NationStates Jolt Archive

Major Franks stared at the compound through his helmet's HUD. It was the base of the local pirate activity that was plagueing civilian trade ships. "Activity?"

"Standard sir. They're holding tight to the schedule intel provided." Lieutenant Sanders replied from his perch. "We should be ready to go at 13:14 as planned."

Franks grunted in acknowledgement to his comscan man, "How about you Simms, you in position?"

"You know it boss." The cheerful Captain Simms replied. He was on a ridge not far from Franks position with their nuclear missile payload. "I'm ready to launch at the word go."

Only one more to go thought Franks, "Halsey how's our rear?"

"Everything looks fine sir," the calm collected voice of Captain Halsey replied. "I have no..." she paused in her report, "Wait make that four contacts approaching from seven o'clock."

Franks cursed under his breath, "Transfer your view to me Halsey." At his order the Captain's hud view popped onto his. Four people we approaching, three of them looked to be children no more than 12 or 13 years old.

"Sanders, what do you make of it?" Halsey asked.

"Don't know ma'am. What's that thing on their forehead?"

Simms spoke up, "Hey aren't those the things that those Ninja's wear?"

"Fuck! What they hell do those bastards think they're doing?" Halsey yelled, "They'll be spotted by the next low-level sensor sweep. They'll be slaughtered."

"Sir sweep in one minute. When the base detechts them they'll raise their shields and re-locate and the entire op will be blown." Sanders stated.

"Are they in blast range Simms?" Franks asked coldly.

"Yes sir."

"Thirty seconds to sweep sir!" Sanders cried out.

"We spend too much time on this op to blow it now. Launch."

Franks didn't wait for a reply, he didn't need to as he knew Simms would follow his orders. He dropped into his foxhole and pulled the heat shield accross the opening.

He toggled camera view just as a brilliant white light lit the sky behind him. The trees all around him burst into flames that were blown out as the overpressure wave rushed past.

He waited in his foxhole for ten minutes before coming out. The area that was the base was now a smoking crater. "Check in folks."

****

Franks stared down at the four carbonized skeletons before him. The adult had tried to shield the children from the blast, but they were too close. It made no difference.

He took out his entrenching tool, "We have graves to dig."

Half an hour later they commando squad was gone. All that remained were four fresh graves, marked only by a stone with a metal headband pounded into the rock.

****

Rory pulled his pistol and shot the messenger. "We can't keep losing our forward command posts like this. That base represented a lot of capital and now it's a slagging radioactive crater!

"We need to strike back. Prepare an attack force. We're going hunting."

OOC: I'm back after a leave of absence. Let's see what this can become.

House Ordus was in a state of disorder. The war with Kazecistan had left their forces crippled and few. What was worse was that they were blamed for the war in the first place, crushed further by economic sanctions. Their mood became almost murderous when they learned of a pirate attack on their latest convoy, stripping them of valuable resources to help rebuild their shattered economic empire. They were out for blood now.

After some costly reconnaissance, they found the pirate base that contained their shipments. They arranged to set every available ship on the hunt. The warp space tore open as their fleet finished their jump into the system. They managed seventeen ships, mostly frigate and cruiser class. Sensor pings rang out across the system as the hunters told the prey that they were coming for them.

Draconic Order info. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=403226)

Glen "Axeman" Cambell took the news of the approaching ships in stride. "Begin evacuating the cargo. Launch a few missiles at the bastards. See how they like it."

As freighters lifted off and began accelerating away the mighty reactor of the space station roared to life. It powered up launch tubes and 10 missiles lanced towards the approaching ships at 99% the speed of light.

Three missiles jammed and went off course, spiraling out into the void. The rest of the warheads impacted against the shields of the lead frigate, rippling off the vessel as the bubble dissipated most of the kinetic energy. The ship plowed on ahead, only sustaining minor damaged.

The response was one of insanity as every ship targeted the station. Ten particle beams bore into the station following a barrage of laser fire. A wave of torpedoes sliced through the ether as the ships closed, launched from the fleet like a school of minnows.

#EMETH TO METH (http://www.streamload.com/BerrikTheDetian)

(ooc: click for my FT tech thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=447907))

Even as the hands of several fire control officers descend towards their consoles ot fire on the station, a spark appears in space near the station, and rapidly expands to a glowing blue tunnel, disgorging a small Axis Nova fleet, consisting of half a dozen Olympus Class corvettes, two Hyperion Class heavy cruisers, two squadrons of Euclid mobile armors, and a single Omega Class dreadnought.

Through unfortunate coincidence, this small fleet has managed to jump out directly into the path of the crossfire, and caught with their defenses down, are heavily hit by the Draconic Order salvo.

The particle beams and torpedo explosions scorch across the hull of one of the Hyperions, the Nova, three Olympuses, and four of the Euclids.

Two of the Olympuses take severe damage, almost immediately listing to the side and shaking with internal explosions as their drives go down. The third actually explodes as it takes a direct hit to it's main reactor, and the Euclids simply cease to exist.

The Hyperion and Nova, however, are made of sterner stuff; while the Hyperion loses a couple of missile tubes and the Nova takes some nasty hull damage, both ships recover relatively quickly, the surviving ships quickly engaging in some evasive maneuvers to miss both the station and the disabled corvettes.

The Nova doesn't quite make it, the bottom of it's bow grazing the top of the station, but it manages to put on enough thrust that this time, only cosmetic damage was done.

On the bridge of the Nova, Commodore MacKenzie rubs his shoulders, blessing the fact that Nova are so well armored and that he was strapped in.

"Report! What the hell was that?"

"Sir, we were attacked right when we exited hyperspace. Glamorous and Vegas are heavily damaged and not responding to comm, and the City of Detroit has been blown sky-high-- we've also lost several Euclids. Status on this ship is nominal-- we took some armor damage, but nothing serious. The Pakse reports it's lost one of it's missile racks. All other vessels report situation green."

"Status of the ships that ambushed us?"

"Unknown configuration, sir. They arn't in the warbook. The enemy is at 55 Delta, Blue. There's also what appears to be some sort of civilian station at point blank."

"All ships activate your defenses, you are cleared to maneuver at will. Engage the enemy, but watch out for that station and try to cover the Glamorous and Vegas."

"Aye, sir."

The hulls of the remaining ships (as well as those of the Euclids) shimmer from their current grey color to a darker black as their onboard Phase Shift Armor and Geschmedig Panzer powers up. At the same time, the sensor signatures of all the vessels involved suddenly shrink like a light bulb turned into a match, as the Mirage Colloid distortion jammers power up and begin deflecting enemy sensors.


The smaller vessels immediately pull away from the station, the two heavy cruisers turning to bring their forward batteries to bear on the nearest Draconic Order vessels while launching their own onboard Euclids. The Nova also launches it's Euclids, and starts to follow rather more sedately as the dozens of fighters swarm outwards towards the fleet. The first volley of the battle comes in the form of a hail of missiles and linear gun projectiles from the faster Hyperions, while the slower Nova's forward beam cannons begin to power up, a brighter and brighter glow beginning to emanate from the two large bore weapons...

The station rocked from the impact of one of the new ships. Seconds later the un-intercepted torpedoes and energy weapons tore into the shields.

A section was weak and the torpedoes blast energy melted through the intangible barrier and the hull armor boiled off at supersonic speed causing a mass of shrapnel to spall off the hull and fly into space.

The escaping freighters began to enter hyperspace, carrying their load of stolen cargo to relative safety.

Cambell swore, "Damn military ships. Lock all tubes onto the ship we hit before. Fire all!"

At his order all 300 missile tubes spat their relativistic payload at the approaching Draconic Order ships. Cambell knew he couldn't destroy the ships, he was a pirate in command of a stolen station, not a military battle platform.

He was just buying time for the big surprise.

One of the frigates shields buckle under the weight of the combined firepower of the Axis Nova fleet and the pirate station. The protective bubble evaporated as several missiles impact against the armored hull, scoring off the first layer. The ship's energy emissions dimmed slightly and the ship broke formation.

The new surprise of incoming ships did not change the Ordus minds on the task at hand. Totally ignoring the Axis Nova fleet, the Draconic Order ships continue to advance on the station. Several small marine transports left the hangers of the larger ships, heading for the station's docking bay.

The marine transports docked in the hangar of the station. The disgorging marines were met by closed blast doors and two turrets spraying them with hypersonic explosive flechettes.

Cambell, grunted as the station shook again. Another torpedo had blasted a hole in the station's meager armor. "They just need to get a bit closer. Just a bit closer."

El bumpo.

The Axis Novan vessels continue their advance as the Nova's forward beam cannons finish charging, each one releasing a massive yellow beam aimed towards the nearest Draconic Order capital ship that lasts several seconds before dying out.

More missiles vomit forth from the Hyperions and the Nova, generally concentrated on smaller vessels, and the medium beam cannons on the Hyperions start powering up as they move into closer range.

"This is Ferrite to all vessels: Olympuses, maintain your cover of the damaged ships. Hyperions, engage the enemy's smaller ships. Euclids, harrass the enemy's strike craft and assist the Hyperions."

The Hyperions peel off to focus their fire on the frigates as their medium beam cannons vomit forth searing streams of energy. At this closer range, their plasma cannons will be effective also, and orange streams of superheated matter begin to fire outwards, along with more linear gun shots.

Having released it's opening shots, the Ferrite begins to turn broadside to bring it's large number of heavy plasma cannons to bear, while the Euclids start attacking the smaller craft being launched by the Draconic Order fleet and strafing the frigates with their linear guns and smaller beam cannons, occasionally launching missiles or executing parthian shots with their plasma induction cannons as they pull out of strafing runs.

The Draconic Order vessels began to turn from in-system as an unknown fleet and the station’s anti-personnel weapons continually hounded them. Another frigate lost power as it screened the retreat. The vessels didn't move too far from the battle as the void split open again to reveal an Ixen Class Battleship on an attack heading to the station.

Bouts of blue ionized flame leaped across the hull of the vessel as the main weapon powered itself. The DO ships began to form around the massive vessel, escorting it in.

They were mad that another alien race would interfere in their path of vengeance, so most of the fleet's ships turned on the Axis Nova fleet moments later. The battleship was escorted in by four frigates as the rest broke off to go deal with the pests. Small energy strings connected the five ships, it seemed that the main cannon of the battleship was being amplified by the additional power of the four support vessels.

(OOC: fyi you may be underestimating the power of my beam cannons, the heavy ones are like the one in this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a47thgHXdE&search=freespace )

(OOC2: I managed to type Omega when I meant Nova a number of times, posts have been edited accordingly)

Emboldened by the lack of point defense fire, several Euclids close in on the battleship, deploying their high frequency blades in an attempt to slice through the shields and get inside to directly attack the armor. The Hyperions, noting the energy discharges connecting the support vessels to the battleship, immediately redirect their fire to one of them, concentrating everything they have on a single target.

The battleship itself is the recipent of a full broadside from the Omega, as a massive fusillade of plasma fire roars outwards, the guns rapid-cycling as they discharge constant streams of star-hot plasma downrange. The two medium beam cannons mounted on the side of the vessel add in their own blasts, slashing through space like gigantic green-white swords while another series of heavy missiles volly outwards.

The space on the side of the Nova facing the enemy battleship visibly begins to shimmer, as additional power is shunted to the Geschmeidig Panzer in preparation for recieving the enemy attack.

((I fully appologise in advance if this sounds rude. Yes, I'm well aware of Freespace beam technology, I am using it for my own. And in so doing I am well aware of what technology to use against it. If you've played Freespace 2 you'll notice that the next generation of warships, like the corvette (of which I don't remember the name) could take multiple hits from heavy beam cannons before the armor was penetrated in the way the Orion class was in the Freespace 2 intro movie (as the Orion class was an earlier model). Second, the battleship is no where near you at the moment, as it is going after the station and is not even pointed in your direction. As your fleet had spread itself out to deal with the original group of ships that are now currently between your fleet and the battleship, shielding it from your fire. If you want to debate it, I will listen to your OOC.))

The particle beams and fullsade of plasma cannons smash into the formation of Ordus ships, tearing away at the lead ship's armor like tissue paper. The ship explodes in a plume of debri as a heavy missile detonated inside the core. With three frigates down, the remaining ten war vessels launch their ordinance into the heart of the Axis Nova fleet. Their idea was to stall for the battleship, which wouldn't be denied its prize, and wouldn't be stopped before it fired.

There was silence as the ship entered range. Sensors went off the scale as the ship discharged its main cannon. The void was lit up like a solar flare as the area along and around the torrential beam lanced out at the station. The station jerked as it was caught in a particle beam tens of times stronger then any that DO had used against it in the past. Hull temperature began to rise steadily. The weapon seemed to have been designed to fight against planetary and battlestation shields, where a whole fleet would need to bear its teeth to do the amount of devestation that the battleship's main weapon was capable of achieving.

The shockwave smashed into two beam frigates that were fighting on the other side of the station near the Axis Nova fleet. Small fires erupted along the hull, which were then quickly consumed by the subsequent explosions as the vessels were ripped apart. A debri cloud remained afterward as a relic to the passage, the combined parts of three victims.

The DO fleet began to break formation, turning tail and moving out-system to make a jump. The energy coils dissipated as the four frigates disengaged from the battleship.

The shields buckled and failed, hull armor vapourized and the beam began melting it's way through the station.

Cambell had no time left, he had hoped they would get closer, but they were already turning away. He keyed to destruction.

Deep within the station a massive dose of fuel was introduced into the reactor. It annhilated and the reactor could not contain the energy. The station disappeared in flash of white light as it turned into a miniature star, the center of an explosion ten trillion times greater than a hydrogen weapon.

The final insult to the enemies.

Half of the remaining DO fleet was caught in the explosion. The shields, already buckling from the verocity of the Axis Nova fleet, collapsed. Their hulls melted into slag, their crews melded with the wreckage, creating a tomb of metal and bone.

The remaining ships, including a damaged battleship, made the jump out of the system. Back to tracking the elusive pirates.

Rory smiled as the last defending ship of this small planet was turned into expanding gas as his energy blasts tore it apart atom by atom.

"Begin preparations to take over the capital." He ordered his subordinate, he nodded and left. Rory then grabbed the mic, "Attention people of the planet now known as Rory One, you will surrender all of your forces to me or I will destroy you all from orbit. You have three hours to comply."

Three hours later Rory was sitting in the planet's parliment, "I love when things go smoothly."

***

"What do you mean he took over a planet!"

"Exactly that sir. He threatened to bombard the planet to oblivion if they didn't surrender, so the planet surrendered."

"So we kick him off."

"Easier said than done sir. Rory brought his own planetary shield grid with him and he's reprogrammed the planet's battle drones to fight for him. He's made it so we have to kick him out of there with land forces."

The Surface Marshall sighed, "Very well. I'll send in the four-oh-fifth Star Army to take them out."

The next day the 405th was loaded into its transports. Sixteen million of the best soldiers the Confederacy had were going to war.

A life signs monitor made an audible beep every few seconds which echoed through the cavernous white walled room. It sent a chill up General Fosti’s back.

“Err, No sir, Pirates have taken over a planetary body in the Sigma-17 system, we’ve plotted the course of several ships heading from multi vectors towards the planet, we assume its fleet attempting to retake the planet.”

Lord Seric, who lay a shadow of his former self in the hospital bed, pulled himself up on his arms and looks at the General, “And you’ve disturbed me because?”

“Sigma-17 is within normal sensor range of our operations in the Kalco asteroid field, it is possible that they will detect the residual power signatures from the refining installations.”

“Deploy the 5th Fleet, wipe this pirate scum off the planet, then destroy the other fleet when they arrive,” said Seric, lowering himself back onto the pillow.

“As you command, my lord,” replied General Fosti, heading for the door.

“Sir,” said one of his aides who had been waiting outside, “The 5th fleet is beyond 30% strength, does Lord Seric know this?”

“He wasn’t informed, it was deemed unwise to notify him of yet more desertion of ships and personnel. Find a few ships, a few battalions of marines and a special operations detachment that are still loyal to us and dispatch them to the planet… I want them to take any jamming equipment we have and attempt to shield the installation… And aid to the speedy resolution of this invasion.”

“I’ll have the force stood by,” replied the aide, taping a few commands into his datapad.


Task Force Sigma:

4th (Drop) Brigade
4th (Space) Commmando Regiment
12th ARC Regiment
3rd Gurkha Ranger Regiment
Elements of 1st Special Air Service

RPA Manitcore

HMS Duke of York

HMS Victory
HMS Bounty
HMS Ark Royal
HMS Mary Rose
HMS Alert
HMS Amphion
HMS Pacific
HMS Page

In the outer edges of the system, the reduced Axis Nova fleet conceals itself, in the Oort Cloud of the system. After things had gone bad at the station, the fleet had fought a holding action while the rescue crews had evacuated the remaining crew from the damaged Olympuses. In the process, the Ferrite had taken moderate damage, with several armor breaches, seven turrets, and one of it's heavy beam cannons down, while the two Hyperions had taken rather more severe damage; one has it's launch bay now a gaping pitted ruin, while the other's entire left side is now a melted, charred mess; a legacy of being caught by the leakage from the massive linked beam utilized by the Draconic Order vessel. Of the other Olympus Class vessels, nothing remains but drifting scrap, a silent testament to their being outnumbered and outmatched by the enemy fleet.


Worst of all, the jump drives on all three vessels are out of order; the Ferrite's a casualty of the same wrecking hit that penetrated the hull to destroy one of it's secondary reactors and half a dozen turrets, and the two Hyperion's jump drives each disabled in the hard fighting to pull away from the former station's location and escape into the outer solar system beneath the cover of their Mirage Colloid. A significant portion of the fighter complement of the Ferrite perished in this action, along with many of the other Euclids that accompanied the fleet... so despite the loss of one of the Hyperion's bays, there now are few enough fighters to fit in the remaining space.

All is not lost, however; while the remaining vessels have their FTL drives damaged or destroyed, their hypercomm systems work fine, and reinforcements have been called in, scheduled to arrive presently.

Until then, the three ships ships sit tight, licking their wounds and keeping their Mirage Colloid at maximum power with their drive systems offline. Nothing would detect them unless it stumbled across them by chance...

Admiral Wells stood in the CIC of the CNS Courage the flagship of the attack fleet and one of four Dauntless-class Star Battleships tasked to take back the planet Jiangyin.

The planet's shield was on full, he had to knock down a section so Surface Marshall Anders could land the 405th. "Open fire."

Lances of energy rained down on the shield. It flared white as it absorbed the energy, but overwhelming it wasn't the plan. For on the planet the shield generators were beign hammered with momentum and soon it shattered under the force.

Star Frigates were quick to target the nearest military bases and they dissapeared in massive detonations as they were bombarded from orbit.

Landing ships were deployed and in minutes the primary landing force of the 405th was on the ground.

The battle had begun.

“All stations, cut power in 15 seconds…. Mark,” said the lead pilot into the communicator. “We’ll going to float in, hopefully they won’t pick us up.”

“Roger”
“Roger”
“Got that,” came a series of replies from the 3 other Raptors, each carrying 8 SAS men each.

“Right then Rick, lets thread the needle, check the shield modulations and get us an entry pattern,” said the lead pilot to the man sat in the co-pilots seat.

“Checking… Checking…” said Rick, keeping half an eye on the bombardment going on a few miles to their port side.

“Ok, Major Conners, get your men ready, once we pass this shield it’ll be 2 minutes till we touch down… I want to be one my way out 10 seconds after that… Got that?” yelled the pilot over the noise caused by the ship entering the upper atmosphere.

“Got that, we’ll not keep you waiting,” yelled the Major, pushing a magazine into his rifle and flicking down the HUD on his helmet, “2 MINUTES!” he yelled, holding up 2 fingers.

Colonel Grant was watching his anti-air Regiment roll out of their transport. "Sir we've got incoming unknowns."

Grant turned to the sensor operator, "Position?"

"Approaching from the east, ETA two minutes."

"Mmm, O'Connor get on the horn to Group Captain Shigeru tell her to intercept."

****

Group Captain Maya Shigeru acknowledged the information. "Nova, take Green squadron to intercept."

"Roger Ma'am." Squadron Leader Mike "Nova" Killkenny switched to the squadron frequency, "You heard the lady. Let's intercept them, hold fire until we identify. Gunman, Fastrack you've got my wing."

He heard the acknowledments and Green squadron raced off to intercept the incoming ships.

Bump.

“Got inbound fighters on passive,” called the co-pilot.

“Bugger! Major strap in, Rick power up,” the lead pilot flick the comm link on, “All Raptors this is lead break break break, pattern alpha.”

The raptors engines all powered up in unison and they broke up like a shoal of fish, continuing the rate of descent.

“Rick, kick in the ECMs, all of them!” yelled the pilot, jinking left and right as he approached the surface.

“Firing!” yelled Rick, as he pressed a series of buttons in quick succession.

The clouds broke and seconds later they were hugging the ground with the throttle open heading straight for the LZ.

"Damn they're running," Nova sighed, "Greenback, kick it into high gear and cut them off from the front with your Flight. Jumper you take the right bogey, Hangman you take the left. Gunman, Fastrack, Oboe you're with me on the center."

"They're popping ECM." Oboe cried out.

"Switch to visual and base telemetry." Nova ordered, he hit a switch and the powerfull ground sensor readouts, modified for his position and velocity, were displayed on his HUD.

Nova brought his throttle up and dived after the center ship. He caught Greenback's flight go to full throttle in the corner of his eye, the disappeared in a trail of plasma as they accelerated to over 50,000 kmh to swing around and cut off the fleeing ships.

Nova engaged his radio, "Unidentified ships you are trespassing in Confederate airspace. Cut your throttle and ascend to three thousand meters on heading two-eight-zero."

Bump.

Major Conners looked at the sensor display in the back of the Raptor... "Rick, We'll go with the secondary plan then, get us level... copy to squadron."

"Right"

"We're going for the LA-LO jump! Strap your 'chutes on," yelled the Major.

"Christ! What about the heavy kit?" asked one of the soldiers, slipping his bergan off and quickly securing the parachute onto his back.

"Leave it, we'll have to do without it."

About a minute later they were ready, Anti-tank missiles, explosives and spare ammunition rattled over the deck as the Raptor banked slightly.

"Green light Green light," yelled the pilot, "This is going to have to do!"

"ECM depleted!" yelled the co-pilot

"Go Go Go!"

The back of the raptors emptied at record speed, Major Conners gulped as he jumped, he was almost level with the mountain tops. The last man out was unpleasantly surprised as half way down the boarding ramp, the ship disappeared, kicking its FTL drives in and jumping out of dodge.

Nova cursed as the bogeys jumped. "GC this is Nova, bogeys jumped. We managed to get a TRADAR trace, should we pursue?"

"Negative Nova, let them run."

"Roger ma'am," Nova spotted something, "We have parachutes. I count at least three over Mount Juniper."

"Nova, this is Hangman I count four more just outside of Kolo, a small town near here."

"Roger Hangman, how about you Jumper?"

"I only spotted one, they juked behind Casper Ridge and lost sight of them."

Nova acknowledged, "You get that GC?"

"I did, now get back to base. You're getting close to bingo fuel."

"You heard the lady Greens, lets take ourselves back to base."

The sixteen Peregrine fighters of Green squadron abandoned the chase and swung back to the base. Their job was done.

****

Artillery opened up on the nearest pirate strongpoint. Massive explosions lit the night as cluster munitions started turning the approriated battle drones to scrap metal.

Sergeant Mitchell heard the telltale whine of incoming enemy beehives. He dropped behind the cover of nearby ceramacrete wall. Seconds later thousands of flechettes peppered the ground with small explosions as their minute amount of explosives detonated.

Then came the screams, a private from Gregor's sguad didn't make it to cover in time. His chest armor had stopped anything fatal this time but his legs had been turned into ground beef. Medics ran to him and checked that the seals had stopped the worst of the blood flow.

They hauled him onto a stretcher and carted him back. The screams died out as he fell unconscious from the shock.

Mitchell, popped his head over the wall and looked through his rifle scope. He saw a trio of heavy assault drones. He keyed his underslung heavy mass driver to full and fired three quick shots.

The hypervelocity rounds left a brilliant white trail that ended with explosions comparable to chemical anti-tank missiles as the three drones became so much shrapnel.

Mitchell heard the whine again, but he also heard the roar of airstrikes. At least this would be the last of that set of artillery, he thought as he dived back behind his cover.

****

"We've got at least eight unknown soldiers out there. There are certainly more than that though." Major Franks told his three Spartan commando teammates. "We're one of five teams going out there to look for them."

"What do we do when we find them?" Halsey asked.

"We're to take them alive if possible. Command wants to interogate them."

"Our insertion point?" Simms asked.

"We're going after the Mount Juniper team. We'll be dropped off here," Franks pointed to the map, "Where they were last spotted. Any other guestions?"

After a few seconds of silence Franks spoke, "All right then lets get suited up. We have some tresspasers to catch."

Bump.

Parachute dumped, Bergen on… and tab.

All 8 men at the Mount Juniper site had dropped successfully, luckily they were all within the required distance for the SA package to work and they all soon hooked up. Their objective, in the event of a parachute insertion was to proceed to the top of Mount Juniper, the high hill in the area and place a Communications Rebroadcast package. It was vital to let the teams talk to each other.

Colour Sergeant Torec had command of the team, and he was moving them fast through the undergrowth. They hadn’t the time to wait until nightfall, they were being reckless and Torec knew it, but they had no choice.

“Engines…” came a voice over the section comms.

Torec pushed the talk key, “Find cover.”

A craft past over their location, low and fast.

“Did he see us?” crackled the comm again.

Torec waited a second, staring at the craft as it disappeared into the distance, “No,” he whispered into the mike, “But I think we’re going to have company soon.”

The other teams, went about business as usual, marking landing sites plotting communication intercepts and reinforcing intelligence, particularly on regional shield generators.

Franks watched as the dropship sped off. "I've found a chute sir." Simms said.

Franks nodded and examined his surroundings, he noticed some broken branches. "They went this way, let's keep it quiet."

Franks led his team through the brush, all four commandos moving impossibly quiet for people in 500 kilos of power armor and equipment.

It wouldn't be long before they caught up.

Sergeant Green passed the binoculars to Sergeant Torec, “They’ve been following our tracks by the looks of it,” said Green pointing in the general direction, “they’re just passing over the ridge line now, seen?”

“Seen. Power armor, fantastic… We’re not going to out run them, not with all this equipment.” Replied Torec, as he braced the binoculars against the side of a tree.

“How about using some of it up boss?”

“Your thinking an ambush?”

“Yeah, if the maps right theres a gulley we can force them into, line it with claymores and we should be able to engage them pretty safely,” replied Green pulling a paper map out and pointing out the general area with the tip of his compass.

“Agreed.”

Ten minutes later they had moved down onto the high-ground surrounding the gulley, while a few of them doubled back and made a fake track into the centre of the kill zone.

“Ambush set,” Torec whispered into his comm-link.

"Good place for a trap sir." Halsey's voice was casual.

Franks chuckled, "It is at that. Sanders anything on the scanners?"

"I've got a few EM anomalies, looks to be shrapnel in anti-personel mines. I'm highlighting their position now."

Franks watched as several red splotches appeared on his helmet's visor display. "Tripwire or proximity?"

"Can't tell sir, a tripwire doesn't have enough metal in it to set of the MPS even if the tripwire actually was made of metal. But in all this foilage I'd put my money on a tripwire. Wouldn't want the waving branches to set of your mines."

"Any power readings?"

"Negative sir, looks like the mines are chemical."

Simms laughed, "Shit, we can waltz right through there and not get a scratch on our armor."

Franks ran through scenarios in his mind for a few seconds, "We set the mines off, make like we get taken down then pop a surprise of our own. They probably don't know how tough billion credit armor is."

Franks waited for the chorus of "Yes sir"s then walked straight into the mines. The hill side erupted with fire and shrapnel. The armor's built in shields vaporized the lethal chunks of metal, and the squad shut down their armor's systems.

When the enemies looked, all they would see were four commandos killed from momentum transfer.

Rory laughed as he watched the holodisplay of the battle outside Fringe City, "We outnumber them ten to one with drones. This will be a bloody battle, the kind I like."

"But we have very little air support in that region. Most flight capable drones in that area were the first to be targeted from orbit, and we can't get re-enforcments in through their CAP."

"But I saw three ships slip past a few hours ago!" Rory screamed.

His subordinate recoiled, "Uh they wanted to capture those ships sir. They waste no time in shooting down our forces."

Rory shot the man then turned to his second in command, "He made a good point. Send this tank division to break through their forward lines around this anti-air site. We'll destroy it then set up a mobile airbase."

****

Thousands of tanks rolled accross the ground towards the forward Confederate AA site. Infantry forces opened fire with ATGMs. Their shaped nuclear-warheads flashed in the night and the lucky missiles that struck the top armor of the enemy tanks were satisfied with vapourized metal.

But the tanks kept coming, they opened fire and their own nuclear yield payload wiped the anti-air site from the face of the planet.

“Stoppp,” came a call over the comm-link.

Sergeant Torec took a few seconds to survey the situation… that worked well. Something wasn’t right though.

Tapping the man on the shoulder next to him and pointing to the set card laying on the ground, it was handed to him.

He held it up to the reference point, which was a small rock on the ground, the transparent set card showed the kill zone for the ambush as well as the arcs of effect for the claymores.

“That ones way out,” he said, staring at the last man in the enemy patrol.

“Searchers?” whispered Sergeant Green.

“No, we’re moving to the crash out location. Go now.”

There was a rustling in the bushes as the team bugged out.

Shit they should have been here by now, thought Franks. "Okay screw this crap. We're going after them without all the sneaking around. Everyone power up the TRADAR and get ready for speed."

The four commandos leapt to their feet and the TRADARs went to full power. "We've got them heading north-north west." Simms declared.

"Right, off we go everyone."

The four commandos raced off at nearly 60 km/h, their cybernetically enhanced muscles, tendons and bones propelling them at super-human speeds.

They would be on the enemies in minutes.

Nova was back in the air with Green squadron, the pirate drones had managed to knock down an anti-air site and had set up their own along with a forward air base.

And now the Greens had a major enemy air support problem. They were outnumbered four to one, and Shigeru and the rest of the Group were still getting airborne, they'd be here in three minutes.

He set his jaw, "Okay Greens, these folks don't have missiles but the base does. So watch for SAM and don't let them get in your kill slot."

The squadron acknoweledged and then they attacked. Lightspeed pulses of energy lanced from their internal guns and their eleven kiloton yield flared on the enemy fighters shields and they failed in seconds under the barage and vapourized. Sixteen drones were down.

Greenback activated his missile tracking system, he had 18 AAMs and their sensors tried to burn through the enemy ECM. He got a lock on three drones and let his birds fly.

The missiles raced off at over fifty-thousand gravities of acceleration and three drones disapeared in fifty megaton explosions. The shock waves blasted Greenback's fighter into a spin, just as he recovered the lock on warning sounded. He reached for the countermeasure release but the SAM was already on him and he disappeared in a flash of nuclear light.

A SAM hit the center of Jumper's flight and they all disapeared in the massive explosion.

Nova cursed, he was already down a third of his squadron. A lot of good people just died. Hurry up Maya, hurry up, he thought.