Free Star Force: Evacuation (SF50) by Aer-ki Jyr

she got it righted and pointed down,
lining up the streamlined hull with the oncoming air and pulling out away from
the huge distortion ripples coming off the 2 mile wide ship with more fighters
following her out. They immediately had their hands full as Skarron fighters
moved to intercept the TF and met them literally half a minute after exit.
    Riona ducked her skeet down through a long, hard
braking loop to level off and begin chasing them through the dogfight that was
forming as they tried to throw plasma into the side of the TF. At first the
atmospheric turbulence shielded it for the most part, but when the tiny white
plasma orbs began hitting the shields the anti-air fire started coming back
too, with the enemy fighters quickly learning that this wasn’t an undefended
target.
    That left them to contend with the Star Force skeets
that were easily outnumbered. Riona and the others kept it together though and
started racking up kills while going evasive far more than they liked until the
Voku fighters came down from orbit, dropping like rocks that then split up into
fragments that began chasing after the Skarron fighters. The smallest of the
Voku ‘pieces’ was more than twice the size of a skeet and outmassed it by a
factor of 6. That said, the craft were still nimble, nearly the match of the
skeets in agility alone, and armed with directed energy orbs.
    They weren’t plasma, but a form of energy that Star
Force hadn’t gotten around to creating yet, even in engineer play, which saw
the Star Force techs building all manner of things from the database that would
never be put into practical use, just so they could say they did and learn from
the experience. These weapons were known as Dwio, and had an active guiding
mechanism in the fighters to steer them into targets like a guided missile.
    Riona could see multiple colors that she didn’t
understand the significance of, but she did see that their shots rarely missed.
Even when the Skarrons evaded a lined up shot, the orbs steered themselves into
a correction…and passed right through the enemy shields.
    The Skarron fighters had the same armor on them that
their walkers did, though in significantly lesser amounts, allowing themselves
a bit of longevity against the Voku orbs but it wasn’t nearly enough, with two
or three shots bringing one down and there being plenty of Voku fighters to get
the job done, in addition to the skeets were which holding their own.
    Riona was glad for the help and by the time the TF
finally set down and began unloading mechs and other ground vehicles they had
the immediate airspace secured and were working on
pushing the perimeter out and hitting the few surface targets that were of
note, some Skarron and a lot Nestafar. Nothing civilian, but a few weapons
emplacements that were throwing up anti-air and larger plasma weaponsfire at
the fighters, though some tried to play dead and hide, but eventually Riona and
the others cleaned out the surrounding area in preparation for the battles yet
to come.
    And they were coming alright. Skarron walkers were
redeploying on the south and west while Nestafar ground troops were massing on
the north, with the ocean and the Elarioni to the east. Within a few hours,
maybe a day tops, there was going to be a showdown, with both sides looking
like they weren’t going to tolerate anyone on their turf, making Riona wonder
who would be shooting who if the Nestafar and Skarrons got to each other. Three
way battles were extremely rare, but this looked like it might just be one in
the making.

 
 
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    Ker-shat stood shoulder to shoulder with the other
Voku troops inside the transport as it traveled down to the surface of the
planet under assault, waiting patiently until the doors underneath his feet
eventually opened, leaving him and the others standing on small squares with
nothing but an energy shield separating them from the quickly moving ground
beneath. As the transport slowed those behind him