Free Star Force: Headstrong (SF72) by Aer-ki Jyr Page B

disoriented Bsidd that were out in
the open. He and the others rushed out and engaged them hand to hand, with a
few getting there first and interposing themselves between the attackers and
their targets. Nephit came out into the flank of the group and took a shot to
the helmet as two of them turned on him just as he saw a sammy sniper shot come down and hit a lizard to his
right in the head.
    It fell to the ground dead, with Nephit seeing the det pack on its back. He cursed and kept fighting,
realizing how he and the others had stupidly been baited into a trap…one that
their sniper had just saved them from.
    Thirty seconds later half the lizards there were dead
and the others fell back to the horde that was waiting further up the plain.
They’d just been poked, not fully engaged, but he and others had taken a lot of
shield depletion and some bad armor hits. He was ok for the moment, ducking
back into cover as long range phaser blasts peppered the area, breaking up the
short-lived melee.
    After a few seconds of cover and him seeing his shield
strength bar begin to creep back up his comm broke
open with some type of music he wasn’t familiar with. It was loud and obviously
a battle song, but he didn’t know what it was for until he zoomed out his
battlemap and saw a host of new icons approaching.
    “Yes,” one of the Bsidd next to him said with
eagerness as orders from the Archons began to come through in the form of
waypoints and target beacons. The unfamiliar song kept repeating the phrase
‘back off, I’ll take you on” and Nephit liked it immediately, especially because
the orders were indicating that they were abandoning their turtle formation and
pressing the attack. He and the others waited as instructed until their
standard bearers came up in the form of an Archon striker that was not assigned
to them, but was probably one belonging to the Protovic that were reinforcing
them.
    The battle song kept playing for several minutes as
they approach, with that lead Archon running out into the open where Nephit and
the others had just fought that brief scrap and setting his feet into the dry
dirt and holding position as the lizards peppered him with pink phaser strikes.
The next thing the Bsidd saw was a blur of red/grey armor flying through the
air past the Archon on what was probably a telekinetic grip, for the Human’s
arm went in the same direction as if he was flinging the mass forward.
    Immediately Nephit got the order to push and he jumped
out of cover as the Archon beat them to the front by two steps, following the
Protovic he’d just threw into the group of lizards ahead that had been bowled
down from the physical impact. A red energy shield burst out from that Protovic
into a flat wall blocking most of the firing coming in at him. Those lizards
nearest him on the ‘friendly’ side turned and shot him multiple times but he
just held still, carrying a large shield emitter backpack as the Archon
telekinetically ripped two of them off him and the Bsidd shot the others dead.
    Behind Nephit more Bsidd followed along with a column
of Protovic. They looked like Humans and wore almost identical armor to their
commandos, with the coloration being the only major difference. A specialized
icon flashed directly over top the Bsidd on the battlemap, with it
materializing on his HUD as an area of blue sparkles surrounding him. He knew
that meant to make gaps to let the Protovic through, with the smaller allies
sprinting up between them and running directly towards the lizards as the
shield carrier either lost his charge or deliberately dropped the energy
matrix.
    Half a dozen of the Protovic ran by or jumped over
him, then weathered a storm of phaser hits before diving and ramming the lizard
groups head first and knocking several over per hit. Nephit and the Bsidd
weren’t far behind and used the disruption to shoot down some at range then
jump in on top of the others and fight them hand to hand using their plasma
rods.