Duty, 36: Don't Look Down
17 Apr 2023Meowers
Ah, hello. It's me. Of course it's all nice and sweet, but we both didn't have much time to spend freely. Literally, finished all preparation-related stuff, including, finally, hah, moving the whole one backpack of my 'countless' personal posessions to Mion's place, and then completely crashed on the bed only to get out of it after what felt like a short blink. Local officers were still busy counting people and assigning them to ships when the message dropped onto our communicators. The transports were one jump away, scooping hydrogen for a final dash, and they even... brought a group of three mercenary AX escorts along with them. Hah. In these desperate times, freelancers will do fine. Every little bit helps.
Civilians were forming lines near the landing area when we took off. Obviously, our little place can't accommodate so many ships at the same time, so the ground machinery had to clear the grass fields quickly, removing any large debris and placing holographic marks for these improvised landing pads. From the altitude it looked... Massive.
One of my... Yesterday's? Ah, whatever. One of my tasks before getting to sleep was... Loss management. Taking one full wing of locals with me, I left Christine on the ground and ready, as my second-in-command, and as a leader for two remaining pilots of Matthew's wing. Had to be sure that some of us will have fuel and ammo on max. Left all anti-Scouts on the ground too, they could slow us down and we weren't planning any serious fights. In and out, nothing more. Also, sent a pair of Eagles to patrol the low orbit and serve as an early warning measure.
Approaching the point where the nav beacon should've been, we saw a pair of Cyclopes and one Basilisk floating nearby a scarce debris cloud. Of course the thing was annihilated weeks ago, and only automated corrections done by nav systems helped the ships with navigating to this godforsaken place. Making a short work of the Thargoids, we formed a defensive perimeter, but, thankfully, it was unnecessary: transports arrived in a few minutes, immediately transmitting their coordinates and planet approach vector, so that we could jump back to hyperspace and catch up with them.
Our green flying freaks were... Alerted. Eagles reported none less than eight signals within 15 minutes reach, though they didn't look like closing in to attack. And, you know... Honestly, as for me, it was the worst sign. No doubt they were aware of our movements and began gathering somewhere nearby. But those folks on the ground weren't your basic panicking, helpless, shocked pampered civilians: once the transports touched the ground, masses started moving in a captivating, synchronous, orderly manner.
Finally.
And, indeed, the alarm sounded in the middle of the process, just couldn't be the other way, they saw a thick group of ships on the ground with engines hot, and attacked as soon as their numbers reached more or less equal amount. What was bad about all that... Those ships were unarmed transports.
I pulled up and boosted towards the Thargoids immediately, despite being so outnumbered, and ordered Christine's group to attack right after me. Local militia pilots should've been sticking to the edge of AA turret coverage, acting as an umbrella for the transports and as a welcoming party for the incoming Thargoids. That was the plan: after we slip through their ranks at our maximum speeds in attempt to spill some first green blood, we might as well break whatever formation they may have, and, the best scenario, our subsequent strike in the back might trap them between us and planetary forces.
Hydra was nowhere to be seen, so I locked the closest Medusa and engaged, ordering Christine to take on the second one. With an additional AXDF wing and those mercenaries supporting us, we were doing fine, considering that eliminating every single Thargoid vessel wasn't our objective exactly. We harassed them, picking them one by one, dragging their masses farther from the town and from the transports, buying time and keeping the civilians out of harm's way. But that balance couldn't last forever.
Medium-sized transports, Pythons, Type-6's, took less time and were ready to take off sooner than larger ships, and that's... something that we missed in our calculations, perhaps. And I couldn't leave them unprotected. And also, I couldn't hold them waiting on the ground, with thousands of people onboard and an ongoing fight just a few minutes away. So... I had to send AXDF escort wing and mercs to go with them. And, being cut to two thirds of our initial numbers, we began retreating slowly, concentrating around the edge of AA turret coverage, hoping that the remaining people will board the ships before the Thargoids finally pin us down and the ground forces join the battle.
Damn that was horrible. Apparently, the Thargoids figured out that our numbers have decreased, and their attempts to test our defences here and there rapidly turned into a massive coordinated assault. With that handful of ships remaining, we couldn't keep them off the town for longer than a couple of minutes. Battle turned into a chaos, AA cannons thundered, first missile trails crossed the skies, and first pillars of smoke rose from the ground. I can't even imagine the bravery of emergency crews who had to race from one impact site to another, with the battle raging literally above their heads. Thankfully, all civilians were concentrated around the HQ, in bunkers and on the ground floors of the most thickly armoured buildings, and the rest of the town was empty already.
Those minutes felt like hours, and seeing heavy transports taking off has been both a relief and a challenge at the same time. They weren't only easier targets for the Thargoids, but also much more visible for them, with their big engines and big heat signatures, so, a large portion of aliens immediately changed their minds, left us and set a course to intercept. Transports, in their turn, accelerated as sharply as possible, trying to reach the jump distance, and their drive charge rate with so many stuff around has been just terribly slow. Evading a barrage of shots from behind, we engaged the chasing Thargoids, trying to do as much damage as possible, and... personally, I tried not to think about what might be happening behind me. Ground militia, AA gun crews, they were all doing their best, I hope, and also I hope they knew how and where to hide, if, or more likely, when, any of those Interceptors attack them directly.
Christine and her pilots dispatched the Medusa and spread out to attack the rest of the Thargoids that chased the transports, and damn I should've sticked closer to them. Mion did a great job shaking some bastards off our backs while joining the chase, and Roberto... I don't know where the heck he was. He should be covering Christine all that time, or at least should've told me why he couldn't. I've tried to hail him on the comms only to hear from one of his pilots that they've been attacked by a group of Thargoids over the far side of the town, and he hadn't received anything from Roberto in the last few minutes either. Damn that mess.
Some of the Thargoids were too late to attack the transports right away, so they hit Christine's group in the backs, and we were, like, ten kilometres away, too occupied with playing goddamn Thargoid piano, distributing our shots over goddamn seven aliens, hitting those trying to line up their shots at civilians. One of her ships lost its speed and had to retreat, unable to keep up with the chase, but Christine got it worse. She evaded an insane flurry of shots, but her luck ran out eventually and one of the bursts hit her left rear thruster; trying to compensate the loss of speed and hammer a little more rounds into the beast she's been chasing, Christine boosted and another burst cut off her frontal thruster on the same side, sending her Chieftain into an uncontrollable flat spin, dropping from the upper atmosphere.
Mion immediately sent two pilots to route the Basilisk which tried to finish her off, but no way you can possibly eject from that, even in space, not to mention thick breathable atmosphere plus planetary gravity.
"Christine, don't look down. Don't look down! Full power to verticals, watch the altimeter, stabilise and brace for impact!", that's everything I could do for her. Heard only a spike of static in return. Looks like the damage was massive and not only the engines were hit; I could only hope that her ship still had some power left to slow down the fall.
We chased the Thargoids until the transports activated their jumping sequences, one by one, and... I had to choose a second escort group for them. Quickly. I wanted to send Christine... Haven't seen any explosions on the ground where her ship crashed. But, still... Damn. There were only four AXDF anti-Interceptor pilots remaining in our formation, and one of them was me. And I wasn't ready to leave this place, these people, even if for two or three days. I didn't want to think about what might happen.
And I... didn't want to leave Mion here.
Hell. All the time, I wanted this evacuation picture to be a little bit more... positive.
Couldn't go. Sent all AXDF pilots with David in the lead, and Mion added one of her folks to make it a full four-ship wing. Their route was slightly different from that of the first group, to make sure that any alerted Thargoids won't spot them. Mostly saving ammo and evading incoming shots, we watched the last ships jump away to safety, and then quickly retreated to the settlement, under the AA coverage. The Thargoids chased us all the way back, though, being already hurt and not as numerous as before, they didn't cause much of a trouble. As soon as the turrets opened fire, most of them decided to retreat as well, and those who remained were eventually gunned down.
I contacted the rescue teams as soon as we landed. Turns out, Christine survived... Barely. They've taken her to the infirmary and stabilised her vitals, but she was unconscious and in need of much more advanced medical care than the town had to offer. Doc didn't let me in to see her. Told me she's got a week, two maybe, on the meds we've had, and should be transferred to a proper hospital right after the second evacuation wave, in order to have at least a chance to open her eyes again.
I said my thanks to him. Didn't know... how to react properly. And what to say. I'd like to say I hope for the best, but... Can words really make any difference here? We all hope. And we all fight. No matter how many of those hopes remain with us. Debris of Roberto's ship were found scattered over the field near the settlement, seems like he suffered a power plant explosion mid-air. No escape pod. Four more local ships haven't returned, with only one pod found so far, and several rescue teams were still out there, combing the fields and forests. Two our anti-Scout vessels literally collapsed onto the landing pads and fell apart, with their crews wounded and exhausted. I've seen ground militia platoons counting their losses and covering their fallen with blankets. Techs and workers removing jagged, acid-coated pieces of a destroyed Thargoid ship, trying to clear the entrance into a damaged bunker. Paramedics pulling dead and wounded out of the crumbled AA turret. And I felt... acid and smoke in the air.
And... I don't know what more can I say. What more can I do. I only hope that today we struck them hard enough to give ourselves at least a couple more days without them raining down on our heads. We can't take much more of that. Until the transports, and their escorts, return, we're virtually defenceless.
I guess now... I have to go and reshuffle our rosters once again. Then, I'm going to contact the ground defence officers to enquire them about their turrets and remaining ammo. Then... Send my condolence messages to the relatives and friends of our fallen pilots. A duty of a commander. A commander who's left almost without a force to command. Does that make me a shitty commander? I don't know. For each one of us, five of them die. But they... They're simply endless.
For a moment, I remembered my own words, words that I said to Christine. "Don't look down". I guess... They have more than one meaning now.
Mion messaged me, told me she would be awake, waiting for my return. Uh... I'm going to put my head under a cold shower... Then I'll sit on the floor and close my eyes. She'll be around. And I'll be there for her if she wants to do the same. She's the only person I allow to see me like that. And I'd hate to be alone. Thinking that so much could've been done better today.
Really hope next days are going to be calm.