Birds of Prey - Bisexual Edition

War had found Valbara.

"What is that?" Baker asked. "Listen."

Jaeger listened, and he heard the unmistakable crack of railgun fire. It was coming from ahead of them, from the spaceport.

"Friendlies at the spaceport?" Jaeger asked.

"Sounds like it," he replied. "I wish I had a helmet so that I could patch into the local comms."

"We'll be coming up on the spaceport in a few minutes," Maza said, "be ready."

Jaeger rummaged in his pocket for his phone, struggling to keep his scooter balanced as he switched his attention from the path to the screen. He didn't have access to encrypted military channels, but he could put a call through to the Rorke and have fleet command relay his message to anyone on the network. If there was indeed a firefight going on at the airport, then they didn't want to get caught in a crossfire or get mistakenly fired on. A railgun slug would go straight through a Bug, a tree trunk, and then through one or more of them without shedding much velocity at all.

He held the device up to his ear, maneuvering around the winding turns as he waited for a reply.

"This is Fleetcom, report."

The woman on the other end sounded stressed, there was probably a lot of shit going on up in space, he'd better be concise.

"This is Lieutenant Jaeger, I have two UNN pilots and a squad of Valbarans coming up on the Yilgarn spaceport. Please let any personnel still on the ground know that we're coming."

"Roger that Lieutenant, I'll see what I can do."

As they rounded one of the obscuring hills, they finally spotted the far end of the mag-lev rail and the station that lay just outside the entrance to the spaceport. It was so hard to get a bearing on where you were in this damned city, your line of sight was always blocked. If he hadn't been able to see the white glint of the rail vanishing into the trees, Jaeger would have had no idea that he was near the runway.

The sounds of a gun battle were much closer now, there was definitely an intense fight going on. Was it possible that the Bugs were assaulting the port and the locals were defending it? It would make sense, the Bugs would want to stop reinforcements from reaching space, where they were already at a disadvantage.

"They know we're coming...I hope," Jaeger said as he and the rest of the group abandoned their scooters to proceed on foot. "Keep your wits about you, watch out for crossfire."

They made their way into the forest, avoiding the pathway that led towards the gate to the spaceport. Jaeger led them to the base of the white wall that encircled the compound, reasoning that it was safer than approaching from directly behind the attacking Bugs. The wall was too high for even the Valbarans to vault over, and so they followed it towards the entrance, the sounds of gunfire growing louder.

Iridescent shells glinted between the dense trees, and the party immediately took cover behind the thick trunks, beginning to fire on them. Valbaran lasers melted through chitin, and plasma bolts from the pistol that Jaeger had recovered burned ugly holes in their carapaces. It looked like they were trying to get through the gate up ahead, they were tightly packed, dozens of them climbing over one another in their attempt to break through. Some of them were trying to claw their way up the wall, but they didn't seem to be able to get a grip, just like the probe the day before.

The Bugs at the rear of the pack turned to face them and dove into cover, returning fire. The chatter of automatic XMRs was deafening now, they had to find a way through.

"Friendlies!" Jaeger shouted at the top of his voice after waiting for a lull in the fighting. "Friendlies!"

Someone shouted back to him, but he couldn't hear what they said, snapping back behind a tree as a Bug plasma bolt singed the bark where his head had just been. The insects were now diverting some of their forces to deal with the new arrivals, two dozen of them advancing through the foliage as they laid down suppressing fire. The aliens weren't stupid, they were capable of thinking tactically, and they were well-coordinated.

Maza and her flock fired back, but they would soon be overwhelmed if they stayed in this position for too long. Just when he was considering calling a retreat, Jaeger heard a more distinct, commanding voice rise above the din. He recognized it as Colonel Roberts.

"Go Reesh, bring them in!"

Something powered through the crowd of Bugs like a battering ram, swinging a massive riot shield to send them flying through the air as if they were bowling pins. It was a Krell, sixteen feet of armor and muscle, rumbling like an angry alligator as he scattered the Drones. He was holding a light machine gun variant of the XMR platform in his other hand, firing from the hip, plasma bolts splashing harmlessly against his immense shield and his armored poncho. The slugs chewed through the enemy and tore them in half at the waist, felling Bugs and trees alike, wood splintering as the giant plants toppled to the ground and shook the earth. He swept his tail, slamming a nearby Drone against a trunk and crushing it, using his shield to squash another.

"Krell'nay, over here!" Ayau shouted. She peeked out from cover for a moment, training her laser rifle on a drone that was rushing her. It crumpled and fell, smoke billowing from between its mouthparts as she toasted its organs.

Reesh turned his long snout towards them, digging his clawed toes into the soil as he charged forwards. Krell were usually docile and slow, they were good-natured and friendly creatures under normal circumstances, they wouldn't hurt a fly. But woe betide anyone who threatened a Krell's friends, the giant reptiles would move heaven and earth to ensure their safety.

The Krell came towards them like a freight train made of bony scutes and teeth, using his sheer weight to slam the Bugs against trees and to crush them underfoot. He was moving faster than anyone would have imagined possible after seeing one for the first time. The Krell could call upon their energy stores in dire situations, burning fat like a fuel to send them into an anabolic frenzy.

From behind him, a squad of UNN Marines wearing their trademark black body armor emerged from the gate, taking advantage of the chaos to form a firing line and pushing the enemy back. There were Valbarans with them too, clad in forest camo and wielding XMRs, they must be the ones that had been training with the Colonel.

Reesh cleared a path of destruction between Jaeger's group and the gate, turning to defend them with his shield as they broke from cover. It was as tall and as wide as the average door, and it was two or three inches thick, the glowing bolts of plasma unable to penetrate it.

Ayau leapt up onto his back when she was close enough, clambering up his poncho and gripping the bony scutes around his neck, firing over his shoulder as he began to lumber forwards. The rest of the group stayed close behind, firing at the occasional Bug that had escaped the Krell's rampage intact, the insectoids rushing at them from between the trees with their knives drawn.

When they reached the gate to the spaceport, Reesh once again turned to face the Bugs, plugging the breach almost entirely with his bulk as the Marines backed up. They kept their weapons trained on the swarms of Drones, gunning more of them down as they retreated to safety, two of them dragging an injured Marine as the Valbarans covered them.

Jaeger and his companions piled inside, making their way over towards the hangars, there wasn't a second to waste. It looked as if all of the Marines who had been deployed to the surface of Valbara to help train the locals had holed up here, they had built a kind of makeshift forward operating base out of the nearest hangar.

There were people talking into headsets, others were tending to the wounded, and still more were rushing past with armfuls of magazines to resupply the soldiers who were holding the gate. There were two smoldering drop pods that had landed inside the spaceport, but fortunately, they hadn't destroyed the runway.

Colonel Roberts came jogging out of the hangar as they approached, Jaeger and Baker saluting him.

"You're the two Beewolf pilots, right? Good, get your birds into the air, they need you up there."

"Do you need us to escort your dropships into orbit?" Jaeger asked.

"Negative, our orders are to hold this spaceport and keep it open so that reinforcements can land once the skies are clear."

"Roger that, Sir," Baker said. "Keep your men off the runway while the Valbarans taxi, they'll be following us up."

"Give 'em hell," Roberts replied.

CHAPTER 17: LAST LINE OF DEFENSE

Baker and Jaeger ran into the hangar where their ships were parked, quickly donning their flight suits and helmets as the Valbarans made their way over to their camouflaged lander. By the time the two humans were climbing into their cockpits and running their engine checks, the Valbaran spaceplane was already taxiing towards the runway.

Jaeger taxied outside, his HUD flashing as it showed him the system status. The Beewolf hadn't been refueled, but they had more than enough gas to get into orbit and to do a little fighting before they had to land again. The vectoring nozzle on the main engine flexed and twisted, thrusters rotating and belching blue flame, the ailerons moving like the vessel was stretching after a long nap. Jaeger turned his visor towards the sky, the cameras mounted all around the hull allowing him to see through it, and he watched as his ship's computer began to track friendlies. He could see the Rorke and some of her torpedo boats, the callsigns of dozens of fighter craft and dropships twinkling to life on his display. It was a madhouse up there.

He took off in VTOL, Baker rising into the sky alongside him, his landing gear retracting with a clunk. Unlike the Valbaran landers, the Beewolfs didn't need to use a runway. They hovered nearby, waiting as the lander began to accelerate down the asphalt track, its stubby wings catching the air and generating enough lift to get it off the ground.

Their engines flared as they began to climb, Baker and Jaeger taking up position to either side of the lander as they tailed it into the sky. They rose through the cloud layer, flames beginning to lick at Jaeger's canopy, the blue sky growing darker as they ascended towards space.

"Comms check," he said, "you guys picking me up?"

"Loud and clear," Baker replied.

"We hear you," Maza added.

As the stars began to twinkle, the battle raging above came into view. The white rings of the planetary defense platforms trailed off into the distance in both directions, circling the equator of the planet like a giant pearl necklace, their laser batteries firing at the smaller vessels that were swarming them. The sky was packed with ships, dozens of icons appearing on Jaeger's HUD as the computer tried to track them all.

Beewolfs darted back and forth as they danced with Betelgeusian attack craft, popping flares as they dodged missiles and volleys of plasma, their angular hulls only visible when they caught the light of the star due to their stealth coating. Valbaran fighters strafed the enemy with concentrated laser fire as they flew in tight formation, coordinating to melt through the carapaces of the Bug ships, the long hulls and rotating toruses of their carriers illuminated by laser batteries as they supported their squadrons.

Torpedo frigates hung in the darkness, seeming to stand still in comparison to the more agile craft, the massive ships engaging the larger Bug vessels. Jaeger watched as a torpedo slammed into one of the smaller Betelgeusian carriers, identical to the one that he had encountered in the Oort cloud, tearing its lobster-like hull open with a burst of orange flame and sending it drifting towards the planet's gravity well. More of those Bug carriers were attacking the nearby defense platforms, using their enormous claws to rend metal, tearing the rings of the stations apart like giant can openers.

The CIWS frigates and the Valbaran carriers were attempting to defend them, lines of tracer fire and laser beams spraying in all directions, their cannons tracking nearby fighters and intercepting plasma torpedoes. It seemed as if a few of the stations had been equipped with railguns, but not nearly as many as Campbell had intended, the majority of the batteries were still firing green laser beams.

Penguin gunships, so named for the shapes of their bulbous hulls and their stubby wings, strafed Bug carriers with their nose cannons. They peppered their armored carapaces with molten holes as more Bug fighters emerged from the pustules along their backs like flies burrowing their way out of a corpse. Valbaran landers and UNN dropships flew to and fro, carrying personnel and supplies to where they were needed, dropping troops directly onto the hulls of the defense platforms to repel boarders. There were firefights happening on the rotating rings themselves, Coalition soldiers and Valbarans with magnetic boots engaging Drones on the outer hull, fighting their own private wars. At maximum magnification, Jaeger could just make them out. Figures the size of ants exchanged fire, the dead Bugs losing their purchase and drifting into the void.

Trails from torpedoes, bright pulses of laser fire, and streams of tracer rounds lit up the night. The glowing hulls of wrecked ships floated aimlessly amidst spreading clouds of slagged metal.

"It's a madhouse up here," Baker said over the comms, "where's the Rorke?"

Jaeger looked in the direction of the North pole, magnifying the image with his visor. After a moment of searching, he found her. She was belly-up relative to the battle, the dozens of railguns on flexible arms that were mounted along her underside tracking targets independently, turning the vessel into a mobile weapons platform. There was a steady stream of smaller craft heading to and from her hangars for resupply and refueling, the shimmering force fields shining blue against her ocean-grey hull. The carrier was a fair distance away, maintaining position so that the crew could coordinate with the defense platforms and carriers around the planet no doubt.

It seemed as if the hive fleet had decided to throw all of its forces at one small section of the equatorial defense array, attempting to brute force its way through. There were two hive ships, massive, nearly Rorke-sized vessels that played a similar role in the Bug armada. One of them was hovering some distance above them, raining down drop pods on the cities below, too small and too fast for the Valbaran stations to track them. The second seemed to be moving off towards the Rorke, flanked by a swarm of Bug torpedo boats and fighters. The hive ships almost looked like giant shrimps to Jaeger, massive sheets of metal plating like a suit of armor covering their hulls as an added layer of protection on top of their bony carapaces, dozens of spindly legs protruding from beneath the overlapping plates of the shell which allowed the things to land on the surface of a planet and disgorge their ground forces. There were no windows or viewports visible, the vessels were covered in biological eyes that served as cameras for the pilots. There were clusters of sensors and long antennae protruding from their bulbous hulls in every direction.

"Looks like that hive ship is going straight for the Rorke," Jaeger warned. "I'm trying to patch through to fleetcom, but there's so much chatter. We need to find out where they want us."

"Heads up!" Baker shouted, pulling up sharply as a CIWS frigate rose in front of them like a whale breaching the surface of the ocean. Jaeger cursed, pulling back on his stick, his suit tightening around his legs to prevent all of his blood from pooling in his feet as the G-forces tore at him. The frigate's grey, blocky hull shot past beneath him, point defense turrets swiveling to track the cockroach-like fighters that were chasing it. Bursts of green plasma reflected off their colorful, iridescent hulls, their jointed legs tucked beneath their bodies. They darted and weaved, the frigate rolling on its axis and spraying cannon fire as the pilot maneuvered, plowing through a field of slagged debris and scattering it as it burned away.

"Watch your fucking proximity sensors," Baker barked, "it's a fucking free for all."

Fleet engagements usually happened at longer ranges than this, Baker was right, this wasn't so much a space battle as a brawl. Collisions with other ships and debris would be as much a danger as the enemy.

"My God, look," Jaeger gasped. One of the defense platforms some distance below them was being set upon by a Bug carrier, the behemoth using its crab-like claws to tear it apart. The spinning centrifuge that was situated on the interior of the torus-shaped structure came to a jarring halt as one of the claws closed around it, cutting through the ring like a pair of scissors, the nearby laser batteries turning their beams towards the creature in an attempt to ward it off. A nearby CIWS frigate joined the fight, the carrier's carapace melting under the heat, railguns and cannons blowing chunks of meat and metal out of its segmented body. The thrusters along its flanks faltered, the green methane flames that they spewed sputtering out, but the damage had already been done.

The defense platform broke apart, its structural integrity compromised, one of the claws of the carrier still grasping the section of ring as it drifted out of its orbit. The two remained locked together, a cloud of debris and crystallized bodily fluids spreading as the wreckage began to tumble, a solitary fighter emerging from one of the fleshy sheaths to escape its doomed host.

"Beewolf two-zero-six and two-zero-niner, please respond."

Finally, the voice of a fleetcom operator came through in Jaeger's earpiece.

"This is Bullseye, receiving you loud and clear, command."

"Nice of you to join us. Your objective is to protect the Valbaran defense platforms. Intercept incoming fighters, and prevent Bug dropships from depositing their troops on the hull. How copy?"

"Copy that, fleetcom, we're on it." He switched channels back to local, banking off towards the nearest station. "You get that, Baker?"

"Got it," he replied, "I'm on your nine o'clock."

"Maza?"

"We can't let them take down another station," she spat, "we're following you in."

"Do you have any weapons on that thing?" he asked, looking to his right as the lander took up formation beside him. As he watched, a panel on the near side of the vessel slid back like the door of a minivan, exposing a Valbaran in a space suit. She was holding what looked like a laser battery mounted on a flexible arm, thick cables trailing inside the vessel and out of view to link it to the power system, her body secured in a harness.

"We've got one of these," she said, Coza's voice coming through on the comms. Of course it was Coza...

"Alright, me and Baker and going to go after the fighters, you'd probably do better to support the troops fighting on the hull. Give them some ground support. Er...space support. Whatever, just shoot Bugs. We'll escort you until you're in range."

"Got it," Maza said, the lander peeling off and dropping down towards one of the white rings. As the station grew larger, one of the Bug fighters that was hovering around it spotted them, changing course and rising towards the lander on a plume of green fire. Jaeger deployed his railgun, the hatch on the hull of his Beewolf opening and the weapon extending, swiveling to aim at the incoming threat as a targeting reticle appeared on his HUD. His missiles went hot, and the port that concealed his twenty-five-millimeter cannon popped open, his systems locking onto the Bug ship.