Suntory Interference
Zeta. A mobile asteroid fortress. Capable of enough monstrous firepower to rival that of a battleship armada. Not to mention its capacity as a mobile hangar to allow raids into the Confederacy at a moment’s notice. But even so, Zeta itself is utterly paled by the sheer, overwhelming firepower of the Imperium’s Ishtar Fortress. If Ishtar fortress was capable of mobility, this galactic war of independence would’ve ended ninety years ago. Lawrence wouldn’t had to spend his entire life fighting for democracy. Instead, he could’ve grew up and pursued a peaceful, civilian life as a scholar of human history. That reality was not to be.
The closer Lawrence and the Suntory Whiskey Squad advanced on Zeta, the tougher the opposition was put up. Great barriers of laz gun kept the air spaces of Zeta clear of air dominance by allied forces. A brutal melee slugfest between Star Monitors and Imperium Star Dreadnoughts raged on across its immediate space zones.
It dawned on him there could be very little hope for Suntory Whiskey Squad to get through the barrage. He considered leaving them behind—he didn’t want to involve them in his adventurous rendezvous with Victoria.
And there, a sharp glance to his immediate right, Lawrence swore he saw the all-too-familiar brandished bronze armor as it glimmered against Fasnakyle’s shining sun.
“They’re requesting our assistance against a dreadnought, sir!” It was Suntory Two. Lawrence snapped back to reality. He couldn’t risk it. The Squadron would just hold him back—but they wouldn’t let him go, not alone.
“Lawrence... get a grip!” Charlotte’s voice whipped him back to attention.
“Diamond formation, on Suntory Two,” Lawrence said. “Get those laz guns ready.” He could chance it. He knew what he could do to get on Zeta. He reached for his chest plate and pressed a button, and changing frequencies he spoke into his mouthpiece: “Wildturkey Leader, this is Suntory Whiskey Leader,” Lawrence cleared his throat. “We’re going to make a opening for the assault teams and logistics. Over and out.”
“Loud and clear,” Wildturkey Leader said. “Weapons hot. We’re right behind you, over and out.”
Lawrence contacted his mothership, the Yilan. A portrait of an unamused Kenneth tapping his armchair came into view. “Captain, you’re supposed to be securing the parameter,” Kenneth said. He pinched his nose bridge, one hand occupied with a cabled handset.
“This is the parameter,” Lawrence said, “we’re clearing a landing to enlarge the Utah beach.”
“Captain...!” Kenneth breathed in heavily.
“Man these Tominosky particles, always so noisy, what was that?” Lawrence ended the transmission. A concerned Charlotte nagged at him from a sub-window.
“Should you be brushing off the Commander like that so casually?” Charlotte said.
“Enough chit-chat, let’s go!” Boris said.
The Suntory Whiskey Squad skillfully operated in tandem as they rushed through the endless barrage of laz threads and neutron bombs assaulting them from every conceivable angle. Lawrence lead the way, designating his laz gun barrel at a Super Dreadnought. Lawrence lead the laz shots which tore apart the shield generator. In rapid succession, each Suntory Whiskey member performed barrel rolls at such unimaginable speed gunners aboard the Super Dreadnought had no chance of ever landing a hit.
And so, turning back around, Lawrence lead the way as he nose-dived for the Super Dreadnought. He pressed the secondary trigger buttons on his trigger and dropped his neutron munition—they pummeled the Super Dreadnought. It was a direct hit, but was it effective?
He lurched the Hoshiga to the sharp left and sped through what remained of its massive shield generators. “Watch out for those electric-magnetic cables!” Lawrence screamed into his earpiece. The others were well behind him. All for except Luke.
“Damn it... where is that kid?” Lawrence was shifting side to side in his cockpit glancing over his wings, unable to find Suntory Four.
“Get em—get ‘em!” Luke cried. He rocketed past the trio and unleashed a missile salvo at some canyon, causing a second and tertiary of explosions as he climbed for another climb.
“Luke—stay in formation,” Lawrence said. “Come in Luke, Ensign Starruna, damnit, kids these days get too excited!” Lawrence kept turning the dial trying to get in contact with Luke to no avail.
“There... he jumped the gun!” Charlotte said. Luke was near the surface providing close air support for allied Shinra units. Among them, Lawrence caught slight of Frank on his hud frame. Where was Victoria? “He’s really going to get it now.”
“Can it,” Lawrence said. “How’s that Super Dreadnought? Either of you get a good visual on it?” Then: “Maybe we’ve ought to do another bombing run...”
“Now? It’s too dangerous! ” Charlotte said.
“What about the kid?” Boris said.
“I’ll punish him later. He’ll learn from experience by this either way. On me now. Come on, let’s knock ‘em down a leg by taking this sucker down, then... it’s Utah time!”
Lawrence performed a blitz barrel roll and made a mad dash to capitalize on their previous success. They met vicious flak fire, but the three pilots were skilled enough to dodge the batteries easily. After overcoming the barrage onslaught, it was time—“Now!” Lawrence shouted. He squeezed all the trigger guns, and all three pilots supported by Wildturkey’s wingmen delivered a devastating cavalier punch to the Super Dreadnought. Laz threads loomed from cowering Star Monitors, and a new surge of Shinra teams moved in perfecft symphony the absolute destruction of this Super Star Dreadnought. Eventually, it capsized, consumed by explosions and swallowed wholesale by billows of smoke as the foul beast fell to the cosmic wayside.
But there was no time to celebrate just yet. Desperate retreats were performed with a disordly, messy withdrawal by surviving Tacoma and Sarissa. Mainly were caught ripped apart in kill-zones, few were left alive despite overtures to surrender. Now, the Confederacy was one step closer to placing a checkmate on Zeta. This time for good.
“They wouldn’t fire the Farragaig colony laser on us, would they?” Boris said.
“They wouldn’t, I know they wouldn’t,” Lawrence said. “In any case, let’s go grab Luke before we find out what happens when they do.” The question nagged at him. They wouldn’t. Would they? “Let’s go see if we can grab Luke.”
After the fall of the Super Dreadnought, the team dived and stabilized their flight paths among the many windy valleys and crevices preoccupying the makeup of Zeta’s meteroite surface. Lawrence searched hard, but there was no sign of the laundry list of people he needed. Were any of them already at Utah? A portion of his visual display flashed with a transmission from the Yilan. But he kept Commander Buttermilch on hold for now. There were more pressing things to worry about. If he had thought to track Frank, he could’ve found Victoria easier...
Lawrence found himself jolted, spooked almost, by a red flashing ping on his radar dome. Lawrence shouted: “Nine o’clock, anti-Monitor flak gun. Take it out!”
“Tacoma sentries, watch it!” Boris screamed. He accelerated ahead of Lawrence and flew overhead, unleashing his vulcan cannons on the Tacoma jumping out of cover to confront them. Then Lawrence realized something horrifying. Why would the turret gun be exposed like this? “Suntory Two, Three: Get out of there! It’s a deployment trench!”
Scores of Tacoma and Sarissa took to the air as the three found themselves overwhelmed by laz gun fire.
“Drop your bombs and take out that turret, hurry!” Lawrence screamed. He felt himself compressed into his seat as the sheer volumes of speed needed to escape enemy fire. He and the rest of Suntory Whiskey raced around a donut-shaped crevice and launched themselves further upward Zeta’s air space.
Lawrence fired a few of his missiles at the turret and a trail of missiles from the others felt suit. They escaped the violent shock wave and pellet-like shots of high velocity asteroid and mechanical debri. What remained of the deployment tunnel was blasted away into another blasted, carved out clearing of Zeta. All those unfortunate enough to be in its vicinity when the bombs dropped were utterly and thoroughly disintergrinted. There wasn’t a soul down there. And then, at this moment Lawrence felt his mind groped by a sensation so discomforting he would’ve thought it was Victoria with her Neo sapiens trickery again.
But this was different.
“Captain, what’s wrong?” Charlotte asked.
“It was just like the skirmish at Ben Nevis...” Lawrence said.
“That Neo sapiens thing you were sprouting on about? You did mention Victoria was one of them,” Boris said.
“Never mind that now,” Lawrence said, “any signs of Luke?”
A flare flickered on his display. He flipped a dial on his vest. “Suntory Leader, do you copy?”
“Copy, over.”
“This is Disaronno Leader, we’re attempting a counterattack, they’re emerging from hidden deployment tunnels. We’re at Grid BL-Four-Two-Zero. They’re concentrating for a push on—“ The transmission was cut off by sharp Tominosky particles.
“Damn it, let’s get a move on,” Lawrence glared at his star map, then set coordinates. “Luke’s bound to show up one way or another.”