but the high speed minigun made it look like nothing but tracers as the gunner raked the Precursor vehicles.
Then they were past, Mukstet banking hard, hearing the airframe groan. He could feel a light flutter in the portside gravitons but they held. He reoriented, nose down, tail up, wings deployed out. He opened up with the guns, hammering the Precursors on their top decks, even as he cut loose with missiles at the big one. Ten ripple-fired next to him, the strikers shuddering as the pilots cut loose with the entire missile pods loadouts.
The outer shell blew out on the bigger Precursor, throwing smoke and debris into the air. Smaller ones exploded as cannon fire or missiles found weak spots in the topside armor.
Then they were past again, looping back around. Groundfire was starting to pick up, but the battle-screens were shunting it easily. Mukstet dropped down to the point where they were barely above the big Precursor and came in hard, opening up with the guns even as the nano-forge printed out replacement missiles. For a split second he was locked up then the chaff and flares broke the lock. The massive shell sparkled, dimpled, then suddenly exploded. The door gunners were firing high angle shots as the strikers raced by.
He came back in on another loop, coming in fast and low, when it hit him.
It was like a pillow made of soft feathers with rocks behind it. It hit his mind, locked up his body for a second, and even his heart stuttered for a second. His vision tunneled down and his lungs were frozen as his hand went dead on the stick.
His neural link slammed his heart into movement and kicked him in the chest, letting him take a whooping breath.
PSYCHIC SHIELDING ENGAGED
For a second he was back on the wall, firing at the grotesque half-finished creatures charging the walls of the refugee point he was desperately defending as it was all hands on deck. Bellowing in rage as the Precursors charged the wall, tentacles flailing, cilia whipping, jaws gnashing, the battering of their screams, both heard and unheard, smashing into his brain.
”MY LITTLE BROTHER IS IN HERE!” he roared out, his fingers reflexively finding the firing studs on the control stick and holding them down.
Then his suit squeezed blood into his brain and his head cleared.
He was going in sideways, dropping out of the air. He hit the ailerons feathered the graviton, and leveled out, pulling up just before he would have slammed into a Precursor. As it was he got so close that his battlescreen hit, flared, and converted the Precursor's upper section into fiery shrapnel. Mukstet glanced and saw Ten slam into the ground, bounce upward, bobble for a second, then shoot up into the air, taking heavy ground-fire. The starboard wing on Ten exploded but Huxmet kept it in the air, hammering the Precursors with his center-line cannon.
--setting wavelength-- 973 said. --didn't know could do that--
”It's OK, you got it up in time,” Mukstet said, panting. His nose and ears had bled but he could still see clearly. He changed the channel. ”Foxtrot-Nine-Ten, status?”
”Huxmet here. Dalrup is unconscious, psychic assault, two of my dismount Marines are unconscious. Lost my starboard wing and graviton, still in it,” the other craft reported.
”Let's get back in,” Mukstet said, banking tight. Ten looped out wider, unable to pull a turn that tight, then came in right on Mukstet's six.
The missiles were reloaded and Mukstet dumped all the pods at the bigger one. Both the outside shells were gone, gutted and blowing fire and smoke, when the missiles whipped through the point defense and slammed into the shell.
The interior mechanisms blew out the other side in fire and smoke. Huxmet's rockets lost lock, found new targets, and spiraled in through the point defense to rake the smaller ones.
The ground forces were still putting up defense, the heavy guns pounding any of them that charged forward, the lighter weapons knocking out the drones and light attack craft.
”They're pulling back!” Huxmet said on the next pass. More and more of the Precursor machines were either reversing or trying to turn around. The ones that tried to turn found themselves targeted by the heavy guns, which ripped through the side armor like tissue. Those that succeeded found that their rear armor wasn't thick enough to shrug the pounding of the ground troop's guns.
”Keep on them! Don't let them rout!” Mukstet called out, sweeping across the line again. It was textbook perfect, something you never even saw in training. An almost perfect line of armored vehicles, a straight run with the center-line main gun.
He upped the cyclic rate as they came in, cutting loose with the APDSHEX, slashing across the top decks of the last of the Precursor machines.
Then he was past again, coming around in a loop.
”Slow burn, Ten, let's knock out the stragglers,” Mukstet ordered.
”Roger, Two, slowing down,” Huxmet answered.
It took two more passes before the sensors were clear. Mukstet checked his instruments. Nanoforges at 32% heat and 11% slush, no casualties. All three of his unconscious troops had woken back up and got into the fight. Ten was still in it, although missing a wing kept the striker at only 250 knots.
”Let's land, see who we've got,” Mukstet ordered. ”Probably the 3/9 Rangers or Troop A.”
”It's an element of 207th Signal Company,” Kanput said.
”You read that, Paklak?” Mukstet asked.
”Roger, sir,” the Corporal said.
The striker settled down onto the torn up grass, whining slightly as the gravitons went to standby.
There was just over a dozen troops in light armor jogging forward, half of them carrying the heavy guns at two each. Most of them had heavy packs and at the motions of one of them they broke into two groups, one heading toward Foxtrot-Nine-Ten, the other heading for Mukstet's Foxtrot-Nine-Two.
The dismount teams helped them up, grabbing the Terran's hands with their own and yanking them onboard.
”That's it, sir!” Paklak said.
Mukstet hit the door power and closed the doors, lifting off and orienting toward the striker base. After a moment a large human came in and sat down in the pilot's seat. Their face-shield went transparent and Mukstet could see the sweating pink face of a Terran.
”Lieutenant Varren, 207th Signal Company. Goddamn good to see you,” the Terran said.
”PFC Mukstet, Second Telkan Marine Combat Aviation,” Mukstet said, paying attention to flying the striker. ”Glad to see you.”
The human relaxed. ”We're probably scattered all over. We had to pod it to the surface and even then, I'm not sure how many made it off the Patricia Lee as it is,” he said. ”We came out of hyperspace and literally slammed into a Precursor ship.”
”Orbits a shit-show, sir,” Mukstet said. ”Commo is out across the planet as far as we can tell.”
”Polyrhythmic phase delay jamming algorithms or some gobbledygook like that according to two of my men,” the officer said. He shook his head. ”I'm an Ordnance officer, just got assigned to 207th. They start talking bandwidth octopulse signal compression and phased multi-frequency whatever the hell and my brain just fuzzes right up. I can tell you the sixty-three different 40mm rounds right down to color and weight, but if it's any more than 'push button to make talky' I'm completely lost.”
Mukstet chuckled at that.
”You taking us back to one of the log bases?” the Lieutenant asked.
”No, sir,” Mukstet said. ”We're in the process of building a striker base but right now we've got no commo with anyone else. We've got my Air Combat Squadron, a stasis locker of mantids, some construction equipment, and some equipment we're salvaging from a drop-cradle. We were doing a patrol when we managed to get your signal.”
The Lieutenant shook his head.
”Ain't war a bitch.”