Star Force: Survivor (SF52) (7 page)

They waited again for several minutes, seeing if there
would be a response. When there wasn’t another came, then another. When the
fifth one arrived, this one being an unarmored civilian, they waited it out
again, with one of the commandos using a small distiller cylinder they’d got
from the emergency supplies to purify a bit of water, offering Rio a quick
drink before he took off. Trailblazing another half kilometer, he set down more
waypoints then hunkered down again in another oversized puddle, with people
shifting more rapidly through both sections.

Three and a half hours after he’d started his trek
across
he
slowly moved out of the plain and into the
forest, scouting out the area and finding it clear. He held position there as
the first few others came through, one at a time, and joined him in
establishing a defensive perimeter…with one going up a tree to act as an aerial
spotter.

Six minutes later that spotter threw up a warning
signal, telling everyone to hunker down as a Skarron fighter flew up the length
of the plain…and passed directly over them. Everyone stayed down for many
minutes to come, but the fighter didn’t come back.

Slowly people started moving again, and over the next
half hour some 16 made it across…then out of nowhere Rio spotted a Hobbit in
the forest. A split second later it noticed him, with Rio knowing that he had
to act quickly. He took off sprinting towards it, firing his rifle and mowing
it down before it had a chance to report in. He took two plasma hits to his
armor’s shields, but they held up…then he noticed another Hobbit nearby.

It took off running in retreat and Rio went after it. It
took more than two minutes for him to catch up to it and make the kill, but by
then it was already too late.

A few minutes later the fighter returned, and despite
everyone on the plain taking cover and not moving a muscle it found them and
started blasting away as they jumped up and ran for their lives…with only two
making it to the forest edge, both commandos with plasma damage to their armor.

Rio waited on the others until the last of their
battlemap tracking signals cut out, including the Knight’s. He’d almost made it
across, but was gunned down within 150 meters of the forest edge. Biting down
so hard his jaw hurt, Rio forced himself to keep going with the others, four of
which were unarmored, including their pilot.

Prodding the
civy
along as
fast as he could manage, the survivors kept moving on…with what would be a
constant trail of Skarron infantry following them, making it a footrace to get
to friendly territory that the commandos couldn’t excel on, given that they
could only move as fast as the slowest person…and damn their luck that they had
to have an untrained civilian with them.

7

Chad ducked behind one of the commandos who half swung
him around with a firm grip on his upper right arm as a salvo of white plasma
dots flashed past with a few impacting the dull white armor’s shields, with the
commando taking the hit for him. The man fired back but stayed put as more commandos
moved around them, falling back and intercepting the Hobbits that had flanked
them. The stupid little things were fast and there were many of them, with this
being the third time since the plain that they’d been attacked.

Like before the commandos chewed them up, focusing on
the weak point around Chad and the other unarmored personnel and moving outward
like an exploding nova killing everything they came across. Soon the commando
shielding him stood up and released his grip on his arm…then they were off
running again, with Chad’s legs protesting heavily. He’d thought he was in good
shape, having attained self-sufficiency long ago, but the aliens were just as
fast and he knew the commandos were itching to run faster, but they wouldn’t
leave him and the others behind, which Chad was immensely thankful for.

Pumping as much speed out of his fatigued body as he
could manage he followed the commando through the trees, not worrying about
where he was going but just with keeping up. Nearby
was
their pilot and a couple of other civilians, both techs. The pilot seemed to be
holding pace fine, but the other two were just as worse off as Chad, each of
which had a commando with them to keep them on pace and to shield them should
the enemy close in. Fortunately none of the Skarron monsters were pursuing them
through the forest, just the little ones, but they were deadly enough and
didn’t seem concerned about their own losses…just in killing the Humans.

And what was worse was that the Humans couldn’t stop
running. Chad was getting slower and slower, but if they stopped they’d be
overwhelmed. He thought the commandos realized that they’d have to eventually,
because every now and then he’d see some of them dropping back and hear
weaponsfire behind them and he guessed they were going back to kill some of the
enemy before catching back up to the slow moving group.

Chad didn’t know how much longer he could keep going
without walking, but he had to at least try to keep moving. The others might
not make it much longer either, but he didn’t want to be the one to cause them
to stop. If the others did, then there’s nothing he could do about it, but if it
was just a matter of his being able to stretch himself further then damn him if
he wasn’t going to find a way to do it.

Thoughts like these were running through the back of
his mind as he focused on his steps and keeping pace…then all of a sudden the
commando he was following hit the brakes and grabbed him again, slamming him
against the trunk of a nearby tree and holding him there as the forest erupted
with a barrage of white plasma from ahead.

“Stay here, stay down,” he said,
then
the commando disappeared ahead as well. Chad did as told but knew that was bad.
So far the aliens had been coming up at them from the rear, but now it seemed
that they had gotten ahead of them somehow…maybe even cut them off.

He pulled out the stun pistol from the holster he wore,
the first time he’d touched the weapon since he’d been given it. It couldn’t
kill the enemy, but it could knock them down long enough for him to run and he
clung to it now with a fierce grip as he kept his body melded up next to the
tree trunk. He didn’t dare look around, so he watched what he could from his
position, especially the area behind him where he’d expected the enemy to come
from, and waited while the commandos did what they did best.

After what felt like an eternity of adrenaline-laced
torment, the plasma fired died down but did not entirely quit. Frozen in place
Chad jerked when the commando came back and yanked him onto his feet.

“Run!” he yelled
,
pointing
ahead as the armored suit headed the other way.

Chad didn’t know what else to do so he turned and ran
forward, not having anyone to follow. He spotted the pilot to his left and ran
towards him, unable to keep up pace but visually following him and dropping
onto his path as much as he could. Ahead and to his right there were explosions
as plasma hit wood in a variety of places, none right nearby but still loud
enough to send shivers up and down his spine.

Chad just kept running, not thinking, just running.
His muscles had stopped complaining, for somehow they knew how close to dying
they were so they shut up and seemed to work with him, but still failed to give
the necessary speed. Another suit of commando armor shot past him, this one
coming from the left and cutting across diagonally in front of him about 2
meters away. Chad hesitated,
then
forced himself back
into a full run as plasma fire broke out behind him. A few steps later and his
shoulder exploded in pain and he lost his coordination, with his own legs
tripping him up and sending him crashing into the soft ground.

He turned right side up and started to get back to his
feet, smelling the charred flesh of his own body but refusing to look at the
wound just as a pair of aliens came into view. Chad grabbed the stun gun in his
left hand and fired twice, missing the first and hitting the second time as
plasma flashed by his head. One of the Hobbits went down,
then
the other one sent a shot directly into the man’s forehead, killing him before
he even hit the ground.

When the commando told him to run,
Davi
didn’t hesitate. He knew how bad the situation was and he didn’t want to be in
the firing line any more than he had to be. He took off sprinting in the
direction he was told and didn’t look back, relying on years of training to
deal with the fatigue creeping through his body. His legs, arms, and lungs were
burning but that didn’t matter. He’d been through tough workouts in order to
get his fitness level up and he knew he could take it and more…the problem was
he was running a race against plasma, and unless the enemy was simply bad shots
he was going to lose out.

His only hope was putting as many tree trunks between
him and them as possible. He wore a pistol on his hip but didn’t bother to pull
it out, needing every arm swing to carry him further away from the Hobbits.
They were slow as far as foot soldiers went, but he wasn’t all that much faster
and this terrain suited them well.
Lots of trees, mostly
flat, soft and moist with wisps of fog.
He wished he had armor with a
sensor helmet, but at the moment he was just going to have to rely on the
commandos’ guidance.

Not long after he took off running one of them came up
on him and flanked him for a few seconds, redirecting him slightly more to the
left, then she tore off and headed for some unseen enemy. There was weaponsfire
everywhere, mostly heard, but some flashes were visible through the trees.
Davi
desperately hoped he wasn’t running right into the
enemy, but for the most part the sounds of battle were behind and to his right,
which made sense with the leftward angle he’d been told to run.

Down!
a
voice yelled at him so loud he almost jumped, but trusting
in it he crashed to the ground just as a couple of plasma blasts shot across
over top of him, one of which hit a tree and blew pieces of bark out like a
fragmentation grenade. Two of them stuck in his forearm, imbedding a good half
inch. Ignoring them the pilot rolled over and looked back just in time to see a
ghost of silver armor pop out of a cloud of fog and hit a Hobbit so hard it
literally flew three meters through the air before it hit a tree and slumped to
the ground.

Nearby three others fell to the
ground without being touched.
The Archon reached down, grabbed one of
their rifles and shot them with it in quick, accurate blasts…then shot the one
unconscious by the tree before running over to
Davi
,
who saw the man’s armor punctured in multiple places.

“You’re alive?” he asked, but the Archon didn’t have
time to answer and just picked
Davi
up by the arm and
began dragging him forward. The pilot got his feet under him and started
running, with
Iden
finally releasing him and running
off into the lead.

They ran for some thirty seconds before the Archon
spoke into his mind again.

Stay on this
heading
, he said, then turned to the right and disappeared through the
trees, accelerating to a speed
Davi
could never have
hoped to match.

The pilot ran…and ran…and ran. He didn’t talk, think,
or use a single muscle impulse to do anything but run as fast as he could until
the sounds of combat finally disappeared. No one was around him and he wondered
what he should do, but at the moment he just kept running, hard and fast, on
the line the Archon had assigned him.

When he was finally considering stopping
he
eventually met up with a commando that waved him over.
Glad to finally have some direction he followed the man forward until he met up
with many others who jogged alongside him. None of them stopped, but the pace
slackened a bit and
Davi
was able to ease off
slightly, but he figured if he stopped and walked now he’d have a hard time
getting his body going again at this speed.

He did notice that the pace was faster than it had
been previously. Not hearing anyone nearby
he
ventured
a hushed question between breaths.

“Where are…the others?”

“They didn’t make it,” the commando said.

“And the…Archon?”

“Covering our exit.
Keep
moving as fast as you can.”

“I’m the slow one now?”
Davi
asked.

“Yes,” the commando said with no animosity, only
regret.

“I can manage…a little more. But I don’t know…for how
long.”

“Give us what you can.”

Davi
took in and let out a
deep breath, then accelerated up another gear with the commando matching pace.
Those ahead did so as well when he started to catch them. He didn’t know if
this was everyone, but by his count they were down to 13, not counting the
Archon which was nowhere in sight. The slow and wounded were no longer with
them.

Davi
ran and ran until
finally the group stopped and he was told to grab some quick sleep while he
could, as well as some rations. Water had to wait a few minutes until one of
the commandos came back with a container full, which
Davi
sucked down gratefully. It was literally the best water he had ever tasted…then
he
laid
down on the ground and passed out, trusting
the commandos and giving in to the urge his body had been hammering him with
forever.

He was woken in what felt like 5 minutes and dragged
to his feet. His body didn’t want to comply and his mind was foggy, but the
commando pulling him up and on eventually got him woken up and they were back
on the run again…though this time it was more of a jog. The food he’d gotten in
him had done some good, but it wasn’t enough and his legs felt like shredded
lead. Still, he knew the importance of keeping moving and while he wasn’t
wearing any armor nor as strong or fast as the commandos, he was military and
he understood their predicament. He desperately wanted to get back into the
air, but right now their failure or success was largely dependent on how fast
he was able to move, so for the sake of himself and the others he focused on
that to the exclusion of all else.

Iden
wasn’t with the group,
nor did he intend to be. He was trailing behind them at the very edge of
battlemap range so he could know where they were but keep enough of a buffer
between them and him so he could keep the Hobbits off their tail. He’d grabbed
a handful of foodstuffs from one of the commandos on the run and had ate them
in the past few minutes, the first food he’d had since the crash, then he was
back into
Venator
mode, hunting the enemy in order to
play aggressive defense.

His own ammunition had run dry by now, and he was left
with using the Hobbits’ own weapons against them. He had three armor punctures,
not large but the burns on his chest, back, and left leg were hurting quite
bad, not to mention seeping blood occasionally. He’d stopped some 14 hours
prior for some quick Sesspik work to stop the bleeding, but more than that he
couldn’t manage. He was on the clock as far as supplies went, with very little
body fat to operate off of and his ambrosia already depleted.

He hadn’t been able to get any of it from the
commandos, for there had been no time during the firefight.
Iden
knew he could still fight with the low energy, but sooner or later attrition
would wear him down. Before that happened or he got a lethal puncture to his
armor he had to get back into friendly territory. Linger and he was as good as
dead, even if it came from simple starvation.

Even in his weakened state he was faster than the
others, who were now moving at a decent clip since the slowest members were no
longer around. That was a small, bittersweet blessing and
Iden
was committed to making the most of it by causing the Hobbits so much trouble
that they wouldn’t have a chance of catching up.

He’d already killed over 200 of them, not that he was
counting, or cared, for they had so many in play that it almost seemed not to
have mattered. How they were keeping up with them was a mystery to him until he
caught sight of a transport flying further to the south, barely a small object
on the tree choked horizon, but it was then that he realized that the Skarrons
were dropping Hobbit groups off nearby and ahead of them…fresh Hobbits, in
order to run them down and potentially cut them off.