Star Force: Newbslayer (SF64) Read Online Free PDF

of her
face.
    Jenna shook her head, having had her bell rung a bit.
“Bastard,” she said, standing up and staring laser beams at him. “Thanks.”
    “No problem,” he said, rising gracefully from his
pedestal to join her, figuring that the mental training session was over.
    Jenna thumbed over her shoulder. “Sparring ring.”
    Levi sighed. “I’m going to pay for that, aren’t I?”
    “No, I’m just going to beat the crap out of you like
normal.”
    “Oh, well then…” he said, a mock expression of relief
on his face as he walked past her and out the door. “Let’s get to it.”

 
    Four days later…

 
    “What have we got?” Jenna asked the Captain of the Jor -El as it entered high planetary orbit
over Tieor .  
    “Low orbital traffic, no known ship types. Definitely
no Skarron presence.”
    Jenna bit her lip, squishing her face up in a confused
look. “Find their toys.”
    It took a few minutes, but eventually the crew brought
up a bad hologram of the surface of the planet. It was being scanned from high
orbit, hence the poor quality, but it made out the shape of a Skarron Type-5
walker well enough, sitting in the center of a city. Another hologram came up
showing an identical one with several damaged spots, then the zoom panned out
and numerous vehicles were surrounding it beyond plasma range.
    “Put us down there, then find a camping spot in
orbit,” Jenna said, heading for the bridge exit. “Don’t get involved until we
figure out what’s going on.”
    “And if they involve themselves with us?”
    “Pull out to an orbit they can’t follow, but leave a comm buoy within our suits’ transmission range.”
    “Copy that.”
    Jenna reached out with her mind and found Levi in
another chamber nearby. Gear up, we’re
heading down.

 
    Brayden sat in the pilot’s seat of one of their hover
tanks, with it being the most advanced model they fielded and completely
useless against the Skarron walker they were engaging. He knew that closing to
within the walker’s plasma range was suicide, so the Marauders were hitting it
from afar using a combination of rail guns and missiles, neither of which the
Colonel’s tank possessed. What it did have, however, were strong anti-tank
plasma weapons and a multipurpose low yield turret useful for both
anti-personnel and anti-air functions, both of which were getting a workout as
Brayden was fighting off the Tangos’ counterattack.
    They were hitting the Marauders with their own small
tanks, infantry, and aircraft…the latter of which were a big problem given that
he’d ordered his own fighters to keep well away from the walker. He’d gone so
far as to keep them out of this mission entirely and had them sitting at a
staging base, both to secure it and their line of retreat if it came to that.
Right now he was having second thoughts about that, for a good pilot could stay
away from the walker and still engage their fighters, though them having a safe
haven to run to would have made engaging them very difficult.
    His tanks were taking a beating, but they had enough
anti-air capability spread out among them that they were picking off a few of
the enemy fighters and keeping them back from the assault tanks, which had been
modularly fitted to hit the walker and nothing else. They all had to have
escorts, and Brayden knew he’d be better suited to fighting that battle than
taking pot shots at the more or less stationary walker. It was moving
constantly, trying to close with the Marauders who wouldn’t let it, but from a
gunner’s perspective it was so big and slow that it was easy to hit.
    And hit it they were. The shields had already been
breached and the bright white armor was cracked and burnt in many places, but it
was still very much alive and lethal. Brayden had six attack groups spread
around the perimeter, all of which constantly kept adjusting their position on
the grassy plains to keep near to it, but far enough outside its own weapon
range. The