NationStates Jolt Archive

'Planet Z' hung in the empty depths of space, a little white ball with patches of brown and green. Around it orbited two moons, both of them blueish with patches of white and green.

With a flare of energy, a single Xeno warship lept into the sector, hovering 145,000 miles from the planet's surface, and about 30,000 miles from the orbits of the two moons. The Tripoli scanned the sector with its sensors, picking up an immediate burst of activity near one of Planet Z's moons. The Xenos had been detected, and the humans were manuvering warships to intercept. The Tripoli sent out a brief burst transmission, but otherwise remained at its position, scanning the approaching human ships. There seemed to be a heavy screen of ten destroyers, fifteen corvettes and five frigates backed by six battleships and three carriers. Scans showed even more human ships beyond, either near the other moon or hovering near the planet's poles.

Still, the lone Xeno ship did not back down.

Five minutes later, new energy pulses were detected on various computers and scanners as three Xeno battleships, the Arizona, Iowa and Ohio , along with three more destroyers, the Agincourt, Hastings and Okinawa and three frigates, the Claymore, Trident and Broadsword appeared.

These ten ships immedietly burnt engines towards Planet Z while two hundred F-1 Xeno fighters deployed from bays to provide a screening force. The humans, fearing damage to their precious carriers broke the three carriers and four of the battleships off with an escort of fifteen corvettes and all of the human frigates. This group turned back towards Planet Z's larger moon to watch the battle unfold.

As the Xeno fleet approached, it went into a ballistic arc that would swing in the shape of a U towards the world, then away from it and towards the incoming human ships. At the apex of the manuver, hundreds of shuttles and several dropships were released, using the momentum like slingshots to propell them even more quickly into the atmosphere of Planet Z.

Orbit
The four Xeno destroyers took the lead, followed closely by two frigates and the battleships, with the third frigate following the battleships as an auxillary fighter defense. At extreme range, the noses of the Xeno battleships seemed to sprout small mouths as the openings of torpedo/missile tubes opened up. From the nose of each battleship lept large anti-ship missiles, acellerating to extreme speeds as they corkscrewed towards the human ships, manuvering to throw off anti-missile computers.

Several of the big missiles were blown apart, lighting up like novas before the flames were immedietly quelched by the vaccum. Still, another four found their marks on different vessels, digging deep into the armor and then exploding, blowing armor and atmosphere outwards.

In return, human fightercraft twisted and turned, moving into attack formations and diving towards the leading Xeno ships. Dual anti-fighter cannon pods studded on the Xeno destroyers and frigates opened up, filling the void with streams of tracers, tracking and chasing individual fighters, blasting away in patterns meant to spray the attackers down with shrapnel and destroy them.

Ground
Human fighter craft were unable to catch the Xeno shuttles and dropships as they entered the atmosphere and skimmed through the air to pre-determined, but flexible landing zones. Spilling out of the backs of several shuttles came HALO squads of Xeno Infantry. The High Altitude Low Opening infantry dropped like black rocks towards the planet, only at the last few seconds to deploy foils and parachutes which slowed them enough that they would be unharmed when they landed.

Xeno formed into squads and proceeded to spread out protectively around the landing sites. Several of the shuttles landed on the open, snowy wooded landscape and from the hatches and main door trooped out Drones. Huge Xenos wearing ultra heavy armor and packing an assortment of deadly-looking weapons and equipment.

The Xeno infantry moved to the edge of the woods they had landed in and began to dig out slit trenches and fox holes, organized squads settling into the premeter and getting their equipment together.

In one squad the commander, a petite little woman outside of her armor but quite bulky in it, sat on the edge of a trench that was being dug, talking into a comm system. "Sir, this is Squad Three of First Company. Reporting as ordered, we have no contact yet." The comm system crackled, and a telepathic message was translated, ~Acknowledged, Squad Leader Angie. Maintain position. A Drone squad is being temporarily assigned to your position, as the spearhead of our defensive line.~

Several minutes later, Xeno Drones, most of them nine feet tall moved into her area, settling into trenches dug by her squad. Drones are too important for fox hole digging. They began setting up their assortment of heavy weapons.

There was a sudden hissing and snarling, and the Squad Leader rolled her eyes, "Jessie, Tekko! Stop that fighting!" a big Xeno male continued to growl, as a female crossed her arms over her chest and turned away sulkily. "Don't make me seperate you two."

Tekko hissed something, ~She continues to insult me!~ to which the Squad Leader replied, "And you take the bait. Enough!" Angie shook her head and looked over the positions of her unit and the Drone unit again.

Half an hour passed..

A bright light in the sky announces the arrival of several human dropships and dozens of human fightercraft. The dropships settled out of sight among another cluster of trees while the fighters dove down, dropping clusters of bombs among the woods Xenos were suspected of occupying. Snow shook loose from the trees above and dropped white powder onto the black armor of the Xenos.

The communications tech, a young Corporal began putting her radios into a combat casing in her trench to protect them from damage. A message was broadcast, ~Squads Three, Four, Seven and Nine, be aware that we are using artillery near your positions.~ Said fourty seconds before large explosions leveled several trees at the edge of the forest the humans had dropped into.

Even from several miles away, Squad Three could feel the earth vibrate a little as impact after impact shook the very air.

Out of the woods emerged dozens of humans wearing typical body armor and carrying various weaponry, jogging to get clear. Human power armor formed a skirmish line while behind them came lighter infantry, moving from cover to cover. Hundreds of them.

At a range of two thousand meters, several Drones opened up first. Recoiless rockets streaked forward, weaving back and forth before detonating among the skirmish line of power armor. One of the human troopers is hit directly, and pieces of he and the armor he was in go spinning into several directions. Behind him, three more infantry are mauled by the shrapnel.

The rest of the Xeno infantry and drones begin to fire, minigun tracers from one Drone sweeping back and forth over the snow, punching holes into the enemy formation as gouts of dirt begin to kick up all around the Xeno position. Tree branches rain down and there are sharp *ping!* sounds as bullets tear at trees and bounce away from Xeno armor.

OOC: mind if i jump in?

OOC: mind if i jump in?

OOC: Do you have a reason to?

Planet Z

Squad Leader Angie crouched in her slit trench with the comm tech, a little wire running to her helmet from the radios. "Yes sir, I understand. We are under moderate attack here, we have made contact. Power armor and shock infantry." She listened on, then broadcast a message over the squad-level radios, "Listen up! Our fleet has withdrawn as planned, they are picking up the second wave. We need to hold this landing zone. If you need fire support, let the nearest Drone know and keep under cover." Even Xeno battle armor can be punctured with enough hits in the same area.

Tekko looked up as a massive explosion rocked Squad Three's position, shattering a tree and raining fragments of wood down. ~What was that?~ And the answer came as the PSI radio broadcast, ::Enemy artillery inbound on your position!:: seconds before more explosions errupted all around. Two members of Squad Three sharing the same foxhole ceased to exist as a round landed directly in their trench, blowing them to pieces.

Tekko's eyes widened and he let out a scream of rage, standing with his M1 tucked against his shoulder, .75 caliber rounds seeking out and finding the human shock infantry behind the power armored skirmish line. Tracers and laser beams converged on him as he exposed himself, almost knocking him down from the sheer kinetic force. He curled and ducked down into his foxhole, tracers still bouncing against him and richochetting off in odd directions. Jessie yelled over the chaos, "Idiot are you trying to get killed?!" before scrambling out of her hole and into Tekko's to check on his battered form. He was alright, dime-sized pockmarks and laser scorches on his suit. The two turned their rifles towards the human advance.

Greatly outnumbered, Squad Three found that there were dozens of human soldiers targeting each position held by a Xeno. Tekko and Jessie in their place at one edge of the defensive line discovered that a rather heavy assault was moving their way, several battle tanks and APCs chewing the ground in their direction. Jessie radioed Squad Leader Angie with the news, "We have six armored vehicles approaching and thirty powered suits with approximately thirty light infantry in support. Requesting backup." delivered with the grim mindset that Xeno take in battle. Not particularly afraid, but not wanting to die either.

A few seconds later, Squad Leader Angie looked up from her post, just in time to catch an explosive round in the helmet. Her visor slit cracked, and she collapsed as smoke drifted up from the battered helmet. The PSI radio set to squad-level went off, ::Squad Commander is down, evaccing her. Withdraw to secondary positions immedietly!:: Squad members began to back out of their positions to manuver to the second line of defense.

Tekko climbed out of the trench and moved over to where a Xeno female lay, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her out of her trench, only to find that she's quite dead, missing from the waist down. He let the torso go, grabbed his rifle and began to move. He looked up just in time to see a large human power suit arrive, physically swinging and sending squad members flying as it closed in on a Drone. The Drone threw his own rocket launcher aside and grappled with the power suit hand-to-hand while another Drone turned his ion flamethrower on a group of light infantry that had broken through. Men went screaming, their clothing and skin on fire.

Jessie stood up, aiming her rifle at the nearest power suit, only to be tackled by Tekko as a laser beam scythed the air where she had been, the heavy weapon fired from a nearby human tank. He pushed at her, ~Go! Go!~ and Jessie scampered off, practically dragging Tekko along with her and once on their feet, Tekko shoved Jessie towards a gap in the human battle line. The two sprinted across the snowy field, weapons fire chasing them before they disappeared into a field of boulders deposited there eons ago by a glacier.

Squad Three manuvered to the secondary LZ defense line and reformed with another squad. Squad Leader Angie was carried back to a dropship, now conscience but disoriented from the blow to the head.

When the highest velocity a shifted unit can manage is a few thousand c relativistic-space-equivalent - And that only after a fair while of constant (If considerably boosted) acceleration - while the primary (That is, all) holdings of this particular civilization are located in the galaxy's most densely populated system (Which consequently means that it has the largest market), it's hardly surprising that nobody's particularly interested in long-range expeditions.

Too slow, too costly, too everything.

Still, there are enthusiasts, occasionally trying for more. Send a drone here, a subcraft there... Interesting systems are of course already known, either from hearsay by older and faster interstellar civilisations, or due to simple astronomy - The basic luminosity and metallicity of non-binary star systems being the primary indicators.

And so they hop, small craft, rather less than a hundred metres in diameter, spheres, miniaturised flying saucers, thin, narrow ellipsoids... Taking a few months to get here, another few months to get there... It's all very slow and tedious, but it works.

Of this non-sentient, barely controlled machines, their communications consisting almost entirely of low-bitrate QECs cheating on relativistic limitations, a few move faster than others, not limited by the (For now) annoyingly slow post-shift velocities, finding shortcuts - A semi-stable, soon collapsing wormhole near a random, dead system consisting of boring dust, a few equally boring comets and a hot gas giant slowly spiralling into the local sun, or space-time anomalies screwing with sanity and euclidic geometry for what seems to be nothing but increased annoyance factors in temporarily confused operators - their QECs transmitting the information they find through simple text messages over obscene distances.

The Interstellar Exploration Unit 2/05, a very simple construction perhaps eighty meters in length, forty in width and twenty in height, is one of this (Un)fortunate explorers, silent machinery blinking, charting, analysing, hopping through space, so far away from home that it seems to be rather unlikely for it to ever return..

A very simple construction indeed. Not the usual overengineered, maintenance-heavy structures most DA machinery consists of, but a simple block of metal, of ceramics and a few hydrocarbon structures, a dim, fat arrow in space, fifty percent engine, the rest a mixture of computronium, sensors, communications arrays and what would probably count as 'weaponry', although its practical worth can be argued - it works for getting rid of microasteorids and spacedust, though.

It shifts, the trail of exotic radiation and near-zero restmass particles it's usually leaving behind when being shifted ending abruptly as it enters reality proper and ceases to be an anomaly in not-quite-relativistic properties of the universe, starting to collect information about the system it has just moved into, still perhaps four billion kilometers away from the 'life belt' of said system, and not moving particularly fast - This is supposed to be a long visit, and there's no need to run in with 0.3c. 0.001c are far more suitable for a quiet, scientific visit.

It curves, gently, adjusting its position relative to the system's orbital plane, and drifts closer, sensors - Near-deaf when shifted, which is why it tends to shift into proper reality when it notices something interesting - hungrily sucking in the information it wants and requires, gravitational statistics, EM emissions, everything.

It doesn't take longer than a few seconds to figure out that the system's inhabited. Active scans are duly delayed - It's rather impolite to enter a system just so, and it'd prefer to stay undetected for a while. The drives are already off, the exceedingly weak EM and gravitic fields it emits are as un-exotic as they can be... Well, there's still the shift it had done four-point-two-two-one seconds earlier, which probably counts as 'Exotic'.

It'll see. With a bit of luck, the inhabitants are friendly and not too bothered by a foreign machine visiting, anyway. For now, it brakes until its velocity is roughly equivalent to that of a local asteorid or comet, about a fifth of its initial velocity.

Orbit

Sensors of the newcomer would likely note two drifting hulks that radiated faint power and rapidly escaping gases and liquid venting into space. The blackened human warships sat crippled among a littered field of fightercraft debris and armor pieces.

Other human ships were present, some patrolling for activity while others were engaged in rescue activites with their crippled comrades. One of the ships lacks power entirely, and without station-keeping engines is slowly drifting towards the pull of Planet Z.

With an abrupt blink of reality, the Xeno warships returned. This time they were on the far side of Planet Z, many of the Xeno ships bearing pockmarks from weapon impacts and scorched surfaces. Over the nose of one battleship was a bright silver emergency armor patch, appearently applied during the loading of more shuttles and dropships.

While a pair of human destroyers, the nearest to the Xenos, sped towards them, the Xeno warships began launching shuttles and dropships towards Planet Z below and the secured landing zone.

The Arizona, having finished its drops first, drifted away from the rest of the Xeno fleet to intercept the pair of destroyers. The Xeno battleship seemed completely at ease, a menacing predator among lesser beings.

A pair of Ultra ASC cannons opened up at extreme range, each barrel firing off a 250lb round every two seconds. The rounds streaked through space, the first several simply mashing and exploding against the destroyer's shields, but each successive round accurately finding the same spot, pounding away at the shielding, until at last several shots broke through and cracked and shattered armor. The Arizona immedietly launched a salvo of White Shark torpedos, the sleek missiles slipping through space with the energy imparted from the launch. Rather invisible among the other debris.

Halfway to the human destroyers, the White Sharks lit up their engines and struck at the weakened shields. One detonated on the shield, but two more broke through and burrowed into the flank of the destroyer before exploding, leaving gaping wounds 20 meters wide. Atmosphere began to vent and the ship staggered somewhat.

The destroyers returned fire with lasers and torpedos of their own, the lasers scorching armor on the Xeno battleship, but rendered almost ineffective by the ablative protection. The torpedos were sought out by flak cannons, which sprayed the path of the torpedos with shrapnel, ripping the warheads apart.

The Arizona dipped its nose slightly, allowing Ultra ASC cannons on its back to pump more rounds into the damaged destroyer, while a missile bay opened up and the tip of a White Tiger ship killer missile appeared at the head of an arrow of flame, propelled to intense speeds, corkscrewing towards the destroyer, passing through the weakened shield and digging deep into its bow, going off there. The destroyer's lights blinked out, then unsteadily flickered back on again as the ship manuvered desperately to get out of the line of fire.

Human fightercraft swept towards the Xeno battleship, which replied with streams of tracers and clouds of Swarm missiles that curved and chased after the little craft like angry hornets.

OOC: I wanted to use my unclaimed fleet..... And I just wanted to do something I am bored.

For an hour or so, little of interest happens. IEU 2/05 drifts through space, listening to 3.7 hour old broadcasts from the system's inhabitants, pleasantly unaware of the battle - Lightspeed lag.

Then the incoming information becomes more interesting... Information about the first assault arrives. IEU 2/05 is lucky - Planet Z and its moons are on the same side of the system's sun it is on, allowing for a comparatively clear view and relatively quick information transfer.

Pulses of radiation, mostly from incurring damage and warheads - Lasers seem to be less popular, though a few thinned out far-field projections of insignificant energy density still reach IEU 2/05, which, in all its non-sentientness, is for a moment pondering - Should it extend sensor drones and possiby even effector fields, or should it stay silent?

A few nanoseconds after the cold, lifeless thought occured, it decides to keep its sensor drones inside its protective hull, and to avoid radiating odd properties of electromagnetic radiation into space - It's all too easy for someone to mistake the IEU for some sort of munition, a missile or a corvette, and it definitely doesn't want that. Survival is the primary mission parameter.

Still, there's also a parameter that requires it to gain more information. Small EM drives start up, radiating rather exotic properties of EM into space. Still, given the battle taking place, this should remain unnoticeable, at least until it crosses the thousand-lightseconds mark to the planet in question.

In the meantime, it analysed what little information it had gathered until now.

A war, that much was clear. It looked through the EM radiation it received from the planet and its moons. The language was, of course, unknown, and interpreting things like images or videos, three-dimentional media and the likes was hard... But still, this war had to have a backstory. A reason, a past.

And it wanted to know whatever could be known.

Shipsdesigns and tactics. There was exceedingly little it could learn about it, especially given the all-encompassing radiation shells produced by the battle obscuring considerable parts of the information in question.

Still, oddities were noticeable. The locals did certainly have enormous energies to spend, given them burning fuel over the poles, and there were surprisingly little defences - A certain lack of satellite networks and orbital weapons platforms to smash unannounced FTL entries. Possibly a peaceful society that had been surprised, and had trouble getting its wartime manufacturing up to the required standards.

And a while later, the second assault, now met with considerably greater sensory resources on the part of the IEU.

Still odd. It - And the operator receiving text messages about the proceedings - began to suspect that somehow, neither side was particularly experienced with warfare and sort of testing a variety of approaches. On the plus side, the lack of extermination-level assaults was equally noticeable. It seemed to be a 'Fair War' (Though the term was, of course, somewhat missleading and perhaps not entirely appropriate), a suggestion reinforced by the apparent ground assaults - Which it had originally considered extermination-level weaponry, but the lack of thermal emissions in the gigaton-range suggested otherwise.

All in all, this was certainly something it wanted to observe more closely.

OOC: I wanted to use my unclaimed fleet..... And I just wanted to do something I am bored.

OOC: Well quite frankly, your fleet has no business being there. Also, I have several other threads that you haven't bothered to post in. When you see a chance to go to war, you suddenly want to be involved? No thanks.

Orbit
The Arizona continued past the stricken human destroyer as it began to turn out of control away from the fight. All guns were blazing at the remaining human destroyer now, plucking away at its shields and piercing here and there. The weakened shields recieved volleys of torpedos and missiles at ranges too great for the humans to effectively respond to. The human destroyer shuddered, shedding tons of armor as weapons chewed away at its body.

Just as it seemed the destroyer would be destroyed, the Arizona disappeared in a flash along with the rest of the Xeno ships.

Planet Z
Tekko sat on a fallen log among an ancient copse of trees, Jessie beside him as they stared up at the sky. Miles away, the falling stars appearance of dropships could be seen as they descended into the Xeno landing zone.

Tekko unzoomed the optics in his visor and grunted, ~Looks like we're cut off.~ Jessie looked over her shoulder at Tekko in his shot up armor, "They probably think we're dead." They had both tried 'pinging' several times but sensed only thousands of human minds between themselves and any Xeno contact. ~How are you set for ammunition?~

Jessie sorted through her webbing for magazines and grenade rounds. "I'm set for another fight." And that was that. They were Xeno, and they would fight on with bare fists if they had to. Overhead it seemed to be showering meteors, when in reality it was just chunks of armor and pieces of warships burning up as they fell towards the planet through the atmosphere.

The two young Xeno wearily stood and began to march south again, away from all of the fighting where the dark horizon would still occasionally light up with explosions. The humans were still throwing lives away trying to crush the landing zone.

Planet Z

A male Xeno with the insignia of a Colonel stood at the foot of a dropship ramp, watching as ammunition and other equipment crates were unloaded. Around him stood several more armored Xeno, including a pair of Drones. Occasional bullets zipped and laser beams hissed past, sometimes striking armor and sizzling or pinging. ~Hurry up that ammunition, Private! Get it down to the defensive line,~ sent out as a black-armored Xeno jogged past with metal containers of ammunition in each hand and a dufflebag of the same slung over one shoulder.

A large truck was rolling down another dropship ramp, its armored back protecting more supplies. Once it recieved orders, the hauler tore off into the trees, weaving and bouncing. With it went two more squads of Xeno.

~Situation.~ broadcast in a short range to his staff. A female Major stepped forward, "Sir, so far they've been fighting conventionally, with a moderate level of skill. They are heavily reinforced with power suits and have deployed several types of armored tanks and APCs. No nukes yet. I think they know that nukes won't really hurt our ships, and if they deploy them against our ground forces, the type of response they will get."

The big Colonel looked down at her, ~Casulties.~ to which the Major replied, "Light so far. We've lost about seventy infantry, with eighty five wounded and three Drones killed. Two shuttles are inoperable. Once we get one of the dropships fully unloaded, we can evacuate the wounded when the taskforce ships return."

The Xeno Colonel lifted his head as a burst of bullets smashed themselves on his armor, ~Damnit. Someone suppress that breakthrough already!~ Looking towards the left flank, where between trees one could see dozens of human soldiers and power suits fighting it out with Xenos where they had managed to push through a gap between two squads.

One of the Drones with the Colonel strode forward, heavy bootfalls crushing through the layers of snow on the ground. In both arms, it lifted its Mark2 Assault Gun, and all ten barrels began to spin. With deliberate, murderous intentions the spinning barrels were brought to bear on the cluster of humans, and they began to spit out a stream of 1" (wide) rounds that zipped downrange like a line of bright red lava. The rounds seemed to splatter almost, every third one exploding while the solid rounds with tracers richochetted from rocks. The devestating wave of munitions ripped holes into armor and flesh, blew away chunks of humanity and even toppled trees. After thirty seconds and six hundred rounds, nothing moved. The Drone lifted the steaming weapon's barrel towards the sky and strode back to stand with his Colonel again, leaving only footprints and a pile of glimmering shell cases behind.

"Lets finish this, sir," spoke the Major for all of them.

Planet Z

Tekko and Jessie were in serious trouble. Two days of hard marching had brought them nearly a hundred miles from the dropzone, but they knew that they were being followed. Occasional glimmers of sunlight on metal to the north, or sudden barrages of artillery near them announced that a force had set out after them. ~If they have vehicles, we cannot keep ahead of them for much longer.~ Jessie panted, "I know that, Tekko, but I'm sure they're sending overwhelming force at us," visor to her helmet open so she could get some fresh air instead of the recycled and filtered stuff her suit fed her.

~There.~ Tekko's gauntlet-clad hand lifted, pointing towards a cluster of rocks with scraggly little trees growing among them. ~We can hold there if we need to.~ Jessie nodded her agreement without comment and moved forward.

An hour later...

It had been overwhelming. Two APCs filled with human soldiers and another twenty power armor came surging at them, weapons fire ripping away at the trees or chipping and powdering rock. Tekko and Jessie ducked back and forth, firing their weapons when they could and scoring. ~Scratch another power suit.~ Noted as his M1 rounds pierced the throat armor of one of the power suits and the human and armor collapsed with blood spurting out of the wound, hands seemingly trying to hold the blood in. The augmented man thrashed on the ground, the snow turning pink before he went still.

Then there was a sudden bright light, an anti-tank missile launched from one of the APCs struck between Tekko and Jessie, sending them both flying into the air. Tekko managed to regain his balance, landing mostly on his feet, but Jessie's suit flipped like a rag doll to land in a limp heap, smoldering. ~Jessie?!~ Sent out, pinging for a response. She was alive, he could sense. But the thoughts were muddled and dim, unconscience.

A couple of laser beams snapped out across the terrain, seeking out her armored form. Tekko ran over, literally throwing himself infront of her to absorb some of the damage. His M1 was ruined, half of it missing from the force of the blast, but he slowly stood straight, the human gunfire dying off as they watched a lone male Xeno stand protectively infront of a wounded comrade.

Tekko snarled, the sound muffled by his helmet as he confronted the approaching humans, ~I am Tekko! Son of Kay, son of Kamaria! I will kill you all, one at a time or in groups if I have to.~

Planet Z

As power suits closed in on Tekko in his own powered armor, his hands clenched into fists, stepping forward to physically take the fight to his opponents. There were still fourty weapons pointed at him, and as the first rifle fired and splattered rounds against his armor, a shadow fell across the field.

Everyone looked up to see a Xeno shuttle streaking overhead, Drones in full wargear spilling out of the lowered assault ramp. Ten meters from the ground, they hit auxillary boosters mounted to their armor, slowing them down to safe speeds before they hit the ground. A wave of weaponsfire streatched out to smash away at the humans, many of whom were running back towards their APCs in retreat at the sudden assault.

Four Drones went to the prone forms of Tekko and Jessie, checking their suit's biomonitors before picking them up and heading towards where the shuttle was landing. The rest of the Drones persued their foes, who littered the field with a carpet of scorched earth and pink blood mixed with snow.

Just one of the APCs began to move, but it managed only to turn around before it was struck with a rocket from a recoiless rifle. The rocket punched through the armor and exploded in the passenger area. Stricken, the APC veered, then slammed into a tree stump sticking up out of the ground.

Five minutes later, the Xeno shuttle was airborne again, back to the command post and leaving behind two destroyed APCs and half a hundred human corpses.

Orbit

Again there hung a cluster of Xeno warships over the planet, watching as a large battlegroup of human vessels approached, still out of range of weaponry however. A technician on the bridge took a note, "Captain, I'm detecting radiation aboard the leading human battleship. Approximately five megaton range weaponry." The Xeno Captain hissed out a command, and a signal was sent throughout the fleet and beyond.

The ships began to deploy, weapons coming to bear on the approaching enemies as at the most-extreme range, the humans began to launch missile after missile. Each one a nuclear warhead, dozens of them. The Xeno frigates took point, their rapid-fire flak cannons filling the space with shrapnel and brief bursts of kinetic force. Missiles began to shred apart, and for several seconds the flak turrets twitched back and forth, trying to discern destroyed pieces from actual missiles.

Volleys of Swarm missiles reached out, seeking heat sources, the boosters on the missiles and chasing them down, exploding. It wasn't too much of a suprise that a missile got through, zipping into the Xeno formation before exploding on the flank of the battleship Arizona with a blinding, brief flash. Part of the problem with nukes in space was the vaccum and lack of oxygen. Without essential fuel to burn, the nukes were rendered more into 'dirty bombs' than actual kinetic powerhouses.

Even still, what fuel the explosion could find caused an immense shockwave, and for a hundred meters along the ship's flank, armor was crumpled and smashed, and the ship physically pushed sideways, nearly hitting a destroyer that dodged out of the way.

The Arizona's Captain demanded a status report, which came from a diagnostics officer, "Sir! Moderate armor compaction along the port side, we've lost atmosphere in F-1 Bay number eight. Fortunetly, no one was in there and the fighters are already deployed. Our radiation shielding has held. Detecting no internal contamination." The Xeno Captain snarled, then passed on another order.

The communications officer paled a little, but did her duty and passed the message on.

Meanwhile, the Xeno ships slowed, then began to reverse, staying among the drifting field of missile wreckage and keeping their distance. Uplifted by the sight, the human fleet began to approach.

There was a blink of reality, then suddenly there was the monolithic form of the Pennsylvania between the humans and Xeno. The dull black flagship loomed, as Fleet Admiral Kay extended his thoughts, broadcasting them to both sides, ~You have attempted to destroy us in a most dishonorable way. For that, your lives are forfit.~ The sheer empathic force behind it caused men to tremble and shudder, before dozens of weapon bays on the Pennsylvania opened up, exposing the tips of missiles and torpedos, and wide-barreled Ultra ASC guns on the ship swiveled to point in the same direction.

All at once, the devestating firepower of the Pennsylvania rippled, sending streams of cannon rounds and missiles and torpedos among the human fleet as it sped forward to engage. The three other Xeno battleships, sisters to the Pennsylvania also moved forward with the four destroyers, leaving behind the frigates which are not as suited to such an engagement.

With incredible skill, the Xeno warships twisted and rolled, seeming to dance among the human fleet as their weapons reached out to savage armor, hull and flesh.

When an hour had passed, the Xeno battle group hung suspended in an ocean of debris, this time making no attempt to send out rescue craft or recover prisoners. Where signs of life and power showed, cannons would blast away and cause extinction.

A few days... Right now, the IEU was crossing the terameter-limit after which detection of its presence would become a somewhat likely scenario (Assuming that the locals had capacities roughly similar to its own, though this was hard to assess - Their FTL seemed to be superior, their weapons, though vastly superior to anything the IEU could field, weren't really on par with proper DA milequipment, and their sensors... Well, that remained to be seen).

Which in turn meant that it could now ignore its previous policy of staying undetected for as long as possible. The shifting units had been recharged, anyway - If the need arose, and no gravity wells or chaotic EM fields and radiation interfered, it'd be able to get out quickly.

Remote drones left the IEU, linked to the IEU via QE or simply transmitting through tightbeam - A tradeoff between instantaneousness and high bitrates - essentially turning the so far somewhat limited IEU into a giant receiver (And emitter, come to think of it) a lightsecond in diameter, unpowered remotes staying closer to the craft, its fields decelerating the remotes with the IEU itself, while the powered ones stayed further out, keeping up by themselves.

The drive fields had already reversed their polarity, now decelerating the IEU (And the remotes), slowly of course, but still. Emissions channeled into a tight stream of particles and radiation (As well as some mildly confused dimensional properties) going backwards - The only way to detect the stream of emissions from the drives would be to fly through them.

Not that this was a particularly necessary measure, of course... Having crossed the assumed detection limit, all bets were off, and the IEU started active scans, low-beamspread scans of a dozen different natures, thousands of wavelengths and frequencies, electromagnetic, gravitic - The latter somewhat pointless, but certain technologies could be identified mildly easier, this way - everything.

For the average eye-in-the-sky, it'd turned into something like a nearby star, emitting signatures that were near-impossible to miss.

It kept up its passive scans as well, still trying to get some more information by way of analysing media content, wanting to know what'd happened, and why. Languages and codecs were translated by way of insanely complex algorithms - Utterly imperfect and considerably slowly, for now revealing very little about the circumstances, but better than nothing - more and more information was gathered.

The emissions of the battle itself were interesting as well. In a theoretical sense, anyway - The system was too far away from sol to be reached within less than several years (Or rather, about a decade, assuming that they wouldn't take shortcuts like the IEU had done... But they wouldn't, for their return was vital, whereas the IEU's return was of little relevance) by the fastest available craft, which made the local war and politics somewhat irrelevant, as far as practical issues were concerned - but still, it (And its operator) could learn.

Weapons... Somewhat low-powered, though certainly not harmless. Beamspread seemed to be excessive - the combat ranges were somewhat insignificant, although greater than they had been when DA had first reached into space. A considerably amusing fact - Weapons ranges inferior, yet their FTL methods seemed to be vastly superior to anything DA had available. At least that was what the early jumps had suggested.

As the IEU analysed and decelerated, more remote drones left its smallish shape, deploying inside a sphere around the IEU, one lightsecond in diameter. Fields extended, and information began to flow, QEs transmitting it instantaneously to the IEU.

It was unarmoured, it lacked significant weaponry - Going by what it'd seen, it'd probably be able to deal with fighters, but there was no way for it to even cause hard damage to capships - and there was no way for it to be backed up by reinforcements. But it'd be nice to at least be forewarned if incoming fire appeared.

Dodging can be nice, too.

More battle analysis. By now, it was rather easy to figure who'd lost it, and the IEU - As well as the operator behind it - waited patiently to see more. Most importantly, they wanted to know what'd happen next... If the inhabitants of the planet/ moons were like the typical Angstian, they'd most likely surrender. If the attackers - Whoever they were - were somewhat like Angstians, they'd most likely accept such a surrender.

The IEU and its operator... They'd see.

Planet Z
Several dropships had been loaded up with wounded and prisoners, and with large escorts of F-1 fightercraft, they lifted up into orbit for the Xeno fleet waiting far above.

The fighting continued, with thousands of humans still on the planet offering heavy resistance. However, with news of the nuclear strike on the Arizona the 'hive' had gone into a frightening mindset, no longer taking prisoners and often bringing overwhelming firepower to bear on defensive positions.

Orbit
The communications officer on the bridge of the battleship Iowa looked to her captain, "M'am. Recieving word from the ground forces. They are requesting a fire mission." The Captain nodded her approval, and the message was sent on.

Moments later, the battleship broke away from the rest of the fleet, manuvering into a broadside position towards the planet. Missile bays opened up, and the tips of two White Tiger missiles appeared at the head of a ball of flame that quickly consumed the oxygen in the launch bay, then settled into a reddish glow as opposed to actual flame as the propellent sent the missiles into atmosphere.

Planet Z
The Squad Commander of Company Seven stood among a cluster of scrub, several squads spread out in a battle line as they stared across the snowy landscape towards a large complex of bunkers that awaited them, protecting the entrance to a valley. His comm tech looked towards the Squad Commander, ~Fire mission inbound now.~

The Squad Commander nodded curtly, ~Inform the Squad Leaders. Prepare to move on my command.~

Fins and the flex-thrust on the missiles guided it through the sky, and like a pair of meteors they dropped down at incredible speeds. Locked onto their targets, the two slammed into the bunkers, burrowing into the fortification a dozen meters before exploding with impacts that shook the ground. Windows blew out followed by clouds of smoke and dust, and soldiers were actually thrown out of machine gun nests several meters to lie coughing and blind in the clouds of smoke.

As one, the Xenos rose up and rushed forward, heavier weapons blasting at weapon emplacements while the infantry broke into the bunker and disappeared within.

Orbit
The destroyer Okinawa drifted closer to Planet Z, collecting dropships before shuttling them back to the rest of the fleet. Prisoners will be locked away, while wounded are tended to in various medical bays.

A binary message was sent off to Solaris, ::Operations winding down. Proceeding with mop-ups of resistance.:: along with a large information packet and video feed of combat footage, unit reports and damage reports.

Mission over, Planet Z, now known as 'Polaris' in Xeno occupation.