Phrikin Armor

[Kamon Vondiranach]

"Alright, listen up. This isn't going to be easy, but it has to be fast."

I adjusted my armor into place and held my helmet in front of me. Seated in the small shuttle craft were a handful of the top troops that I'd managed to put together. Were they the best of the best? Some of them might make the cut depending on how stringent I was. Others were just a bit below the top. I hadn't been able to bag many of the Imperial troops because of the fact that I was a Crinan officer. We still weren't completely integrated, but we were working on it.

"There's a mining operation on Gromas 16 for a material that the Imperials indicated was called Phrikite ore. You're probably wondering why this even matters, it's just another metal, but from what I understand it isn't. It's strong enough to stop a lightsaber, which is one of those fancy energy blades the Imperial Knights have. That and it's nigh indestructable. A vault of it was known to survive the Death Star."

There was some muttering between the men, all of them now curious. I looked between them until one, Jenkins, one of the Imperials, spoke up.

"So why are we going after it, though? Can't we live without it?"

"We can, but if we want to be the best then we need the best. With what I have in mind, thanks to our friends at Regent Industries, we're going to end up being the top fighting force in the galaxy. Even those fraking Mando's will wet themselves when we come in. Trust me, gents, it's gonna be good."

I slipped my helmet on and tightened the seal before checking that my blaster rifle was locked and loaded. We were going into a hot zone. Raiding a mining operation, especially one mining a valuable ore, was not going to be easy. That's what made it fun. Oh, I was so going to enjoy this.

"Suit up. We're going in hot."

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

"Remind me again why I agreed to fly you idiots?"

Seriously. He was a member of Skull Squadron, not the personal chauffeur for a bunch of chuckle-nut ground pounders. Flying a blasted shuttle around was more than a little bit embarrassing for him and he really hoped that nobody he knew saw him doing it. At least he wasn't wearing his pilots suit for this one. Less recognizable as an Imperial pilot then. Still, he shook his head as he glanced back at the idiots in the back. They were all suited up and talking about going in hot and crap. They didn't know what it meant to go in hot. At least they could breathe where it was hot.

The shuttle banked, incoming anti-air was going to make this even harder. Well, not so hard for him, but harder than it would be if he was flying around in his starfighter instead of a stupid shuttle. He grumbled to himself and then banked around some incoming fire before strobing the target that was trying to take him down with some heavy weapons fire. That should keep them busy for a little bit at least.

"Five seconds!"

He banked the shuttle hard and then pulled it into a slow drift over the target. At the same time, he punched the exit door open so that the idiots in the back could jump into a rain of hell. It was up to them at this point. There wasn't any reason for him to be jumping down into that hell hole and helping them get some armor he had no use for.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

I paid no mind to the pilot. Flyboys and soldiers didn't get along too well. I'd never cared for the pilots back at home on Crina, either. They were always such cocky, arrogant tards. They didn't have to deal with people shooting at them form who knew where. They flew around in their spacecraft and shot each other out of the sky, but they didn't have to deal with the harrowing experience of patrolling dark streets at night and not knowing which window was going to pop open for someone to shoot at you. That was true hell.

When the pilot yelled five seconds I signaled for the men to stand. When the door opened, I didn't direct them to disembark. I wasn't the type to lead from the rear, always sending my men in to die while I waited until it was clear to make a move. I wasn't a fraking wuss. Instead, I ran for the door and dove out. Tucking into a roll, I landed on one foot and a knee with my rifle coming up to my shoulder as I scoped out our surroundings. We were just inside the perimeter of the mining operation. I'd landed behind some boulders.

"Move! Get down here now."

Thuds surrounded me and I glanced over to see that most had landed alright, but one was standing up. I was turning to tell him to get down when a blaster bolt lanced through the visor on his helmet, killing him instantly. Well, like I said earlier, not all of these were the best of the best. I was going to have to train them when we got back from this.

"Form up on the boulders. Check your shots, make them count. Don't waste them and don't stay exposed more than a three count."

I just hoped the fly boy wasn't going to ditch us if the air got a bit hot. We didn't have the luxury of air support and the only way we had off the planet was his shuttle. As the shuttle moved off, I popped my head around the boulder and took a quick look. Lots of guard droids. This was going to be tough work. I hugged tight to the boulder and prayed that this whole thing didn't go south, then I popped around the boulder and fired several shots. Oh well, you can't live forever.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

"Sithspawning canker sores..."

Enemy fire pinged off the front shields as the idiots in armor jumped down to land on the battlefield below. He didn't really know what they were after aside from it being some resource they apparently needed for armor that Regent was making for them. Why couldn't they just use standard materials like normal people do? Maybe that would be just too easy for them or something. Whatever. He waited until the last one had disembarked and then closed the hatch and evened out the shields.

Kicking in the repulsorlifts, he gained altitude, and then used the ships weapons to fire on enemy positions with heavier weapons than the ground pounders had in their arsenal. Lances of energy flew forth to slam into enemy positions. If nothing else, it should help them gain a little bit of ground and make some headway.

Until the radar pinged incoming.

"Sithspit, enemy ships. Of course."

He cursed his misfortune at taking on this mission. In the meantime, he punched the engines to take him away. If he was going to duke it out with enemy craft he didn't want to do it where their ground forces could also shoot at him with anti-air weapons. He'd much rather do it over open ground, and there was plenty of that available in front of him. He figured he'd make use of it as he flew away, leaving the soldiers to whatever it was that they were going to be doing for the time being.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

Several of the guard droids were vaporized in a hail of gunfire from the shuttle. I had to admit that I hadn't counted on any help whatsoever from the pilot, so seeing him lay waste to some of the enemy placements was actually rather nice. Of course he then flew off, leaving us in the dust, which was rather disconcerting. But given that there were a couple of gunboats chasing after him I couldn't really fault him for taking off. I wouldn't want to have my ride blasted apart with me on it either. Besides, I was really too busy to care.

Weapons fire continued to ping around us, but I knew that we couldn't stay put. We needed to get to the ore supplies. To do that, we needed to get through the enemy troops in front of us. A quick peek around the boulder showed me that we still had a decent amount of enemies in front of us. There were some live ones joining the mix too. Aliens. That would make this all the better.

"Alright. We've got tentacle faces showing up. Let's vape them."

I grabbed a grenade from my bandoleer and cocked it before tossing it up and over the boulder. There was some indistinct shouting that filtered through my helmet, and then an explosion ripped through the area I'd targeted. Screaming was the result. A quick glance to my men told me that, aside from the dead idiot, they were actually doing alright. I had to admit that I was a bit surprised by this fact. I figured I'd have a couple of more dead guys on my hands by now. I pointed in front of us.

"Move up!"

Darting around the boulder, I ran for a set of crates not far off. No enemies between me and it. I slid in behind it as a few blaster bolts pinged off the ground near me. A couple of the others followed suit, filling the space behind the crates. Several others found other locations.

"We've got to flank around them and take them down. Split up. We're going solo."

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

The shuttle blasted across the red landscape. He tried to keep low to the ground so he could kick up any loose dust particles. Whatever flew up might cloud the enemies vision of him and that was important to his strategy for winning a dog fight while flying a shuttle against a few gunboats. Seriously, this was ridiculous. In a normal situation he'd be fighting them while flying a fighter and he'd have a leg up on them from the start. Now he was a fricking cow in the air. He might as well go belly up.

"Well screw that."

He flew the shuttle around in a loop through the cloud of dust so he could come back around on the gunships. Pushing the shields full front, he opened fire on the first gunship, slamming its shields with laser fire as I flew right towards it from the side. It tried to bank away and clipped the wing of its wing mate, sending it spiraling off. He pursued the first one, lancing its rear with fire and eating away at its shields. If nothing else he would keep it busy while the other one was getting itself straightened away, but he was pretty sure that he'd eventually punch through its shields.

"Eat vapor, scumbag."

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

As the others split off, I made sure my comms were still working. Sure enough, I could hear that some of them were keeping time with each other and coordinating still. Splitting up didn't mean that they had to keep out of range of one another. Quite the opposite. I wanted them to work together to flank and destroy the enemy. Now that they were doing that, I was starting to get even more and more confident in these guys being able to work together and survive. More surprises.

I swept around and headed for a shaft opening. It was surprisingly unguarded, but as I swept into the opening blaster fire pinged behind me. I tucked against the wall and held myself there for a moment as I popped a new power pack into the rifle. When I popped out again, I caught a few tentacle faces off guard and mowed them down, leaving their bodies to rot.

"Disgusting creatures."

As I moved on, I noticed a lot of weapons fire on the other side of the compound, but much less on this side. Not that I was going to complain about that. Somewhere nearby were the stores of the same metal we were there to get. I moved from one shaft entrance to the next, trying to decipher which one was the right one, but I couldn't read whatever language it was that they were writing on walls. Shaking my head, I just picked a shaft and descended, looking for side shafts near the surface that might lead to metal storage. It had to be around somewhere.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

The weapons fire continued to pour onto the fleeing gunboat. No way was he letting up. Of course his sensors were now telling him that he had an enemy ship on his tail. He couldn't take the time to deal with that at the moment. If he split things around like that, he'd end up getting vaped in seconds. With the one ship fleeing in front of him, and not firing at him, he punched the shields full rear and continued to fire on the gunship in front of him until the shields went down, and his weapons chewed through engines before sending the ship scattering to the wind.

Incredible. These guys were probably the most incompetent pilots he'd ever seen in his entire life. Shaking his head, he pushed for altitude as weapons fire pinged off his rear shields. Now the hard part was going to be dealing with the last one. It was easier when there were two and he could use them against each other to get a temporary advantage. One on one he was seriously outmatched in the shuttle. If he could find some cloud cover, he might have a chance.

"Come on... Hey ground guys, you might need to move a bit quicker..."

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

"Hey ground guys, you might need to move a bit quicker..."

Well that was lovely to hear. I was kind of hoping that we'd have more time than that. Being rushed in this wasn't going to make it any easier to get things done. I turned down a hall and started walking, cautious that there might be enemies in front of me. I wasn't hearing anything, though, and the lights were working well enough in the facility that there weren't really shadows for anyone to hide in as far as I could tell. Still, each door I came to was checked. If it was locked, I pried it open, or blasted it open.

"Top side is clear, sir. Jenner and Olanski are down."

"Permanently?"

"Yeah, they're dead, sir."

Three dead. That left mesix to work with. Not as many as I'd like to have, but it was going to have to be enough. Pushing open a door, I walked into a large room full of crates. I'd either hit the mother load of ore or I'd found their stash of equipment. Better safe than sorry. I swept the room for any traps, but I didn't see anything. Figuring I might as well find out if I'd found our target or not, I popped open one of the crates to find it filled with a stash of dark ore. Phrikite ore. We'd hit paydirt.

"Follow my transceiver and get down here. We need to haul these things up so we can get out of here. Double time it. Malk stay topside and keep things secure. No surprises."

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

Well, he didn't get any response back from the army punks. That didn't really surprise him overly much. They were probably sitting around drinking beer and talking about how they'd conquered the world and he was still playing cat and mouse with a couple of ships. He was supposed to be the kickass Skull Squadron flyboy but he was running from a single ship. Ok, maybe they weren't sitting around drinking beer and calling him names behind his back but they could have at least acknowledged that they'd heard him.

He muttered under his breath as some weapons fire flew around the shuttle before he breached the atmosphere. In space he could maneuver better than he did in the atmosphere. There wasn't the kind of wind resistance that slowed him down. That said, he promptly headed around and then put the ship in as tight a turn as he possible could. He wasn't as maneuvarable as the enemy gunboat was, but at least he had heavy shielding. Better than nothing.

"Alright, prick. Eat laser."

The enemy ship was coming right at him and firing for effect. He put his shields full front and then unloaded every weapon the shuttle had at the ship. Time to play chicken with a gunboat while flying a shuttle. Well, if he lived it would look good on his resume.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

While the others hauled crates of the material up to the surface, I made an effort to search out the remaining rooms. Considering there wasn't going to be anyone left around to do anything with the stuff, and I didn't really want anyone else getting their hands on it, I thought it might be nice if we plugged the shafts and made people actually work to try and get their hands on the veins that had been opened up below ground. I didn't like the idea of making things easy on people, after all.

I found what I was looking for not far away from where the crates were. The stockpiles of explosives weren't very well secured, but that could have been because they were securing their weapons in the same location. Idiots for doing that. Always keep explosives and other arms away from one another. I shook my head and grabbed a ruck sack, stuffing it full of the explosives and detonator switches. Wouldn't do any good if I couldn't set the stuff off once it was planted. Granted I made sure none of the charges were near the explosives while I was carrying them.

"We've almost got it all to the surface. Should we hail the pilot?"

"Let him know we're ready whenever he's done playing games. I've got one last task to do."

"Roger."

I moved down into the mine shaft closes to me and planted some of the explosives along the wall supports. I did this at several points down the shaft to ensure it was truly thickly collapsed. Moving back, I went to the next shaft and repeated this process time and again before I made my way back to the surface to meet up with the group.

"Get the bodies. We aren't leaving them."

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

Weapons splashed across shields and he felt the ship rock as his shields finally broke. The shields on the enemy gunship did as well, and weapons fire pierced the enemy cockpit before the ship exploded in a ball of flame. He shook his head and sat back in his seat for a moment. That had been a little more intense than he'd desired it to be. Even his hands were shaking. He made a mental note never to play chicken in a shuttle ever again. It was too stressful.

And then his comms barked at him and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Karking soldiers! Give a guy a minute! I just got finished taking down their air defenses. Sheesh!"

While he sat there for a moment, he shook his hands to try and calm himself down. When he was certain it was safe, he flew back to the planet and headed for the outpost. This time he didn't have to deal with any weapons fire, which was great. A nice clean mission from here on out was all he asked for.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

"Alright, looks like our ride is inbound."

The bodies of our fallen comrades were laid out beside our stolen cargo. In truth, this raid hadn't gone as successfully as command would have liked for it too. The generals weren't going to be all that happy about this, but I couldn't do much else. What I was given to work with was only so good, and the first guy that died did so because of his own stupidity. There was nothing any of us could have done about that. The other two died simply because there were going to be casualties when you were outgunned, even with superior skill. It just happened that way.

"What were you doing down there, Sir?"

"You'll see once we get aboard and start flying out of here."

The shuttle came into view and then flew in. Surprisingly, it was still mostly intact. This Skull Squadron prick must not have been that bad of a pilot after all. Maybe he just seemed like it. At the time I just pegged him for a total jerk, holier than thou type. He still was that, I was sure, but at least he had the skill to back up his claims, whereas others made claims that they could never back up. If you could put your money where your mouth was there was no reason not to boast, aside from showing humility.

When the shuttle landed, I instructed the others to begin loading the cargo while I moved each of the bodies inside. Once we were loaded up, I walked to the cabin.

"Good to go. Let's get out of here."

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

He flew the shuttle down and actually landed this time around. Unlike the previous time he'd been over the mining encampment there weren't any anti-air weapons being fired in his direction, which he was more than thankful for. After fighting the gunboats he'd figured he'd done enough dealing with people trying to blow him out of the water for a while. The proverbial water, of course. He wasn't actually piloting a boat or something on the seas of some world.

While the grunts loaded up their haul, and bodies apparently, he sat there waiting for them to give him the all clear. It wasn't long before their leader, a Crinan, no less, approached him and said they were all good to get going.

"Music to my ears. Take a seat."

While he lifted the ship off the ground, the Crinan disappeared back towards the back. It was time to make like a tree and leave, so he punched it for space, intent on getting them on a trajectory back to Crina so that he could get these jerks off of the ship, and so he could get back to his fighters. If he had anything to say about it he wouldn't be piloting another shuttle any time soon. They were much too bulky and cumbersome and he didn't feel like dealing with that again.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

I waited for the others to strap in, then took a seat near the back hatch where I could see out a viewport. Sure enough, there was a short moment where they were lifting off and away where he could still just barely see the mining complex. With a glance to the others, I held up the detonator that was keyed to the explosives I'd rigged in the mine shafts. The looked at it, and then promptly grabbed hold of whatever they could hold onto in order to keep themselves from getting jostled around.

Grinning, I thumbed the trigger, and the entire shuttle rocked a bit as the explosives blew the mine to smithereens. Well, sort of. It was collapsed enough that it wouldn't be mineable for a while. They'd have to spend a lot of effort to get back down to where the veins were.

"Little turbulence. Nothing to worry about."

I chuckled and sat back against the wall, prepared for a nice long flight before I met with the Regent reps.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

The flight was smooth. Nothing to worry about. Of course they passed through Mandalorian space, which could have been a bit tense if they'd ended up getting sucked out of hyperspace by an interdictor or something. They didn't, though. Thank goodness for that fact because he didn't particularly want to deal with it. A nice quite flight was great. He got a good amount of rest while the idiots in the back were zonked out. Of course he tried to sneak back and see what it was that they'd grabbed, but they didn't care for that much.

When they reached home territory, he popped them out of hyperspace and called for clearance down at the planet. When they got it, he flew them past the big girls in space and down to the new spaceport on the planet. There, he kicked things off by walking right past all of the grunts and getting the heck out of dodge. He didn't need them anymore, and he needed to find a nice Crinan girl to have fun with.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

When I woke up I was just in time to see the pilot walking off. Lifting a hand, I scratched the back of my head and then shrugged. Outside sure looked a lot like Crina, so I figured we must be back.

"Hey, wake up. We're home."

The guys started waking up when I smacked my arm against the wall. I stood up and put my helmet on again, just so I could have my hands free. The people of Crina were used to seeing soldiers in heavy gear anyways. It kind of came with the territory when you'd had to deal with centuries of war. At least this time they weren't fighting or anything, they were just taking stuff to a couple of agents so they could get some gear made, and then they were going to get out of their armor.

"Let's get this stuff offloaded. First two that got on the shuttle, you're on body detail. The rest of you, offload the gear to gate 12. A jumper is waiting there for it. I'll be going with."

"Roger."

He climbed off the shuttle and went to make the call to the Regent reps.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

The call made, I followed the others to the jumper shuttle. With the crates deposited on the craft, I climbed aboard and took a seat. It wasn't long before a couple of pilots appeared and climbed into the shuttles cockpit. They didn't say a word to me, they just started the flight process, and the ship eventually lifted off, carrying us up into the air as they left Stefania and headed for a town much further away. This town was full of people that now worked for Regent. The factories gave them good jobs. Nobody complained about good work.

It wasn't long before we got there. It doesn't take long to fly across a planet. When we landed, I climbed out and was met by a gentlemen in a rather remarkably funny looking suit. It wasn't going to do much to stop any weapons fire, but I figured it wasn't meant for that anyway.

"Alright, Mr. Voss. You've upheld your end of the deal. We'll offload the ore and get it smelting. If you'll follow me?"

The man turned and started walking away, so I followed him. Droids were moving to pick up the metal crates anyway. I didn't need to oversee droids, and I had a deal with Regent, so they wouldn't back out. They had too many military ties. The guy in the suit led me off to wait in some room. When he left, I settled in for a nap. No need to stay awake. It was going to be a while.

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

"Mr. Voss?"

I twitched a little bit on the seats I'd taken over, and then rolled over to open my eyes at the person speaking. It was that same man from before.

"Yeah?"

"We're ready for you."

"Already?"

"It's been eighteen hours."

Wow. I must really have been tired to sleep that long. Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes a bit so to get the sleep out of them. Eighteen hours. I'd never slept that long. But how had they melted everything down and molded it in that short amount of time? These Regent people were incredible. They really made our technology look ridiculously backwards when it came down to it. I stood up and grabbed my helmet so that I could follow the man when he led me through the facility.

They took me back to where something was draped in cloth. I stood, waiting expectantly.

"Now, we melted down the Phrik itself, molded it to the model of you we made before you left, and cooled it. It might be a little stiff and warm in places, but here it is."

They pulled the sheet off of and there was the armor. It was magnificent. Struts on the back, full body armor set. A helmet that made Mandalorian helmets look like a joke.

"The struts extend energy wings modeled after your own energy swords. It's good for quick drops as it will allow a controlled gliding descent. The armor is solid phrik with an armorweave base to fit snug. It's not air tight. I don't suggest using it for EVA. It will, however, filter air for you, stop most blaster shots, and stop a lightsaber."

"Perfect. This is just... perfect."

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

Once I slipped into the armor, I was thoroughly impressed. It was quite on the heavy side, but it did feel good, and made me feel nigh invincible. Of course they gave me the whole spiel of how it wasn't perfect, because nothing was perfect. There were still some weak points in the armor, as there had to be in order to ensure mobility. The power pack for the wings could get damaged. Things of that nature. Oh, and the visor was a weak point which was why they'd made it somewhat small, with still enough vision to see through.

They wanted to test the wings with a live person in it, so I volunteered. At 40,000 feet in the air the opened the doors. A quick check to make sure they activated properly and then I jumped, plummeting like a rock through the air. When the wings kicked on my descent slowed into a controlled drop. Wind rushed past me as I flew towards the ground at a more parallel line than a simple drop. Coming in close, I shifted my legs so that I landed with a slight skid of feet, but I managed to stay upright.

"Brilliant. Just brilliant."

I grinned in my helmet.

"Now I just have to get my people here for measurements and then we're good to go. The Legionnaires are born."