Alpha Squadron: The Chiggers

25 years after the victory at Cypress, the Chiggers, a race that dedicates it's existence to the removal of all other species and destruction of any and all technology, have attacked various worlds in their campaign to crush yet another galaxy. This galaxy though, is putting up a defense.

The Chiggers began their campaign by destroying a small planet by sending its moon plummeting to the surface. The unstoppable forces then moved on to wreak havoc on the Reich's planets, taking over such places as Orland and Ebron. They committed atrocities like the biological virus sent down to the peaceful jungle planet Istar, killing all population unable to evacuate and their precious world. Now they move to take the rim planet of Fendi, can the people of this small planet be rescued, and can the small Reich fleet that is deployed to defend the planet bide Ambassador Gisela Deja enough time to remove the population from the doomed world?

***

Flitting around in the small Kriegsmarine fleet, August Nero engaged his weapons and shields, preparing for the battle that would soon ensue. Only moments before, the Chigger fleet had dropped in-system and began dumping their corral skipper, bio-engineered fighters into space. Being the leader of Alpha Squadron, and subsequently, the commander of all fighters belonging to the Fendi defense force, it was up to Nero to ensure the safe arrival and departure of the evacuation shuttles.

Opening a channel to Alpha Squadron, Nero said, "Lock wings to attack positions and form up in your flights. Two flight take point. Three flight flank him on the left, and One flight form up on me." Feeling the need for something else Nero added, "Good luck team, try to keep yourselves alive for me."

Looking through his viewport of his cockpit he saw the other Valkyrie squadrons lock their stabilizers into attack position and engage their sub-light engines. Streaking forward towards the enemy, six squadrons of fighters, ranging from Valkyries to the Warthogs started the inevitable challenge to the collective mind of the bio-ship fighters.

Flicking a switch to change the comm frequency, Nero addressed the whole fighter screen. "To all pilots of Fendi's defense force, this is Commander Nero. If we are to win this battle, then we need the support of our fellows, and the compassion of those who would save an entire world. I wish you all good luck, and may God be with you, always..." That was a nice touch he thought to himself.

Receiving various reports of range to enemy, and numbers, Nero shut down his comm for a moment. Breathing deeply and closing his eyes, he reveled in the last moments of peace. With eyes still shut, he reached across for the comm, and switched it on.

"...squadron under fire. They came from behind Lead..." The burst of speech was cut out in a burst of static, signifying the pilots death.

Reaching forward, Nero grabbed hold of the flight yoke and swooped around and back toward where the pilots of Omega squadron had been ambushed. "Keep on me One flight, Two flight dump some torpedoes into the enemy attacking Omega, then leave with the group for the main body of them." Complying with his orders four blue streaks shot out from Two flight's fighters, and detonated against the enemy bio-ships. The explosions ripped the four enemy bio-ships apart, send chunks of organic flying, and hitting their own fighters. Two other enemies were destroyed by debris from the torpedoes destruction.

Plunging into the ranks of organic ships, Alpha One and three of his squadron began to fire at the marauding Chiggers. Spraying red bolts of tracers across space, Nero strafed the thick hide of one enemy, digging deep furrows into it's organic hull, and clipping chunks off.

Sweeping around for another run, his mech-droid whistled a warning, and crimson text showed that the shields power was rapidly depleting.

"Watch out, they've started on my shields." Flicking his shields off he kicked the small fighter around in a loop, and fired blood red tracers into the rear of his target. The Bio-Ship exploded in an orange mess of liquid and chunks of super-heated directed energy as the tracers bored into it's organic propulsion creature.

Re-activating his shields Nero was near deafened by a short scream from Alpha Four as his engines detonated and ripped his ship apart. As a wave of guilt and grief swept it's way through him, he was overwhelmed with relief when he saw that Four had managed to eject at the last moment. Going for his comm to call for help for the ejected pilot, Nero was horrified to see an enemy fighter bear down on the helpless man floating in space. Mobilizing his fighter to defend the downed pilot, he realized he was too late. The enemy bio-ship launched direct energy shot towards the doomed man. The searing energy melted through his extra-vehicular field and through the pilot himself. Swearing and screaming, Nero brought the nose of his fighter around and obliterated the enemy fighter with a blast of four pulse cannons focused on the cockpit.

Nero had no time to mourn the loss of his fellow pilot and instead, ploughed into the remaining bio-ships. "One flight, break up. Two, go on Three's wing." As Austin Twoleg's Valkyrie broke off from Nero's and joined up with his new wingman a bio-ship fell victim to Nero's pulse cannons, and exploded in a vast array of orange and red.

Two more, he thought. The others have got the last three under fire, so these two are mine. As he thought it he dropped behind the rear most skipper and opened fire. The second that the plasma burst from the tips of his cannons, the bio-ship roared upwards and its dovin basal, the creature that propelled it and acted as a makeshift shield, released a pulse of gravitational energy that stripped his shields of more power. Kicking the nose of the fighter into a dive Nero maneuvered out of harms way, straight into the path of the other bio-ship. Two balls of directed energy exploded from the Chigger vessel and splattered across the shields of the Valkyrie.

"Lead!" cried Alpha Three as yet more of the blobs of liquid were shot at the stricken vessel.

The first bio-ship returned to a position above the Commander's Valkyrie and began stripping it's shields of any and all power, whilst the other pelted it in strafing runs. Desperately looking around, Nero struggled with the controls, trying for a way to escape the gravity created by the enemy's Dovin Basal.

Finally the straining shields gave way, and three balls of super-heated directed energy struck the broken and battered ship...

***

"Captain, Delta seven is out of it." Came the voice of one of the ground personnel.

Grayson Bull, Captain of the Seventh Division light infantry to the Wehrmacht, swept his eyes across the landscape and saw the burning hulk of the destroyed All Terrain Transport Delta Seven. That's five we've lost, he thought. "Get the ATT's to fall back to higher ground, fire down on them," Grayson shouted into his comm.

Troops at the front of the formation of Heavy Artillery soldiers began to scatter and orange flames could be seen erupting all over the place. The rear units could hear horrific screams and men began withdrawing their pulse pistols and rifles, even setting timers for thermal detonators. As the men at the front lines began to fall victim to the searing flames huge, almost blimp like creatures spouting a napalm like substance at the defense forces were visible.

"Fall back men, fall back." Cried Grayson as the living flame-throwers neared, and the units surrounding began to slowly retreat. "Fire!" he screamed. All around him carbines and portable mounted plasma cannons erupted with crimson and blue bolts of plasma energy, burning furrows in the ground and speeding toward the bulbous flame eaters. The burning tracer bolts struck the hide of one of the creatures, but all that did was re-direct the creatures flame toward the source of the gunman.

"Someone grenade the bastard!" a foot soldier shouted from somewhere to his right, and three thermal detonators flew through the air to the rounded monsters. Two of the three fell at the feet of the Chiggers created flame-throwers and the third was caught in the flame spraying from its overly large mouth. It exploded in a brilliant flash of light sound and debris. Pieces of fragmented metal shot out in a vast sphere, burying themselves in the ground or slicing into the Wehrmacht forces. Countless men near the radius of the explosion screamed as they fell to the ground among other fallen comrades. The remaining two grenades ticked away as their timers counted down, and two loud beeps could be heard, punctuated by the deafening explosions that were inevitable. The dual explosion knocked most of the soldiers to their knees with the force of the warm air being sent out from the site and the non-sentient flame-thrower's belly was ripped open by shards of debris from the grenades themselves and the pure strength of the double grenades.

Hoots and cheers rose up among the men of the Wehrmacht and tracer bolt were fired up into the air in celebration as a viscous orange and red liquid oozed out of the shredded flamer now lying prone on the up-turned earth, searing the surviving grass and vegetation. But the ground troops' jubilation was short lived as hundred of reptile like Chigger drones were made visible over the horizon.

Thinking quickly the Captain re-placed the depleted tracer pack in his carbine with a fresh one before shouting, "Advance men!" The ranks of soldiers advanced forward, re-loading their weapons and withdrawing thermal detonators from their bulky backpacks to slot into their belts.

The ground assault had been taken to a new level, and Grayson's troops advanced to the enemy...

***

The blobs of hot directed energy melted their way through the nose and wing of the immobile Valkyrie fighter, and Nero struggled with the controls in the cockpit. Pulling hard on the lever to cold start his fighter for the twentieth time, the engine finally gave a stuttering burst of noise, and the main thrust control panel lit up brightly, as if with a second wind. Punching several buttons and flicking the switch on speed control, the fighter kicked forwards and out of the fire of the two Chigger fighters. Dropping in line with him and pursuing, the first fighter fired another blast at Nero. The ball of directed energy splattered over the right stabilizer wing and weakened it further from the previous attack.

Kicking viciously at the rudder pedal Nero sent the fighter into a sharp turn, only to tear his own wing away from the main body of the fighter. "Need back up now Alpha squadron, I've lost my shields and my upper right wing. I repeat, assist needed, now!" he screamed into the comm unit and wrestled with the controls to recover from the spin the loss of the wing had left him in.

Swooping down the second asteroid shaped fighter released several more rounds of its strange weapons from its directed energy like launcher in order to finish it's stricken target.

Desperately casting his eyes around the small cockpit Nero slapped his hand onto the thrust control again, and sent all weapons power to the engines. With the extra burst of throttle the wounded Valkyrie blasted forward, still in its uncontrollable spin. Yanking hard on the yoke, the fighter began to right itself and Nero re-routed the divided power back to his pulse cannons.

Bringing the blackened, and still bubbling from the bio-ship's projectile, nose of the fighter back around, he dived straight toward the larger of the two misshapen bio-ships. As the first ship veered left, he kept on it's tail, firing blasts of tracer fire after it. Hooting in celebration as three bolts of plasma bore down on the bio-ship with deadly precision, his joy was cut out when the dovin basal's field sucked the tracer bolts into a tiny void.

"Shit!" Nero toggled the weapons control from laser to proton torpedo, before adjusting the parameters for the warheads.

"Commander, are you ok?" came the voice of Alpha Three, "We can't help you out right now, we've got our own mess to deal with."

Glancing to port Nero saw that the remainder of One flight were indeed having their own share of difficulty with the Chigger bio-ship. "Roger that Three. Keep your nose clean till I can rejoin the fray." Clicking off the transmission Nero refocused on the melee.

Kicking on the lateral control pedal and pushing forward on the yoke, he sent the fighter into a dive, and brought it back up under an enemy bio-ship. Edging the targeting recticle over the lump of bio-ship pieces ahead of him, he watched it flicker green for a moment, before it turned a solid blood red. Squeezing the trigger of his flight yoke, two torpedoes shot out from either side of the Valkyrie body and sped after the bio-ship.

Somehow sensing the two projectiles hurtling after it, the enemy pilot span the fighter up and around, then back down in a snap roll. Spinning and rolling through a variety of complex maneuvers the Chigger pilot desperately tried to shake the two missiles from it's rear, but the effort was futile, and the twin torpedoes detonated in a brilliant display of roiling flame. The missiles in fact detonated several meters away from the bio-ship, thus defeating the enemy's dovin basal by making the explosives do damage from outside their effective range. The explosions tore open half of the bio-ship, disintegrating the cockpit and dovin basal, whilst the remaining chunk drifted out into deeper space, probably only to be grabbed by Fendi's gravity.

Switching weapons back to tracers with the flick of a switch, Nero swooped around and watched the remaining bio-ship turn around and target the fighter. As four blobs of brilliantly hot directed energy flew past his rear, splattering his hull slightly but doing no real harm, Nero drove the fighter down towards the planet that he was protecting. The Valkyrie reached the upper reaches of its atmosphere, making it skip slightly as it met resistance from the incredibly thin layers of gas. Following Nero determinedly, the bio-ship also slipped into the top layers of the atmosphere, bouncing when it met opposing force.

A smile crept across Nero's face as he realized that he could win the skirmish.

Pulling up, the fighter flew in upwards, before coming around in a loop and diving straight towards the planet surface. Correcting his flight path the second that the body of the fighter met resistance, and leveling his entry into the atmosphere, he watched as the enemy craft tried to mimic the maneuver. The oddly shaped bio-ship dove straight down into the thin air, and was instantly buffered around. An orange tail formed around the speeding object as it gained velocity and fell toward the planet.

The heat created from the air friction began to attack the organic material of the bio-ship, and the housing for, and the dovin basal itself, was totally incinerated.

The falling Chigger continued on its downward course, without any controls or propulsion.

Smiling, Nero reported back to his squadron, "I've dealt with my bogey's and am returning to the battle."

His report was answered with multiple shouts of congratulations and welcomes.

Maybe the battle wasn't lost after all...

* * *

Pulling himself back up onto his feet, Captain Grayson Bull recovered pistol his and threw himself, at the nearest enemy. Firing with his blaster and bringing his dagger to bear, he attacked the reptilian foot soldier. Digging the blade into a smouldering pistol burn caused only moments before, he hacked through the living body armor. Toppling backwards, the enemy's pikestaff, a living serpent like creature that could stiffen at the command of the Chiggers, was flung away. Firing once into the cranium of the enemy, and once again at the pikestaff desperately trying to sliver in the opposite direction of the Wehrmacht soldier.

Looking around, he did a quick estimation of numbers and realized that the enemy had the upper hand. Not willing to lose any more of his men, he shouted, "Fall back!"

A brilliant boom over head caught his attention, and he cast his gaze upwards just in time to witness one of the evacuation shuttles detonate under bio-ship fire. As the orange fire burst outwards, fragments of hull flew out, and rained down on the combatants below.

"Get back to the drop ship, we can't do any good down here," said a voice from the comm at his waist.

Turning and locating the vessel, he fired behind him four times before running to a better position. Holstering his pistol, he withdrew a larger rifle from it's slot on his backpack. Crouching behind a partly destroyed hover-speeder, he cocked the barrel on his arm and aimed.

"Hurry and get back into the ship!" he cried at the men still fighting against the Chiggers. Grimacing as another of the Wehrmacht Seventh Division of light infantry was sliced with a shorter version of the pikestaff. More cries rang out from dying Wehrmacht men, and Grayson fired at any enemy trying to kill his comrades.

Squeezing the firing stud, a dart of red tracer burnt a clean hole through the head of one reptilian enemy, and another bolt knocked two off of their feet. Sniping off any opportunistic enemy, he commanded the retreat for the third time, this time with a sharp and forceful tone.

Heeding his order, the remaining fighters fired several warning shots into the midst of the opposition, before slowly walking backwards to the open door to the ship.

As the final foot soldiers sprinted up the landing ramp, he hurled three thermal detonators into the growing crowd of Chiggers.

The Captain was inside the vessel before the grenades had time to detonate.

***

"The refugee ships are preparing to jump to gravity-drive Lead," said Twoleg down the comm.

"Acknowledged Two," Nero replied before switching the frequency to talk to all of the fighters in system. "Sort your navicomp co-ordinates, we are going to jump system right after the main fleet does."

Six sets of clicks confirmed that each squad leader under-stood.

Turning off the comm and swinging the nose of his fighter in the direction of the last evacuation ship. The large freighter accelerated away from Fendi, then disappeared in a flash of blue light.

Re-activating the comm, he said, "Jump in, five, four, three, two..." He was cut out as his ship disappeared into gravity-drive.

***

The End...