Baxter, they’re down with the bad guys now. Are you ready? Skip wirelessly beamed to his companion hiding in the scrub brush behind a group of almost a dozen armed men and women.
I’m ready , the combat droid beamed back as his forearms shifted to allow half meter long blades to deploy. They clacked as the individual segments locked into place. Once locked into place, energy flowed into them causing them to glow crimson. Quieter than a mechanical being his size should be able to be, he crept up to within two meters of the nearest enemies.
“Hello, I am here to kill you,” he said, loud enough for the nearest woman to hear before he leapt into the middle of their formation, blades cutting through the light armor they wore like it wasn’t there.
When he was sure that each target was dead and that his attack hadn’t attracted the attention of the team on the opposite side of the valley, he powered down the blades. In all, he’d killed the entire strike team without a single sound making it to the team across the valley floor hearing. As he moved toward the edge of the valley wall, his dual shoulder railguns deployed, as did his forearm blasters. He sighted on the man talking to Steve and Kori.
As he watched the exchange, he saw the man working his phone, thumb ready to activate something. With no better intel to operate from, the combat droid made a decision. He fired a single shot. The sound of the shot came after the man’s hand and gPhone exploded in a red mist.
* * *
Steve and Kori were nearly to the ground before the Asian man with now only one hand, realized what was happening, just before the loud crack echoed through the valley. Baxter’s railguns.
By the time they hit the ground and shimmied toward a rock barely big enough to provide cover, the wounded man had darted back to the relative safety of his nearest colleague.
Blaster fire erupted from the opposite wall of the valley, chewing up the ground around Steve and Kori’s small boulder. Rock chips and damp soil pelted them.
Steve glanced over his shoulder as energy bolts lanced from one side of the valley wall to the other, Baxter. The weapons fire pinning them down abated as the second team of attackers changed targets to the valley wall opposite them. Shouts echoed down into the valley from above.
The freighter opened fire as well, its more powerful energy weapons igniting the grass around the two defenders.
Steve looked at Kori as she ducked behind their meager cover. “We gotta find someplace less exposed!” She nodded.
“Incoming!” was shouted over their shared comm channel, causing Kori to flinch. In the distance, two small craft zipped in alongside the hovering freighter before diving steeply to make a semi-controlled crash landing. The confusion caused by the two inbound skimmers was enough to give Kori and Steve a chance to sprint toward the Osprey . They made it as far as the far side of the ore module before the hovering freighter resumed its firing.
The two remaining intact members of the initial trio turned their attention to the skimmers, now sitting in deep furrows. Jax and Naomi had ejected just before impact and were crouched next to one of the landed freighters in the shadow of its landing gear.
“Weapons would be nice,” Jax groaned, rubbing his elbow. His jumpsuit had a rip along one arm, and blood was seeping from a cut below his shoulder.
Naomi looked at him and winked. She placed both hands on the hull of the old freighter. Her hands and face lit up. “Damnit,” she hissed.
“What?”
She moved her hands to different parts of the landing gear and hull plating. “Haven’t found any live circuits yet. Wait! There,” she said, eyes closed. Jax watched impatiently until the same recessed weapons as those on the hovering freighter deployed and took aim at the other landed freighter. She only got a few shots off before Jax pushed her to the ground. The man and woman that had been inspecting the ruins of the skimmers had taken aim at them.
The battle near the top of the valley dwindled, leaving both sections of the valley wall smoking and aflame. Large blackened impact craters dotted both sides.
Kori and Steve charged out from behind the nearest ore module, blasters blazing. The large man fell to the ground, his shoulder a smoking ruin. The woman turned to engage the armed threats but only fired a few shots, enough to cause her two assailants to drop for cover. She darted to the freighter Naomi was firing on, running up the boarding ramp.
Jax looked up and ushered Naomi out from under the freighter they were using for cover as its lift engines powered up. Whoever was at the controls was in a hurry as the freighter began to rise before the engines were even at full power. Naomi and Jax were blown to the ground by the powerful energy exhaust. Jax screamed as he was rolled several feet, striking his bloodied elbow on a rock.
From his position on the ground, he saw Kori and Steve get up and move toward the two men they’d incapacitated. At the same time, he saw the Osprey lift off the ground, the small missile launcher ports open on her sides. Two of the small, highly explosive missiles leapt from their housing and crossed the distance between the Osprey and the hovering freighter in seconds, exploding against its side. The much larger ship lurched to the side, brought its blasters to bear, and opened fire on the smaller Valerian Coop Infiltrator. The Osprey tilted and increased altitude as it unleashed another paid of missiles.
“Those things aren’t cheap,” he whispered to himself as the freighter that was hovering over the battle listed to port, then slammed to the ground, gouging a furrow nearly fifty meters long in the soggy valley floor.
The freighter that the woman had boarded moments ago, heedless of anything or anyone around it, engaged its sub-light engines. The powerful thrust struck the other freighter, the one Jax and Naomi had been hiding under, forcing it almost back to the ground. One of the landing legs, the one Naomi had touched to hack into the ship’s systems, hit the ground and bent. It would not be retracting into the hull any time soon.