Star Shade, Chapter 3: Escape

The massive grey ships were visages that foretold an omen of death and destruction. While still nought but specks in the distance, they would be on the ground within the hour. Garett knew from a few personal experiences that ships as big as that had to fiercely resist the gravity which so wanted to bring them crashing down. Their descent at such a slow pace was merely to prevent their destruction upon landing.

“Come on you two,” the Commander said, gesturing for them to follow.

“My squadmates are searching for more survivors, we’re going to prep the shuttle for take-off.”

They had already begun to walk away followed closely by the one they’d called Dunham. Garett, not wanting to be blindsided saw his opportunity to ask their name and did so.

“Uhh..excuse me” Garett stammered.

“I’m Garett, n-nice to meet you,” he said, hand extending forwards, his nerves getting the better of him. The commander acknowledged his gesture by staring down at the outstretched hand. For a second it seemed as if Garett’s proposal of comradery would be accepted, only for the Soldier to laugh and slap his hand away. The impact left his palm stinging and what little confidence he held hindered. Still chuckling the soldier began to walk away. The chuckle was incredibly unnerving due to it being entirely monotone.

“You can call me Sergeant Dunham” Said a voice from behind him.

“Once we’ve searched for more survivors we’ll evacuate town.” He said, registering the shell shocked air Garett and the boy still held.

“You’ll be given trauma therapy once we’re somewhere safe, right now we still have a way yet, and don’t mind captain Klaxon, you’ll have to earn her respect”

Her? Garett was thrown entirely. Though in retrospect he supposed there was no way he could’ve ever known, he still scolded himself internally for making such assumptions.

Dunham, registering the hint of shock that passed Garett’s face punched his arm softly, before leaning in and whispering,

“I’ll tell you though, that’s only according to her, we’ve never seen underneath the helmet”

“Really?” Garett replied in a hushed tone, glancing across at Klaxon, her armour certainly gave nothing away.

“Yeah, not your average gal” Dunham said jokingly, feeling an elbow in his side he turned to notice the boy.

“And who is this?” The boy gave Garett no chance of replying.

“My name’s Boe" he said, with a solid poker face, giving nought away. Though to anyone knowledgeable in the basic human facial expressions it was obvious he had been crying. To avert the awkwardness Boe walked off after the soldier named Klaxon.

“He’s a tough little guy” Dunham said, chuckling to himself. Not really feeling like he wanted to speak, Garett opted for the ever efficient nod of agreement. Dunham, having stopped chuckling put on a serious face.

“Come on then, Klax’ll skin me if I let us straggle too far behind”

They began their walk to keep up to the two now distant figures. The mood on the walk was somber. Glassified tiles tinkled underfoot and smoke was on the high. The gray spots in the sky grew ever closer, ever larger, promising death upon arrival. What was probably once a person lay smouldering at the roadside, weeping ash into the mourning streets. Up ahead Klaxon checked every home that wasn’t completely caved in for survivors. Most doors opened to a sickening charred smell and a thick black blinding smoke that said all that needed to be said for the wellbeing of its inhabitants. Tears came to Garett’s eyes from a mixture of smoke and emotion. Although he didn’t really recognise his own sadness, his eyes still prickled with tears. Seeing the streets he’d walked for a decade in ruins. The faces he recognised now belonged to charred corpses. His chest felt entirely hollow at the sights before him. Each inhalation felt as if it had no end, each exhalation was in dread of the next. He pulled himself out of his trance to see that Klaxon had disappeared around a corner up ahead.

“S-so, where are we going?” Garett asked. The sergeant chuckled under his breath.

“We’ve got an evac shuttle parked a few miles out, I believe we’re trying to secure a ground transport to get us there fast,” He replied.

“Oh... there’s an area that the traders like to park their transports, just east of the market”

Dunham’s face lit up,

“Hear that Klax? Garett here knows where to find some transportation” He yelled out ahead, his voice echoed through the streets. She appeared around the corner, Bo following closely behind.

“Lead the way Garett,” Dunham said waving his hand at the road ahead. Garett set off at a turgid pace, Dunham pulled even alongside him

“Klaxon’ll catch up, she’s continuing the search and I think that boy is with her” Leaning over to Garett he whispered,

“To be honest I-” He paused to laugh suppress a laugh”I..I forgot his name”

Dunham released the laughter he had been holding in. Garett, despite himself couldn’t help but chuckle along, something about the laugh was so genuine. For the first time in a long time Garett wondered if he had truly made a friend.

“So, what did you do before all… This” Dunham said, motioning to the devastation around him.

“I was an uhhh, a mechanic of sorts” Garett didn’t really feel like discussing his probably illegal scrapping career with this soldier of the very governing force that outlawed it. He didn’t see anything wrong with reusing old damaged parts, fixing them and such.

“I should’ve known, you look the part,” I’m this squad’s mechanic, to be honest though I’ve always fancied another position.

“Alright, we’re here” Garett said as they neared the corner. They came around the corner to a flaming visage. Transports of all shapes and sizes lay destroyed. Metal hulls caved in by heat, flames licking at the red hot wounds. Dammit, they were too late. While Garett felt his soul sink into his feet, Dunham was already running up and examining the vehicles. Had Garett really failed at the simplest of tasks, he should’ve seen the plumes of smoke and known.

“Garett, could we use this.. thing?” Dunham said questioningly. Garett snapped out of his trance to see Dunham patting a WFTP, which stood for Weightless Frictionless Transporter Pod. It hovered above the ground a good foot, it was a square steel container. It was designed to haul heavy weights with no friction or resistance. It had four hands, one on each side, it resembled a an omnidirectional cart with no wheels. It could easily seat all four of them, there was one massive problem however, it had no motor.

“N-no, that’s a cargo WFTP, it helps people haul goods but it has no motor. Someone could pull it with everyone else in it though...” Garett replied. Dunham stood there, his helmet let no features show but Garett could feel that he was thinking. Dunham’s thinking reached a conclusion.

“We could tow it with a smaller transport though.” Dunham noted. At this point Garett heard the footsteps behind him and swiveled his head to see Commander and three other soldiers. They had varying heights further, one of them was taller than dunham, one was roughly the same, and one was a tad shorter than Klaxon herself. All of them held their weapons at their sides. Dunham had a purple stripe, Klaxon had red, the other three had green, blue and yellow. The one with a yellow stripe held a far longer weapon, which didn’t look like a plasma caster at all but more like a railgun. It had a large scope on top indicating it was a long range weapon. The green striped one also had a green cross on his chestplate above the ISPC logo. He hadn’t noticed previously but they all had packs on their backs. The one with the green stripe had a larger bag however, it had some mechanical tubes of medical lookin purposes sticking out of one side as well. The blue striped one had some explosive charges around their belt, their armour looked thicker, like it had more substance to it.

“I see the transportation’s been destroyed” Klaxon said, her voice sounded like she was barely managing not to punch someone.

“No more survivors?” Dunham questioned. The one in the blue answered.

“None that we could find” He said in a low pitched rumbling voice, he sounded rather inhuman despite the voice monotoning helmet. It was definitely a male voice though.

“And what’s that thing you’re leaning on?”

“It’s our way to the shuttle, we just need a vehicle to pull it” Dunham said cheerily.

“Well unfortunately for us that seems to be the one thing we’re lacking” Klaxon replied before anyone else could respond.

“On the bright side it wouldn’t need to be anything big or strong, this makes the cargo weightless.” Dunham said with the vain hope of uplifting the dreary mood they’d been brought down to. Suddenly Garett remembered the Bog Bike he had been originally intending to drive. He could easily pull the entire WFTP with the everyone on it.

“I h-have a bog bike that I can use to tug it.” Garett said, he felt like he was interrupting. All eyes tuned in on him.

“Where is this bike?” The green stripe wearing soldier inquired, stepping forwards into the silence.

“It’s back at my workshop,” Garett replied sheepishly. He could already feel the annoyance radiating off of Klaxon, even Dunham seemed peeved off. Garett noticed the yellow striped soldier holding a pair of magnifiers in his hands, aiming up at the sky and tweaking the focus dial. Just as plans were being discussed he called out

“Klaxon we have incoming” He yelled. Heads collectively swiveled towards the sky where the blacks dots were visible once more, but in a group tenfold what they were previous. Some were larger and more three dimensional on the sky’s distant visage. Far larger ships, dropships. By the looks, each could carry a thousand men, and there were ten dozen scattered across the sky. Garett knew they weren’t all coming for this village as they fanned out in the atmosphere, spreading across the sky, the reaching tendrils of a hungry beast. But he knew likewise, that if even one were to land at this village, everyone stood around him would die.

“I’d say we have five minutes before we’re in visible range of anything that could be headed here” The green striped one said, the one that looked like a medical officer. Everyone stood still for second, silence reigned.

“What the fuck are we all standing around for then” Klaxon yelled out, getting everyone moving. The green striped medic quickly convened with Klaxon before running off back in the direction of Garett’s home, retrieving the bog bike. Garett was still standing, lackadaisical in his trance when Dunham’s voice became distillable from the ringing that filled his ears. He had only just realised that he could recognise Dunham's voice despite how it was modified to be identical to everyone else’s.

“Garett, Get on this thing” He turned to see all the soldier sat atop the WFTP, Dunham still calling his name. He ran over and leapt aboard the transportation rickshaw as the soldiers made extra room by kicking the barrels of fuel off the transporter. Even with the newfound space it was still cramped, Garett could feel the cold hard armour of the blue soldier rest against his arm. It would be a second before the medical officer returned with the bog bike to tow them, so they made conversation.

Garett learned their names, the blue striped soldier was the demolition/defusal expert, his name was Nero. The yellow striped soldier was a sniper, which Garett had guessed by the barrel of his gun, and he was named Polar, but he was called pole for short. They confirmed his suspicions that the green one was indeed a medical officer. Klaxon sat silent among them, unmoving.

The unmistakable buzz of a bog bike in full throttle became auditory, silence fell and anticipation built to a crescendo as the quiet distant buzz got ever louder.

The bog bike kicked around the corner fast, pulling up the dust-like rubble. The medic hit the brakes and pulled up slowly alongside the WFTP.

“Took you long enough Kru,” Dunham jeered from somewhere behind Garett.

“Just get us moving Kru, those fighters aren’t getting any further away.” Klaxon cut in, probably in a sensible bid to interrupt any conversation and leave as soon as possible. Kru turned the worn bog bike around, and connected the two via the maglock system. Turning the handles once more to reactivate the semi-dormant engines. It buzzed into renewed life, putting forth a sudden burst of unexpected speed. The speed sent Garett skidding sideways into someone behind him. Kru managed to wrangle the engine once more and the makeshift pontoon came to a sudden stop, throwing Garett back into the space he’d previously occupied right as he began to recuperate his senses. Bo who was on the other side of the craft was in a similar state.

“Hold on tight, I’ll try to start slower next time” Kru said, half laughing.

“We can all hold on just fine jackass, don’t blindside us like that,” the demolitions expert Nero replied. Once everyone had regained their composure and their composure and seating, the engine buzzed back. This time the sound was a precursor to the sudden acceleration. White knuckled grips engaged all over the craft. Despite his grip Garett still felt dangerously close to flying off once they started moving. He struggled to keep his eyes open in the bearing of the wind smoky wind which weaved, whistling through his hair. They weaved through the streets at a speed alarming beyond measure, if he were to spread his arms he was certain the speed of the air itself would knock him off the craft. To fall off at this speed would be fatal to the highest degree, the beige-grey rocky that blurred beneath the craft passed so fast that if you were to fall you would be nothing but a red stain, in vision for only a second before you were left a smattered pulp.

Ruined houses seemed to blur by quicker than you could notice any detail. Garett had never dared to go this fast on a bog bike, he was fairly sure it was illegal except for in designated zones. Garett thought about posing this question to one of the soldiers but then decided better of it.

The town was left out of vision as they shot through the rocky plains. Thankfully there was no debris out here so the transport wasn’t kicking up quite as much dust, hopefully making them visible to their skybound hunters. To check for himself he opened his eyes as wide as he could, sheltering his face with the sleeve of the hand he wasn’t using to hold on for dear life. At first he couldn’t spot any of the fighters, only the large craft which were still a good while away. That was when he noticed them, flying close to the ground around the town. They were almost circling, an unusual flight pattern for these gliders. He tapped Dunham on the shoulder to get his attention, pointing at the craft circling the ever more distant town.

“WHAT ARE THEY DOING?” Garett shouted through maelstrom of wind, the only way he could get his message across without the words being swept away. Dunham cupped his spare hand over the side of his helmet and yelled back.

“I DON’T KNOW, I’LL ASK VIA COMMS” Dunham tapped the side of his helmet, which Garett had figured out by now was a way to activate the shortwave communications they must have had built in. No longer needing to shout, Dunham simply inquired. Almost instantly everyone who had been looking forward turned back to see what the question referred to. Something must’ve been noticed because everyone started pulling out their weapons, and instead of the smooth plains ahead, Kru had taken a turn and they were now heading towards the vast Deireoir mountain range.

Supposedly some peaks were so high that at their uppermost reaches you could jump a metre higher, for less gravity acting upon you. On many other planets one of the first things you would notice would be gleaming snowcapped peaks, especially with such a cold planet. But Yujar was not your average planet, for there was no water cycle that many other planets shared. Instead the vital for life water was in deep underground caverns, where it had been deposited by meteorites billions of years ago. Only a few locations on the entire planet were known to contain liquid water on the surface, and those were the equatorial regions which received the most sunlight. Even there it was only a degree above freezing point for a few weeks of the year. It never evaporated and thus not even the smallest of clouds ever spawned in the sky. When the planet was colonised nobody knew of the underwater oceans. The only life native to Yujar had evolved in lightless deep underwater oceans, which at their coldest were near freezing, and at their depths closest to the mantle were boiling.

So there was no snow or clouds upon the mountain range, only barren jagged rocks. As the mountains fast approached Garett glanced back at the distant town one final time he caught only a glance of it before it was obscured entirely by a pebbledash mountainside. In that brief second he caught a glimpse of movement. He felt the pressure in his ears change as they entered a massive valley. On either side massive slopes rose high, the deeper they went into the valley the more endless the slopes seemed to become. While the mountains were huge they weren’t steep at the base so Garett could almost see their full scale.

“INCOMING” yelled Nero loud enough to audible. All heads locked onto whatever Nero was seeing. Indeed in the distance a formation of five or six fighters were descending upon them, despite their immense speed the fighters were still fast incoming. Swearing under his breath, Pole pulled out his long range coil cannon, they had been right about those fighters. When they’d seen them circling like that it was to build momentum until they were at pursuit velocity. Pole needed no prompt to start firing, he set the tripod upon the side of the transporter, aimed down the scope.

This shot was going to be hard, with the range and massive speeds they were travelling at, he knew he had to take out at least a few of them before they got within range to fire back. He set his sights a few metres ahead of the leftmost craft, and squeezed the trigger hard. The recoil would take the arm off anyone without the right kit. His right shoulder armour plates locked into place to absorb the impact, sending it through the craft beneath him instead. The entire platform shook as the air bending sound filled the air. Garett’s ears were left ringing, he felt his entire body reverberate with the noise, the sound bouncing around his ribcage. The noise itself was equatable with a small bomb.

The craft second from the left went up in a massive fireball as the steel projectile fired by the coilgun tore the ship in half entirely. It was fired with such velocity that ship wasn’t just destroyed it was swatted out of the sky. Not only stopped dead by the impact but flung backwards. The mountains echoed back the sound. The other fighters remained undeterred, continuing their steady advances. He fired again, and again. One by one they were wiped from existence. Garett saw the finger squeeze the trigger once more and braced his body for the shockwave, gritting his teeth. But no shot came. Garett opened his squinting eyes to see Pole trying the trigger again, someone had gone wrong. He clicked open the chamber, which smelt of searing steel and ozone. Suddenly for no apparent reason the four remaining fighters decided to cancel their pursuit, falling far back. At first Garett feared it was some kind of attack maneuver but instead they simply slowed to such an extent that they were left in the dust. Had they retreated? Had Garett really survived that?