Duty, 15: Ashes and Snow
23 Nov 2022Meowers
Still had no proper sleep that damn night. Spent a couple of hours sitting on the balcony and thinking about things, had some smokes and coffee, and then we've got an alarm in the early morning. Comm tower intercepted something intensive coming from the Federal installation, and that was three thousand kilometres to the north. They couldn't decode whatever it was, though whatever was in those signals had a mix of Thargoid signatures and military long-range comms.
Locals were set at battle readiness, and we took off, all three AXDF wings. Still had to maintain our disguise though, making a wide horizontal arc while remaining in the lower atmosphere, below the clouds. Flying straight from A to B was like painting an arrow pointing at our settlement. Cost us some time. Feds placed their facility near the polar circle of the planet, and, flying at low altitude, it was interesting to watch how pictures below us change. One island after another, and each one looked a bit different, changing slowly, like a gradient. Grassy plains and forests of the middle band; flat, windswept, brownish terrain of sub-polar zone with scarce little trees here and there; and then we reached the northern polar region. Grey sky, white hills, wind and heavy snowfall.
Damn that was... Unsettling at best. Like pushing through a grey colourless nothing. Even the horizon was blurred, sometimes I didn't see where I'm flying, I didn't see ships left and right, we spread out to prevent any collisions, trapped between clouds above us and snow below us. Instinctively climbing a bit and then going lower when clouds were getting too thick. Check the altitude. Check the compass. Check the sensor to make sure there are still twelve of us.
Whatever Feds have gotten raining on their heads was visible from quite far away: even before our sensors picked up the exact location, I saw bright flashes in the thick clouds above and smoking debris falling down, and the closer we were getting, the more obvious the scenario looked. It was a Thargoid attack. With battle still taking place in the sky, and possibly in space above, and no visible destruction on the ground, we had a good chance to swing the odds, unexpectedly appearing from below and striking at once.
But then we were stopped. A mere thirty kilometres away.
"Unidentified ships, this is a Federal installation, you are not authorised to enter," blah-blah-blah. Just like that. Idiots. First Matthew, then I, tried to hail them and tell that we're actually AXDF and we're here to help. No positive result. And a targeting lock reported from several of our ships. That was just charming, I say. We had to stop our advance and fly around the installation in circles, at a distance that was safe enough from their paranoid AA defences, splitting up into two groups. My wing and anti-Scout ships were staying below the clouds, whilst Matthew's wing climbed into the upper atmosphere to take a look at what's happening.
Nothing really overly dramatic. About fifteen to twenty lesser Interceptors and a bunch of Scouts, they stood a little chance against us, but, those thick-skulled dimwits were nowhere near being prepared to fight Thargoids properly. Inadequate mix of weaponry, messed up tactics, all that stuff; they might've been not so hopelessly bad at piloting, but they certainly knew nothing about the Thargoids. Like your regular rank-and-file pilots with basic training and maybe some 'chasing lousy bandits in the rings' experience. Seen hundreds of them in my past, but now I was on the same side. Who said you don't need enemies with allies like that?
Their chunky clumsy Corvettes were easy targets, I saw a couple of them taking off and gaining altitude to engage, they had a chance to fire a few volleys at the Thargoids that were already below the clouds, and soon the aliens were swarming all around them. What a view, dammit. It was totally awful, those flying barns, helplessly rolling and turning, trying to catch at least something in the sights, firing chaotically, and shot at from every possible angle. Flashes, explosions, pieces of ripped off armour falling down, I can imagine what kind of chaos was happening on their comms. Another Corvette descended from the clouds above and even managed to shot one Interceptor down in a desperate attack, almost ramming the beast; but just a minute later that already damaged ship fell out of combat, spinning, leaving a dense trail of black smoke, and plunged into a hill, scattering tonnes of snow and debris.
Medium-sized ships were more successful at fighting, manoeuvrable enough to evade incoming fire and actually chase the Thargoids, they held them locked in the battle while transports were preparing for departure. Nevertheless, with more and more Fed ships shot down, the battle was slowly moving closer to the surface, where the Thargoids could attack the buildings. No doubt their transports, Type-7's and Type-9's, were heavily armoured, but whatever Feds had remaining in fighting shape definitely wasn't enough to cover the evacuation properly.
So, the last group of transports already had some Thargoids on them and just one Federal Assault Ship as a cover, and the only thing its poor pilot could do to help was firing at the Interceptors, trying to attract their attention, causing them to slow down and manoeuvre. And it worked... Until one most unlucky T-7 took a few shots into one of its engines and started to spin slowly, losing altitude. With two Cyclopes chasing the rest of the group and one detaching to finish off the damaged transport, the situation started to look even more bitter. I just couldn't resist it anymore.
"Screw their security, requesting permission to engage," and I swear I squeezed that boost button even before I heard Matthew's "Engage at will". T-7 was descending from the upper atmosphere, sending emergency signals on several channels and trying to stabilise the trajectory and decelerate, while the FAS frantically darted from one position to another in an attempt to be in both places at the same time. And those were their last ships. Everybody else, including the rest of the Thargoids, already jumped somewhere. So... We made a short work of these Cyclopes when we finally got to them. The one we had in sights definitely had no chance to know what hit it. Gauss shots and multi-cannon bursts pierced the air, evaporating the snow, and sprayed the bastard all over the sky in a mere seconds.
T-7 has been hit badly. Pilot succeeded at neutralising the rotation, but the vertical thrusters weren't enough to slow down the descent and land the crippled ship, and soon it collided with a hilltop and slided down, almost burying itself in snow. Unable to help with anything, low on fuel and damaged, the FAS left the atmosphere and jumped away from the system, following the rest of the evacuation group. So we were left with that downed transport, possibly full of people, and it was stuck deep in the snow. We had radios, we had first aid kits, but no means to clear the path and no capacity to transport people, especially wounded people. And just enough fuel to patrol around for an hour or two, and then we had to turn back home.
All that felt so... Strange. And totally unnerving. I can't remember such thoughts crossing my mind, I even struggle to describe them, everything felt so erratic and chaotic; you know, I'm used to taking action and doing something, but that... We decided to land in the snow and save our fuel; Matthew was requesting a transport and machinery from the settlement while I tried to communicate with the ship. Obviously, their primary comms were out, so I ran through all available channels to connect with at least something, maybe someone's personal suit device or a backup station. And, when I finally got the connection, I had to assure them all that help is coming... Without actually being sure. With settlement long-range active comms turned off we could only send them something. So, we had to wait, for hours. And those people had to wait as well.
And... I just wanted to open the airlock and start digging that goddamned wall of snow with my bare hands. Like... I almost heard them talking, I heard groans of wounded, even through the armoured hull and metres of snow between us. It was just impossible to sit there in the cockpit and wait for hell knows what. And many other our pilots felt the same, but, what could we do? Nothing. Goddamn nothing. We couldn't properly defend them in the fight, and now we had to wait for somebody else to help the survivors. And that crap was just boiling inside, making me hate every minute of that damn waiting. And then it... quickly projected onto myself. But, shit, I had to follow the orders, I had to stay in the formation, dammit, I couldn't rush into that mess alone or command my wing to do a thing that looked so damn suicidal.
So... Had to calm myself down. Not without the emergency pill. I only hope they really sent some transports. If nothing appears here within three to six hours, then nothing will ever appear here...
* * *
Writer's notice: due to long and unexpected pause in writing, the timeline of the story is now placed 'in the recent past'; consider this all happening in June-September 3308. Thargoids are a super-popular topic now, but they weren't when I was planning to write this. Bad timing? Maybe. But I don't have so many options.
Life stuff keeps me occupied, but well, such is life, and I have to do something with that. And, obviously, whatever I'm doing with it, has higher priority than writing fanfics and playing videogames. Also, I've decided to stop playing Elite, at least to give myself an indefinite break from it, because of poor and time-consuming gameplay design that puts a pile of grind between me and enjoying the game the way I wanted. And a few other questionable parts of this game. Regardless, this story will keep going, and it will follow its own pre-planned route, as I don't want to change anything to make it suit the volatile narrative and dubious development decisions. So, seeing that and not being sure about whether or not I could keep things updated, I've put everything back to 'write in bulk and then post' pattern. And now, with many more episodes written already, I'll be publishing them regularly, non-stop to the ending.
Hope you enjoy it.