Human Settlements
08-10-2005, 10:09
(OOC: Okay, comments welcome - if anyone wants to start a diplomatic thing, for example an alien ship detecting the nuclear war going on, let me know. I'd rather not have a lot of people jumping in, because a lot of these threads seem to get overwhelmed from what I've seen. So I'd prefer people to ask first.)
***
The Aliens burned.
The sky was alight with fire – a white hot, intense glow of oncoming death as the Artillery belched forth their nuclear payloads from far behind the Commonwealth lines. The deafening roar that followed the blinding flashes of light was accompanied by a terrific wind as tonnes of dust were swept into the blast by the oxygen-consuming mushroom shaped reapers. Buildings were blown apart with the ease and carelessness of a child kicking over a toy amidst a tantrum of rage as people were incinerated, leaving merely dust and molten flesh were once a living person stood.
From behind the lines, General Jack Gaunt watched in silence through the sound-proofed glass of his Mobile Command Vehicle and wished he was out there fighting with the troops. The Final Solution of the Commonwealth government had been put into play and he was stuck with the job of organising the troops for the attack. After twenty years as a Commonwealth Guard Infantryman, Gaunt sorely missed the action that now eluded him due to high rank and a damaged leg. He leaned heavily on his pariah of a crutch and turned to look across the compartment of the MCV to where several Unit Commanders ordered their troops from computer terminals.
Gaunt snorted derisively; he remembered a time when Command was done from the frontline, not from several miles behind. The Commonwealth Satellite Command System was indeed a superb notion; live, real time, top-down displays of the battlefield that allowed Unit Commanders to see the battle with minimal risk to themselves, ordering their troops via communications links beamed down from the orbiting satellites. But Gaunt personally disliked the idea of being away from the hell of battle – how else could Commanders become seasoned officers if they did not know what their troops went through every day?
“Report,” the General said shortly.
The second-in-command, a young Colonel that reminded Gaunt of a teenager stepped forward from where he was eagerly watching the battle unfold on one of the monitors and saluted before replying, “General, the battle plan is a complete success thus far.” He turned and pointed at the monitor, displaying statistics of manpower, ammunition and kill ratios next to each moving unit down on the ground. “The First and Second Infantry Divisions have taken their objectives with minimal resistance. The Artillery barrage caught them completely by surprise and destroyed the Alien Militia forces before they had time to engage.” The Colonel grinned; Gaunt despised the fresh-faced, eager look in his eye as a matter of professional jealousy. “The Second Armoured Division has taken up position in the town, flanked by the First and Third Divisions. They had encountered greater resistance closer to the centre of the city, but it is expected that it will last for only a short time.”
There it was again – the arrogant confidence of youth and inexperience with the battlefield. Gaunt nearly laughed as he turned back to the window once more. “Do not underestimate our foe, Colonel Mackintosh.” The weary General watched the unfolding mushroom clouds as they dissipated from through the eye-protecting glass of the MCV’s view ports. “They have survived our attacks before, and they may still do so today.”
***
Lieutenant Horatio Mo-Ing flung himself behind a building and rolled several times as bullets chipped the concrete edge of the structure that had just saved his life. His curses were muffled inside his NBC suit as Horatio ejected a smoking, spent magazine from the bottom of his Pulse Rifle and loaded another thirty rounds of caseless ammunition with a single push of the wrist.
The sky was still a red hue from the atomic hell that had so recently dropped near this area. The remnants of several mushroom clouds goaded him like giants as they unfolded lazily in the skies around him. Mo-Ing knew that his suit would offer protection from the radiation for several hours before it would reach deadly levels, but he still quailed inside at the thought of death.
The buildings all around him had been ripped, torn and destroyed by the explosion and resulting air blast of the nuclear shells. The building that had become Horatio’s refuge, once a towering city block, was now reduced to a series of concrete walls little higher than his helmet. The charred remains of life littered the streets where they had been caught by the bomb. Only Alien scum, Horatio thought derisively. ‘Better dead than alive.’ Bodies of his own kind, Commonwealth soldiers, made him angrier. Several lay in the street where he had taken refuge. A burning Leman Russ crackled quietly to itself amidst the sound of staccato gunfire and the cries of human and alien alike.
A tumble of debris made Mo-Ing turn sharply. A small child, its green skin betraying its heritage, stumbled from the wreckage and began to run across the road. Horatio lifted his rifle to his sights and squeezed a round in its direction. The bullet missed, impacting on the side of a wall. The Lieutenant swore and re-aimed as the child froze in fear at the bullet’s impact.
A sudden explosion rocked the ground and caused Horatio to stumble, caught off guard. He pushed himself frantically against the concrete wall and shook his head as the ringing in his ears subsided. The child had gone, ran away in that moment of opportunity. Horatio didn’t care at that point, and glanced around the corner of the building. And gasped.
A Leman Russ was trundling down the streets towards him, flanked by two other tanks of the same design. Bearing the faded remains of an unreadable Battalion insignia, the hulls of the tanks had been marked clearly in the Alien’s unreadable language, denoting their new allegiance. Horatio shook with fury at the idea of human tanks in the hands of Alien scum, but realised he had little possibility of doing anything to stop them. The three tanks ground to a halt, their brakes screeching as metal contacted metal, and the turrets of each tank began surveying the way ahead.
A roar of engine noise made Horatio turn once more. A loyal Leman Russ wearing the colours of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Armoured Brigade trundled around a corner and roared past Horatio’s position. Mo-Ing stood, tried to shout the driver as the behemoth rolled past, but the tank was already in range of the enemy. A resounding smash of shells impacted into the side armour of the loyalist tank and set it alight, destroying the vehicle in a white hot flash of exploding ammunition. Horatio dropped to the floor, hiding his eyes from the blast to little avail. When he opened his eyes, he realised with panic that he could see nothing. He clawed at his helmet faceplate, screaming into his intercom at an alarmed superior officer that he couldn’t see. He got to his feet and stumbled clumsily down the direction of his own lines, hoping that he would meet one of his own before an Alien got him in his weakened state.
***
“General Gaunt, we have a problem.”
The General turned from his viewpoint and stepped across to the Unit Commander who had spoken. “What is it?” he asked, leaning over the man’s console.
The UC grimaced. “Three of my units have been decimated at the entrance to the city centre. I’m getting reports from spotters on the outer positions that the Aliens have something like 2 Battalions worth of armour locking the place down.”
Gaunt frowned, whilst Mackintosh voiced both their thoughts. “Where the hell did they get armour?”
Gaunt asked a more relevant question. “Can we still take the place?” He looked at the UC, who thought for a moment.
“We’d have to commit another Division of Infantry, but we’d lose a lot of troops.”
Gaunt thought for a moment. The air conditioning whirred above his head, filtering the smoky air out into the atmosphere. “Order all of our forces to pull back to a fifty kilometre radius,” Gaunt said after a moment. “Get me the Navy.”
***
“Admiral Jackson, I have General Gaunt on a direct link.”
The Bridge of the HCS Indomitable was bathed in a dull red hue. The Conqueror Class Heavy Cruiser had been tasked from the fleet along with two Powhatan Class Cruisers as escorts in order to monitor the battle from above the Alien continent and possibly provide support. Admiral James Jackson had been sitting on the bridge for the last three hours, watching the updates with a bored expression. The recent moves by the Aliens had caught his attention, and he’d been expecting this call, particularly when the Human forces started pulling back.
“Put him on the screen,” Jackson responded, sitting up in his Command Chair. A moment later, General Gaunt’s face appeared on the curved monitor that covered one section of the circular bridge wall.
“Admiral,” Gaunt nodded curtly. The Army and the Navy had always had a degree of rivalry between them, even at the highest ranks.
“General,” James replied. He clasped his gloved hands together. “What seems to be the problem?”
Gaunt smiled. “The Aliens have managed to secure the centre of the city, and the body count for our side will be too high for my liking.”
Jackson nodded, and grinned. “So you’d like me to send them a present?”
Gaunt chuckled. “If you’d be so kind.” And then his face was gone, replaced by the stars outside the craft.
Jackson sighed, the smile falling from his face. He hated the Alien scum, true – but total genocide seemed wasteful to him. Better to just enslave the Alien population and put them to good use. Also, the idea of wiping out a species…unnerved him somewhat.
Pushing a button on the arm of his chair, the Admiral switched the microphone to ship-wide intercom. “All hands, this is the Admiral. We are now at Launch Condition, I repeat, we are now at Launch Condition. All personnel to Battle Stations Missile and stand by for launch.”
As he switched the intercom system off, an alarm whooped three times to indicate the vessel’s condition. Jackson rubbed his face wearily, and then sat straight in his chair. “Mr Talone, plot target and yield requirement.”
The Weapons Officer to his right began working on his console. The forward viewscreen changed to display the city centre of the Alien city. Jackson watched as the computer squared off the area and zoomed in. Blast radii were calculated on screen as a series of circular shapes, and presently the Officer looked up. “Yield requires one Grand Slam targeted right at the centre, full ten Megaton yield.”
Jackson nodded. “Very well Talone, open missile bay doors.”
The underbelly of the cylindrical craft suddenly lit up with running lights that panned around to the missile bay doors. The two behemoth hatches swung away on hinges like some twisted creature giving birth to the ten daemons that reflected the silvery light of the planet on their shell casings. The Indomitable slowed, its retro rockets firing into the blackness of space as it came to a geostationary halt a hundred miles above its target.
Admiral Jackson turned to his arm-rest once more and typed an access code into the keypad. Along the arm, a panel slid back to reveal a red button enclosed by glass and a key-switch. “Mr Talone,” James said as he removed a key from around his neck. “Program the Launch Computer for a single missile, full yield ground-burst and download target trajectory.”
“Aye Sir,” Talone acknowledged as he worked on his console. It took only moments to complete the task. The computer signalled its work completed with a single buzz, and Talone locked the Launch Computer before stepping back from his console per procedure.
Jackson placed the key into the lock and twisted it. Another buzz sounded, and the red button lit up as the glass panel slid away. The Admiral looked up at the screen, which still showed the target area in real-time. The flashes of high explosive fire could be seen even from this distance. Nuclear Artillery, unable to penetrate the armoured bunkers of the City Centre, was now keeping the Aliens within their barricaded area, turning it from a safe haven to a coffin. Jackson licked his lips, and pushed the button.
The missile rack within the Cruiser shuddered as the clamps around one of the massive Grand Slam orbit-to-ground attack missiles dropped several inches and then released, allowing the weapon to drift away towards the planet. After three seconds, the onboard computer deemed the distance safe and fired the onboard rocket motor, accelerating the missile down into the atmosphere of the planet. The bridge crew watched in silence as the forward monitor displayed a digital timer indicating the duration until impact. Jackson went through a quick prayer in his head to the God of Forgiveness and leant back in his Command Chair. “It is done,” he whispered.
The Grand Slam ploughed through the atmosphere, burning white hot as the friction scorched the pain from the protective casing the shielded the deadly payload to its destination. It soon broke atmosphere, glowing white hot like a shooting star, plummeting down at several times the speed of sound.
It impacted at precisely midday local time. In its last few seconds of life, the weapon smashed through the central bunker of the city believed to be the Alien location of government. The arming mechanism activated a split-second before impacting with the ground and detonated. The massive flash of light could be seen five hundred miles away on the Human continent. A wall of fire expanded, consuming everything for several miles, and the resulting wind destroyed everything within 30 kilometres as the monster drew its only breath before expanding into the atmosphere. Time seemed to stand still for several moments before the noise of the explosion reached the human forces that had pulled back and were now protecting themselves from the blast in forward bunkers set up for the assault.
Soon, the only sound in the area was the faint sounds of several thousand humans cheering.
***
The Aliens burned.
The sky was alight with fire – a white hot, intense glow of oncoming death as the Artillery belched forth their nuclear payloads from far behind the Commonwealth lines. The deafening roar that followed the blinding flashes of light was accompanied by a terrific wind as tonnes of dust were swept into the blast by the oxygen-consuming mushroom shaped reapers. Buildings were blown apart with the ease and carelessness of a child kicking over a toy amidst a tantrum of rage as people were incinerated, leaving merely dust and molten flesh were once a living person stood.
From behind the lines, General Jack Gaunt watched in silence through the sound-proofed glass of his Mobile Command Vehicle and wished he was out there fighting with the troops. The Final Solution of the Commonwealth government had been put into play and he was stuck with the job of organising the troops for the attack. After twenty years as a Commonwealth Guard Infantryman, Gaunt sorely missed the action that now eluded him due to high rank and a damaged leg. He leaned heavily on his pariah of a crutch and turned to look across the compartment of the MCV to where several Unit Commanders ordered their troops from computer terminals.
Gaunt snorted derisively; he remembered a time when Command was done from the frontline, not from several miles behind. The Commonwealth Satellite Command System was indeed a superb notion; live, real time, top-down displays of the battlefield that allowed Unit Commanders to see the battle with minimal risk to themselves, ordering their troops via communications links beamed down from the orbiting satellites. But Gaunt personally disliked the idea of being away from the hell of battle – how else could Commanders become seasoned officers if they did not know what their troops went through every day?
“Report,” the General said shortly.
The second-in-command, a young Colonel that reminded Gaunt of a teenager stepped forward from where he was eagerly watching the battle unfold on one of the monitors and saluted before replying, “General, the battle plan is a complete success thus far.” He turned and pointed at the monitor, displaying statistics of manpower, ammunition and kill ratios next to each moving unit down on the ground. “The First and Second Infantry Divisions have taken their objectives with minimal resistance. The Artillery barrage caught them completely by surprise and destroyed the Alien Militia forces before they had time to engage.” The Colonel grinned; Gaunt despised the fresh-faced, eager look in his eye as a matter of professional jealousy. “The Second Armoured Division has taken up position in the town, flanked by the First and Third Divisions. They had encountered greater resistance closer to the centre of the city, but it is expected that it will last for only a short time.”
There it was again – the arrogant confidence of youth and inexperience with the battlefield. Gaunt nearly laughed as he turned back to the window once more. “Do not underestimate our foe, Colonel Mackintosh.” The weary General watched the unfolding mushroom clouds as they dissipated from through the eye-protecting glass of the MCV’s view ports. “They have survived our attacks before, and they may still do so today.”
***
Lieutenant Horatio Mo-Ing flung himself behind a building and rolled several times as bullets chipped the concrete edge of the structure that had just saved his life. His curses were muffled inside his NBC suit as Horatio ejected a smoking, spent magazine from the bottom of his Pulse Rifle and loaded another thirty rounds of caseless ammunition with a single push of the wrist.
The sky was still a red hue from the atomic hell that had so recently dropped near this area. The remnants of several mushroom clouds goaded him like giants as they unfolded lazily in the skies around him. Mo-Ing knew that his suit would offer protection from the radiation for several hours before it would reach deadly levels, but he still quailed inside at the thought of death.
The buildings all around him had been ripped, torn and destroyed by the explosion and resulting air blast of the nuclear shells. The building that had become Horatio’s refuge, once a towering city block, was now reduced to a series of concrete walls little higher than his helmet. The charred remains of life littered the streets where they had been caught by the bomb. Only Alien scum, Horatio thought derisively. ‘Better dead than alive.’ Bodies of his own kind, Commonwealth soldiers, made him angrier. Several lay in the street where he had taken refuge. A burning Leman Russ crackled quietly to itself amidst the sound of staccato gunfire and the cries of human and alien alike.
A tumble of debris made Mo-Ing turn sharply. A small child, its green skin betraying its heritage, stumbled from the wreckage and began to run across the road. Horatio lifted his rifle to his sights and squeezed a round in its direction. The bullet missed, impacting on the side of a wall. The Lieutenant swore and re-aimed as the child froze in fear at the bullet’s impact.
A sudden explosion rocked the ground and caused Horatio to stumble, caught off guard. He pushed himself frantically against the concrete wall and shook his head as the ringing in his ears subsided. The child had gone, ran away in that moment of opportunity. Horatio didn’t care at that point, and glanced around the corner of the building. And gasped.
A Leman Russ was trundling down the streets towards him, flanked by two other tanks of the same design. Bearing the faded remains of an unreadable Battalion insignia, the hulls of the tanks had been marked clearly in the Alien’s unreadable language, denoting their new allegiance. Horatio shook with fury at the idea of human tanks in the hands of Alien scum, but realised he had little possibility of doing anything to stop them. The three tanks ground to a halt, their brakes screeching as metal contacted metal, and the turrets of each tank began surveying the way ahead.
A roar of engine noise made Horatio turn once more. A loyal Leman Russ wearing the colours of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Armoured Brigade trundled around a corner and roared past Horatio’s position. Mo-Ing stood, tried to shout the driver as the behemoth rolled past, but the tank was already in range of the enemy. A resounding smash of shells impacted into the side armour of the loyalist tank and set it alight, destroying the vehicle in a white hot flash of exploding ammunition. Horatio dropped to the floor, hiding his eyes from the blast to little avail. When he opened his eyes, he realised with panic that he could see nothing. He clawed at his helmet faceplate, screaming into his intercom at an alarmed superior officer that he couldn’t see. He got to his feet and stumbled clumsily down the direction of his own lines, hoping that he would meet one of his own before an Alien got him in his weakened state.
***
“General Gaunt, we have a problem.”
The General turned from his viewpoint and stepped across to the Unit Commander who had spoken. “What is it?” he asked, leaning over the man’s console.
The UC grimaced. “Three of my units have been decimated at the entrance to the city centre. I’m getting reports from spotters on the outer positions that the Aliens have something like 2 Battalions worth of armour locking the place down.”
Gaunt frowned, whilst Mackintosh voiced both their thoughts. “Where the hell did they get armour?”
Gaunt asked a more relevant question. “Can we still take the place?” He looked at the UC, who thought for a moment.
“We’d have to commit another Division of Infantry, but we’d lose a lot of troops.”
Gaunt thought for a moment. The air conditioning whirred above his head, filtering the smoky air out into the atmosphere. “Order all of our forces to pull back to a fifty kilometre radius,” Gaunt said after a moment. “Get me the Navy.”
***
“Admiral Jackson, I have General Gaunt on a direct link.”
The Bridge of the HCS Indomitable was bathed in a dull red hue. The Conqueror Class Heavy Cruiser had been tasked from the fleet along with two Powhatan Class Cruisers as escorts in order to monitor the battle from above the Alien continent and possibly provide support. Admiral James Jackson had been sitting on the bridge for the last three hours, watching the updates with a bored expression. The recent moves by the Aliens had caught his attention, and he’d been expecting this call, particularly when the Human forces started pulling back.
“Put him on the screen,” Jackson responded, sitting up in his Command Chair. A moment later, General Gaunt’s face appeared on the curved monitor that covered one section of the circular bridge wall.
“Admiral,” Gaunt nodded curtly. The Army and the Navy had always had a degree of rivalry between them, even at the highest ranks.
“General,” James replied. He clasped his gloved hands together. “What seems to be the problem?”
Gaunt smiled. “The Aliens have managed to secure the centre of the city, and the body count for our side will be too high for my liking.”
Jackson nodded, and grinned. “So you’d like me to send them a present?”
Gaunt chuckled. “If you’d be so kind.” And then his face was gone, replaced by the stars outside the craft.
Jackson sighed, the smile falling from his face. He hated the Alien scum, true – but total genocide seemed wasteful to him. Better to just enslave the Alien population and put them to good use. Also, the idea of wiping out a species…unnerved him somewhat.
Pushing a button on the arm of his chair, the Admiral switched the microphone to ship-wide intercom. “All hands, this is the Admiral. We are now at Launch Condition, I repeat, we are now at Launch Condition. All personnel to Battle Stations Missile and stand by for launch.”
As he switched the intercom system off, an alarm whooped three times to indicate the vessel’s condition. Jackson rubbed his face wearily, and then sat straight in his chair. “Mr Talone, plot target and yield requirement.”
The Weapons Officer to his right began working on his console. The forward viewscreen changed to display the city centre of the Alien city. Jackson watched as the computer squared off the area and zoomed in. Blast radii were calculated on screen as a series of circular shapes, and presently the Officer looked up. “Yield requires one Grand Slam targeted right at the centre, full ten Megaton yield.”
Jackson nodded. “Very well Talone, open missile bay doors.”
The underbelly of the cylindrical craft suddenly lit up with running lights that panned around to the missile bay doors. The two behemoth hatches swung away on hinges like some twisted creature giving birth to the ten daemons that reflected the silvery light of the planet on their shell casings. The Indomitable slowed, its retro rockets firing into the blackness of space as it came to a geostationary halt a hundred miles above its target.
Admiral Jackson turned to his arm-rest once more and typed an access code into the keypad. Along the arm, a panel slid back to reveal a red button enclosed by glass and a key-switch. “Mr Talone,” James said as he removed a key from around his neck. “Program the Launch Computer for a single missile, full yield ground-burst and download target trajectory.”
“Aye Sir,” Talone acknowledged as he worked on his console. It took only moments to complete the task. The computer signalled its work completed with a single buzz, and Talone locked the Launch Computer before stepping back from his console per procedure.
Jackson placed the key into the lock and twisted it. Another buzz sounded, and the red button lit up as the glass panel slid away. The Admiral looked up at the screen, which still showed the target area in real-time. The flashes of high explosive fire could be seen even from this distance. Nuclear Artillery, unable to penetrate the armoured bunkers of the City Centre, was now keeping the Aliens within their barricaded area, turning it from a safe haven to a coffin. Jackson licked his lips, and pushed the button.
The missile rack within the Cruiser shuddered as the clamps around one of the massive Grand Slam orbit-to-ground attack missiles dropped several inches and then released, allowing the weapon to drift away towards the planet. After three seconds, the onboard computer deemed the distance safe and fired the onboard rocket motor, accelerating the missile down into the atmosphere of the planet. The bridge crew watched in silence as the forward monitor displayed a digital timer indicating the duration until impact. Jackson went through a quick prayer in his head to the God of Forgiveness and leant back in his Command Chair. “It is done,” he whispered.
The Grand Slam ploughed through the atmosphere, burning white hot as the friction scorched the pain from the protective casing the shielded the deadly payload to its destination. It soon broke atmosphere, glowing white hot like a shooting star, plummeting down at several times the speed of sound.
It impacted at precisely midday local time. In its last few seconds of life, the weapon smashed through the central bunker of the city believed to be the Alien location of government. The arming mechanism activated a split-second before impacting with the ground and detonated. The massive flash of light could be seen five hundred miles away on the Human continent. A wall of fire expanded, consuming everything for several miles, and the resulting wind destroyed everything within 30 kilometres as the monster drew its only breath before expanding into the atmosphere. Time seemed to stand still for several moments before the noise of the explosion reached the human forces that had pulled back and were now protecting themselves from the blast in forward bunkers set up for the assault.
Soon, the only sound in the area was the faint sounds of several thousand humans cheering.