BSE Chapter 6-43

I added a few hundred words to the end of the last chapter. Mostly to flesh out what happens between the Union fleet's arrival and what happens in this chapter.

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When Alexander got the alert that the enemy had been spotted, Eden’s End had been put into lockdown, and everyone hurried to their designated shelters.

He figured they would have time, but the enemy jumped in behind the defensive screen and opened fire before the alert could be forwarded to the fleet.

The facility shook with each plasma impact, but the improvised defenses were holding, at least until the nuke went off.

Alexander picked himself off the floor and looked around. The air was filled with dust, but the dome they were standing in had survived. He would leave damage control to Lucas and the others monitoring the control center. “Is everyone alright?”

Heads nodded, and suited figures confirmed they were fine as they picked themselves up off the floor.

Alexander adjusted his own augment suit, feeling a bit awkward wearing it, but it did add another layer of protection that he didn’t quite feel that his human form provided. It was probably overkill, but it gave him and Yulia peace of mind. Speaking of, he looked at the bright yellow suit nearby. Yulia had refused to stand by and hide while he was risking himself.

Demanding that she stay protected while others fought wouldn’t work. She had already argued against hiding since the other academy students were also suited up for the defensive operation. He could still force her, but if he did, she would hate him forever. Since there was no convincing her otherwise, the best place for her and the others was with him.

He glanced at the other academy students, all of whom were outfitted in their own black suits with white trainee badges painted on the shoulders. They were far too young to be risking their lives, but if they couldn’t keep the Shican out of the facility, nobody would survive.

Every single man and woman who wanted to help with the defense had been given a set of the armor and an FE rifle. Alexander wasn’t taking any chances, and he was glad he had. The enemy had almost succeeded in nuking the facility already.

“The fleet’s here, Alex,” Lucas said over the crackling radio channel.

Alexander let out a breath of relief and thanked Lucas for the information.

A few minutes later, Lucas came back on the comm. “Uh, Alex, we have a problem.”

“What sort of problem?” he asked on the private channel.

“The enemy fleet is diving into the atmosphere. It looks like they are heading straight for the facility, possibly to use it as cover to prevent the fleet from shooting them down.”

Alexander’s brain went blank. He had never even considered the possibility. What could they even do about it? Nothing, that was what.

He was about to order everyone into the bunkers and hope for the best when Rush cut in on the private comm. “Alex, let us handle this. We can redirect the ship from hitting the facility if they are disabled, but not from landing.”

“You can?”

“Probably,” the man muttered in reply before cutting the connection.

Alexander wanted to demand more information, but the facility shook, and more dust rained down from the ceiling.

The Shican were still firing. He heard a crack and looked over to one of the adjoining halls just as it collapsed. It had been one of the red zones on Yi Na’s map.

“Seal your suits!” one of the strike team leaders called.

Most were already sealed, but a few of the volunteers had been leaving their helmets open.

“Brace!” came a shouted command over the emergency system and all comms.

Everyone crouched, and a moment later, it felt like the ground leaped into the air to smack them.

“Atrium C has collapsed,” Lucas said over the radio. “One of the enemy destroyers struck it directly.”

“Fuck!” Alexander said before he could stop himself. The energized armor was tough, but it wasn’t designed to absorb an entire ship crashing into it. And that was only one ship. The enemy had hundreds.

The world continued to rock around them as more enemy vessels impacted the surface, then it stopped.

An exhausted-sounding Rush came over Alexander’s radio. “We did what we could, but most of the enemy ships were able to wrestle control back from us and land instead of impacting the surface.”

“You did more than enough. Thank you.” Alexander replied.

“Good luck,” Rush said, before cutting the call.

Alexander turned to his group and activated the global comm. “We have Shican on the ground. I don’t know about all of you, but I don’t plan on letting them set foot in our home.”

There was a roar of approval as everyone raised their weapons in the air.

The plan to meet the aliens outside of the facility wasn’t his, but he agreed with it. The Shican were far more dangerous in close quarters, and the main advantage of the FE rifles would be lost if they were forced to fight inside the facility. Perhaps if all of the defenders were as skilled as the strike teams, instead of something more akin to National Guard forces, who only got basic training a few times a year, he would reconsider his position. Alas, that wasn’t the case.

He motioned for the strike team leaders to take command, and soon enough, their group was racing toward the exit. With any luck, the other strike teams would be doing the same.

***

Thesska picked himself off the floor and groaned. “What happened?”

After realizing his fleet was doomed, he knew forcing the humans into melee combat would be his best bet. Thesska was more than willing to kill humans in single combat, but it irked him that the armada had lost the orbital advantage. His plan to jump behind the human defenses had worked, but he had not factored in the debris preventing his fleet from withdrawing.

Only a sparse handful of ships had managed to form warp fields and jump away, while the rest were stuck. More vessels were being destroyed by the remaining surface weapons, the orbital defenses, and the human fleet, but those weapons fell silent as the sky burned upon their entry.

Had he been able to pull out a victory in orbit, it would have been one of the greatest battles of his entire life, but he knew they wouldn’t escape the unfortunate situation he had trapped them in.

“The humans infiltrated our computer systems,” someone said with a cough. “They redirected our flight path slightly and tried to crash us into the surface. We managed to recover control, but not all of the armada was so lucky.”

Thesska growled in annoyance as he stood and dusted himself off. “How many other ships survived?”

“I’m not sure, Emperor. I’m getting readings from a few dozen, but our external sensors are damaged, and visuals are being obscured by the dust in the air.”

Thesska would have preferred if more captains crashed into the massive ground facility, but he would take what he could get.

Thesska grunted. “Tell everyone to arm themselves. It’s time to hunt.”

He didn’t wait for a reply as he hurried to the nearest airlock. It was already open, and the crew were jumping out before he arrived. He jumped out of the opening only a moment before something invisible burned through the choking haze above and cut into the top of his ship from bow to stern.

The defensive field must have collapsed in the crash landing because something inside the vessel exploded, and a fireball blew through the opening he had exited a moment earlier.

Now that there was no worry about the ships crashing into their precious home, the humans in orbit were firing on them.

He could hear other explosions in the distance, but he ignored them as he joined the growing crowd of Shican warriors as they raced across the dusty ground on all fours toward the barely visible building in the distance. The air was thin and tasted foul, but the basic cybernetics that most Shican had, such as augmented lungs, took care of any issues.

More Shican joined them, appearing from the dust like ghosts, turning the small crowd of warriors into a tide of death heading toward the frantic humans in the distance.

Thesska snorted when he saw the humans pouring out of the facility to face them in open combat.

He grinned wildly and stood, pulling his rifle from his back to fire. Not all of the Shican had ranged weapons, but enough did.

He picked out a target hiding behind a damaged defensive fortification and fired the heavy projectile. It should have smashed into the human and brought him down, but instead, the projectile stopped short of the target, and the human slapped it out of the way and brought up their own gun.

***

Alexander cursed as he exited the building. The defensive fortifications that had been set up had been completely obliterated by the shockwave from the nuclear weapon. A few groups were attempting to rebuild them with anything at hand, but the enemy was already rushing out of the thick dust hanging in the air.

Weapons fire cracked across the flat terrain, and Shican fell in droves, but more kept coming. Alexander fired until his rifle ran out of ammunition, then he reached for one of his spare magazines.

The sounds of gunfire were punctuated by explosions as the fleet carved into the crashed vessels with lasers, trying to reduce the number of Shican spilling out of the ships.

Lucas must have been directing their fire, but it didn’t seem to be helping much. One group of Shican reached a hastily assembled barricade and simply bounded over the ten-foot-tall wall to tackle the defenders.

The armor evened the odds against the alien felines, even for those less skilled in close combat, but it wasn’t perfect.

A large group bounded toward Alexander and his group. Alexander’s rifle clicked empty once more as he fired round after hypersonic round into the Shican soldiers, burning through ammo as fast as he could reload the weapon. It wasn’t enough. He went to reload once more, but was forced to use the rifle to intercept the Shican blade aimed at his skull. Before the hissing alien could pull back for another strike, Alexander bashed it in the face with the butt of the gun.

There was a crunch, and the individual fell to the ground and didn’t get up.

Alexander looked around frantically for Yulia. She was locked in a melee as well. Her rifle knocking aside strikes, but unlike him, she hadn’t run out of ammunition. When she knocked the enemy’s weapon aside, she had done so in a way to angle the barrel at her adversary. The gun fired, and the Shican fighter fell, along with the three coming up behind it.

Those weren’t the only corpses surrounding his daughter. She had killed six other Shican while he had been fighting off one.

All of that training he had forced upon her with Damien was paying dividends, but he wished it had never been necessary.

He wanted to go help her, but more Shican were coming out of the dust cloud, and she appeared to have everything well in hand.

Alexander reloaded his gun. He was already on his last magazine. Had they known how many Shican would reach the ground, he would have quadrupled the amount of ammo each person carried. There was no way the Shican were going to give them time to retrieve more from the ammo crates.

He was halfway through his last magazine when he saw the first enemy cyborgs emerge from the dust cloud. They weren’t hard to spot. They all wore black armor and held the only ranged weapons any of the Shican seemed to use. The cyborgs were also quicker than the normal Shican.

Alexander targeted one that stopped to shoulder a large laser. The FE round zipped across the distance in barely a heartbeat, and the target’s head exploded. He scanned the enemy and found a few more targets carrying lasers. As he fired, he told the other defenders to focus on those individuals.

The Shican had projectile rifles as well, but the armor’s upgraded defensive fields could stop those. The individual fields still had a short duration, but with the help of Rush and the other’s he had managed to give each field generator a series of five stored charges without having to do a full redesign of the system.

He knew the changes were saving lives because the battlefield was awash with flickers as the fields saved people. Now that Cyborgs were joining the attack, it wouldn’t last, but he couldn’t focus on that.

In the moment Alexander took to lower his rifle and glance around, someone took a shot at him. He slapped the projectile away after it was caught by his defensive field in case it was explosive and snapped his weapon up to return fire.