Planatae

Interlude: THE VALLE BATTLEFRONT (4 YEARS AGO)

Jasper sprang forward, tucking his body into an awkward somersault. He tumbled forwards, bounced about by Valle's freakishly tough flora.

It had been an awkward performance, but an effective one. Not even a dozen feet behind him, a copse of trees blew apart in a fantastic display of power, prompting Jasper to drop flat to the ground in an effort to avoid the spray of debris.

The tough, razor sharp shards of bark that whizzed over his head were made of scalewood, a material unlike any other plant material known to the galaxy. Flexible, yet extremely durable, the wood was a lavish alternative to the carbon-fiber materials most commonly used in construction. It also boasted the properties of a great insulator, which helped it serve as a potent defense against low-energy projectiles.

It was the latter details that had brought Jasper, and the rest of the King's Regiment to the moon-planet. The material was perfect for making lightweight infantry armor, something that was in sore demand after long years of the aptly named War.

Jasper allowed himself a moment to catch his breath, leaning against a scalewood tree for support. As a backline medic, there was no reason he should have been running for his life. But the Rete's sudden bombardment of the precious forest they were fighting over had been completely unexpected.

It was also counterintuitive; the Saiseki forces had been expecting a surface-level battlefront, since neither side wanted to risk destroying the resource they were both fighting so hard for. But it seemed as though the Rete, who had been occupying the moon-planet, deemed it worth sacrificing so no one could have it. Normally, the regiment's commander would have made short work of an enemy ground base, but the air support had been unexpected.

How did they miss this? Jasper wailed to himself as he stared at the smoldering remains of the trees. We should have been warned if the Rete had an additional fleet here on Valle!

Ignoring the bruises brought on by the stone-hard ferns and lesser plants about his feet, Jasper stumbled into motion again, moving away from where the Rete fighters had attacked last. His feed was a blaring, confusing mess of orders, but it seemed the gist of it was for the foot soldiers to make a hasty retreat, and allow their own fighters to engage the enemy.

Switching it off, Jasper sought the large, indistinct shape that rose in the distance through the trees. It was a Saisekan troop carrier, the closest one to his current location. If he could reach it without being blown to bits, he stood a chance of escaping the moon-planet.

Dimly, he was aware of the shouts of men and women who fought their way through the forest around him. The odd clatter of the stone-plants, the smell of sweat, the harsh glare of Valle's twin suns - all of it faded in lieu of Jasper's single mindedness to survive, to put one throbbing foot in front of another.

He'd had a squad with him, a team of soldiers stationed to protect them. But the Rete's bombardment had scattered their forces throughout the forest, and careful planning had devolved into a scrambled retreat.

If the fighters above weren't bad enough, Jasper had to take care to avoid an ambush from the Rete field scouts as well. Valle had been Independant at the start of the war, but had quickly been absorbed into the Rete, under claims of 'protection.' It meant that they had much more time to understand the landscape of the moon-planet, and develop effective strategies in defending it.

Saiseki had been expecting these guerilla-style tactics in these dense forests, but it was one thing to predict, and another to actually overcome it. Jasper was grateful he wasn't an infantryman, trying to push his way to the Rete base as energy projectiles were flung at him from the shadows.