Proximal Flame's Fiction

The Lefu were well over seven feet tall, though Foraker had no idea how much of that was the armour; Concord heavy power armour made its wearers into giants, too. Whatever else they were, the bastards knew how to fight; they began spraying suppressing fire at the heaviest of the militia’s positions from arm-mounted cannons that were bigger than a man’s leg. Some of the aliens had bulky equipment on their other arms, soon revealed to be miniature shield wall projectors. Others appeared to have sensor and communications gear; the rest had rather large, rather unpleasant looking gauntlets that crackled with energy. One of the Lefu knelt behind a comrade’s shield, taking advantage of the cover to ready his weapon – whatever it was, it was bigger and more unpleasant looking than the tri-barreled monsters his companions carried. Or was it a her? An it? Each helmet was stylized into a skeletal visage, betraying nothing about the species that wore them. The kneeling solider fired and a chunk of the building across the street exploded, along with the soldiers that had been in there, burning rubble and dislodged walls and ceilings cascading down into the rubble-choked roads.

There was a brilliant flash in the distance and Rondell raised one gauntleted hand to his eyes as something fell burning through the night sky, crashing beyond the horizon. Another damn fool trying to run the blockade. The aliens weren’t too happy, and he could guess why. The Commodore had managed to take out one of their battleships as she’d withdrawn and damaged a second, but she’d paid a high price for it. From what he’d heard before the comm-link to TF 111 had gone dead, the Lefu had made their ships tougher than they had any right to be. He’d also confirmed the Code Blacks of three of the Commodore’s battlecruisers and her cruisers. Lewinsky wasn’t a barge-driver, but he knew what losing that many people from one’s command did to a person. He’d fought in the war with the Empties. On Unicorn Set, they’d managed to dig in around the spaceport and his unit had been ordered to take them out. Intel had reported that they hadn’t managed to get their heavy weapons set up. Intel had been wrong. Specialist Kadada tapped him on the shoulder. “We’re getting intel from the capital.” Her face was drawn. “The Lefu have landed troops.”

“Order Wallace to break off immediately. They don’t have a thick enough skin, and we can’t afford to lose them to a fighter strike. They’re also slower than us, so if we cut them loose, we can make sure the enemy SDs won’t catch up.” The woman continued to prowl around the edges of the holo tank, eyes glinting from the shifting gleam of reds, greens and blues. “The HAVOCs will make one pass, then join the carrier for immediate withdrawal to Hyperion Hive. We’ve still got some time before their fighters catch up to us. Let’s put it to productive use and get as close to the people they’re trying so hard to protect as we can. Pass the word to Captain Fung that he is to begin preparations to escort the final refugee convoy out to the hyper limit.” “Commodore…” “We’ve lost this one, James. We were never going to get all of their battleships and now with those dreads and their fighter support incoming, they can batter down Priorii’s OWPs. We’ll do what we can, but if we stand… we’ll be destroyed.” She felt sick. We’re supposed to give our lives for the safety of the civilians, not the other way around. “Continue the advance to the enemy’s formation. We’ll force them to keep their attention on us rather than Wallace. I’m betting that they’ll choose us.”