Thrashia
06-01-2007, 19:54
ooc: Within here is the accounted chronicles of Fox Company, 1st Brigade, 501st Clonetrooper Legion and their leader Captain DDA-3177, also known as “Hot Shot”. This derives directly from the Charybdis Crusade (created by Chronosia) and is an active part of that rp. People not directly related are asked to refrain from posting anything. If you want to comment on it, then do so in the Crusade's ooc page or TG me.
Mriss System, Thrashian Invasion Begins
A great flotilla of warships had been prepared for the Mriss operations. Not because they expected a strong defense, which they did, but they also wanted to make an example of their strength; that was Grand Admiral Thrawn’s plan.
- -
They didn’t wait for daybreak. They didn’t wait for clement weather, or favourable turn in the tides. They didn’t wait because they were greater than the weather and more powerful than the tides. They were brighter than the daybreak.
Along the west coast of the major continent, down the line of seaboard towns and cities that had been linked and fortified into one long snake of battlements called Doron’wek, the sky went white.. It was off-white, sour white, and the whiteness pressed down on the high roofs and machicolations. Hot, dry clouds rolled in from the sea, and pooled wire rough fog in the lower parts of Doron’wek, as if the ocean were evaporating.
There was no wind, and everything was hushed. Visible static charges gathered like ivy around the raised barrels of the weapon assemblies standing ready along the eighty-kilometer long fortress.
A door opened out to the west, out over the ocean, and cool air rushed in. In seconds I had grown into a gale, a blistering, east-ward-rushing belt of wind that lashed across the ramparts of the city-fort, and blew soldiers off the battlements, bent the stands of coastal trees into trembling right-angles, and stacked the sea up, white-top wave upon white-top wave, before driving it at the rock-crete footings of Doron’wek.
As the huge wind reared up over the coast, the earth below shook, as if a terrible iron weight had been dropped upon it, and there was a noise, the loudest noise any man has ever heard and it not kill him. It was the sound of the atmosphere caving in as billions of tones of metal fell into it like rocks into a pool.
Less than a minute later, the first strikes seared into the Doron’wek. They were not pretty things, not the lusty, romantic booms of fire a man might see delineated on triumphal fresco; they produced no halo of purifying light, no magnificence to backlight a noble hero of Thrashia.
The fist strikes were like rods of molten glass, blue-hot, there and gone again in a nano-second. The cloud cover they came through was left wounded and suppurating light. Where they touched, the ground vapourised into craters thirty meters wide. Bulwarks, armored towers, thick barriers of metal and stone all vanished, and with them, the gun batteries and crews that had been stationed there. Nothing was left but fused glass, lignite ash and deep cups of rock so hot they glowed pink. Each strike was accompanied by a vicious atmospheric decompression that sucked in debris like a bomb-blast running backwards.
The strikes came from batteries of the giant Imperial Star Destroyers hanging just above breathable atmosphere. Their sleek gun-metal gray hulls glowed gold and bronze in the pearly light of the climbing sun, and their great prows parted the wispy tulle of the high, cold clouds, so that they resembled fleet of sea galleys from the myths of legend. So thin and peaceful that realm of high altitude, their massive weapon systems blinked out the rods of visible heat with barely an audible gasp.
Other vessels, bulk carriers, had emptied themselves into the sky, like swollen insectoid queens birthing millions of eggs. Their offspring fell in blizzards from the scorched and punctured clouds, and were picked up and carried by the hurricane winds slicing in from the sea. Countless assault ships spurted like shoals of fish. Clouds of drop-pods billowed like grain scattered from a sower’s hand.
The defenders of Doron’wek began to fire, although their efforts were merely feeble spits of light against the deluge. Then heavier emplacements woke up, and sprawling air-burst detonations went off above the coast. At last, substantial orange flames began to splash the sky, twisted into streamers by the monstrous gales. Bars of black smoke streaked the air like a thousand dirty finger marks.
To its occupants, Doron’wek had always seemed horizontally inclined: the long parapets and curtain walls running for kilometers, bending and twisting around the curves of the coast, with flatness of the tidal mud beyond, the hinterlands of marsh and breeze-fluttered grasses and the undulating plane of the grey sea. It was a place of wide angles and vistas, o breadth.
In five minutes, that inclination had changed. It became a vertical place, where that verticality was emphatically inscribed down the sky by the beams and stripes of glaring turbolaser energy jabbing down from the clouds. The sky became tall and lofty, illuminated by inner fire. The fortified blocks of Doron’wek were reduced to just a trimming of silhouette at the bottom of the world, as the towering sky lit up above it, like some vision of the ascent to heaven.
Shafts of light, so pure and white they seemed to own the quality of holiness, shone down from an invisible godhead above the sky, and turned the clouds to polished gilt and the smoke to grey silk.
The blizzard of crenellated assault landers fell upon Doron’wek’s burning lines. They came droning lie plagues of crop-devouring insects, and struck like spread buckshot. Furious scribbles of light and pops of color lit up the eighty kilometers of wall in an effort to repel them. Thousands of tracer patterns strung the air like necklaces. Flaming rockets roared up in angry arcs, trailing hot dirt. Rotating cannons drummed and pumped like steam pistons and turned the sky into a leopard skin of black flak smoke. In the steep fortress walls, gunports oozed with light like infected wounds as energy weapons recharged and then sprayed out their ribbons of light.
Drop-ships and assault landers alike burned in mid-air. Some melted like falling snowflakes in sudden sunlight and some blew out in noisy, brittle flashes and pelted the battlements with metal hail. Some fell into the sea, trailing plaintive smoke, or buried themselves like tracer rounds in the towers and great ornate spires of Doron’wek. One great tower, at the southern end of the city region, half collapsed after such a collision and left just part of it standing above the billowing dust, a finger of stone with broadening crest like a giants thigh bone rammed into the ground.
The vast majority of drop-ships and assault ships made it to the ground however. From their hulls spilled hundreds of thousands of white armored clonetroopers, blue uniformed Thrashian regulars, and the green uniformed auxiliary infantry recruited from conquered planets. With them rumbled tides of century tanks and above stalked the massive forms of OZ mobile suits. With cries of “Long live Treize Kushrenada” and “For the Emperor” the ground forces of the Empire of Thashia assaulted the fortified region of Planet Mriss.
- * - * -
Beyond the towers, that particular sector of the fortress of Doron’wek was a wilderness of fire and rubble. Captain DDA-3177, also known as “Hot Shot”, gathered up his men and managed to get linked up with the rest of his company, Fox Company, 1st Brigade, 501st Legion, which had come down in their transport inside the perimeter wall of the fortress. There was no sign of his CO, Major AA-2909.
They were closer to some of the area’s major gun emplacements, and were subjected to the side-effects of their bombardments.
The emplacements, mainly anti-air and long range cannon, were firing at full rate. Their flashing concussions tore the sky overhead, and the ground shook continuously. For a normal man it would overcome the senses, too bright for the eyes, and no voice would penetrate it. They however were not ordinary men. They were the 501st.
Motioning his men forward the clonetroopers moved along a drainage trench and past several culverts. They spotted a few dead white armored bodies lying in some of these, evidence of another assault group’s passage. At the end of the culvert Hot Shot caught up with his scout squad led by “Mole”, a clonetrooper scout who was one of the best in the business. Mole nodded to his commanded and Hot Shot gave him the go ahead.
They crossed a smoke-washed concourse and came towards what Hot Shot was certain were the munitions silos for the two thundering emplacements way off ahead. Mole took them as far as the low wall, and then got them into cover.
Hot Shot wasn’t sure why at first until he saw puffs of stone dust lifting off the top of the wall, and realized that they were under ferocious small-arms fire, the noise of it lost in the bombardment. He nodded his thanks to Mole who simply shrugged and gave him the thumbs up sign. One trooper was slow getting down. He walloped over onto the ground and lay there with his legs kicking furiously for a few seconds. Then his limbs went slack.
When the firing became sporadic, Hot Shot led them over the wall. He did this with a simple comm tap and gesture. The forty or so clonetroopers surged up and over the low wall of cover and charged into the fire zone.
Hot Shot reached the cover of an upturned slab of rockcrete that a rocket had scooped out of the yard, got down, and lifted his blaster rifle over the rim and gave cover fire. It felt good to him to finally be firing his weapon. He poked his eye cam over the lip of the slab and looked at what was in front of them.
There in the haze of smoke and dust was a bunker. It was an ugly protruding piece of rock that sat on the slope a hill. Beyond it was a taller rockcrete building from where the enemy was firing large cannon at the invasion forces. That was their objective.
Three of his men fell before they could reach any kind of cover from the las fire that ripped out of the bunker. Mole reached the cover of some mangled engine debris five meters away from Hot Shot. The captain activated his comm.
“Mole this is Hot Shot, do you copy?” The comm fizzed for a moment and then finally the line opened up. Mole turned his head in the direction of Hot Shot and nodded.
“Affirmative, I read you Captain.”
“You still have a few of those smoke detonators?” asked Hot Shot.
“Yes, a few. Why? Have a plan?”
“Yes. I want you to blind that bunker. Once that is done lead your men up the left and get on the flank of that bunker and find the entrance. Wait there for my signal. I’ll take the rest of the company up the right and move around to the rear. Heavy weapons squad will be in reserve to cover us.”
“Understood sir,” said Mole.
The scout sergeant rummaged through his satchel webbing for a moment and took out three smoke detonators. He handed two of them out to a couple of his scout mates. They all pressed the activation button. With a quick movement they rose up and launched them into the air.
With great skill the smoke detonators landed just in front of the fire gunport of the bunker and went off. A great fog of black smoke launched up and effectively blinded the bunker.
“Go!” With the patter-patter roar of a heavy blaster cannon firing from the heavy weapons squad the rest of the clonetroopers charged forward.
Sergeant Mole led his men up the left side over the rocky and pit scarred ground. They got around the side of the bunker and came upon a flight of steps made of rockcrete that were sunken into the ground and headed into the side of the bunker. He signaled his men to set up and wait for the signal.
Hot Shot led his men at the fastest possible pace and charged up. His back slammed up against the rockcrete of the bunker as he reached it, he was less than a meter from the fire gunport. The enemy continued to fire blindly into the smoke. His men began circling around the right side of it. Hot Shot took out a detonator satchel charge from his webbing and pulled the pin on it. He waited to the count of ‘4’ and with a quick toss he sent it strait into the gunport. He dived away to the ground and into cover.
There was a fantastic explosion and the ground shook. Rockcrete erupted outwards and shot into the air like trailing smoke like flaming meteors. Great billows of gray smoke erupted and blew over the area.
Hot Shot shook off the dust and small pieces of rubble that covered him. He picked up his blaster rifle and opened the comm. He set off a small pattern of clicks to signal. He looked at his handy work and saw that the entire front of the bunker was now a gapping crater of ruined rockcrete.
Sergeant Mole received the signal and got his men ready. After a few moments they heard movement coming up from the stair well. Covered in dust and coughing four enemy soldiers came up from the depths of the bunker. They were wearing long red dust covered battle coats and had round helmets on their heads, metal goggles covered their eyes. One of them had a weapon of some sort in hit hand.
Mole didn’t hesitate. Before the enemy even knew to be surprised the troopers unleashed a hail of blaster fire and mowed down the troopers. They were long dead even before they crumpled to the ground. Mole had two of his men get out frag detonators and sent them launching into the bunker entrance. They heard the krump-krump of the detonators going off and a few screams.
“Clear,” said Mole into his comm.
The company reassembled behind the ruined bunker. The support heavy weapons squad jogged up as well and lugged their blaster cannons. Hot Shot had them get into a defensive circle and decided what to do next.
They were on the decline of the hill and could make out the tall cannon bunker that the enemy was using ahead of them. Every few seconds the ground would shake and another spout of flame and smoke would erupt from the extended barrels of the emplacement. Their mission was to nock it out and give some relief to the other men further down the beach.
“Mole, get your men up there and tell me where an entrance is,” ordered Hot Shot. The scout sergeant nodded and with a hand signal had his men sweeping up the hill in a semi circle formation. Hot Shot turned to his men and ordered them to stand down for a moment. A few lifted off their helmets and drank water out of the canteens they carried. Others checked their weapons and slapped in new power cartridges. They waited in earnest for the scouts to return.
They moved through a wide section of drainage pipelines, through rain-washed rockcrete underpasses stained with oil and dust. The gray smog of the battlefield drifted back over their positions. To the west rose the great curtain wall of the Doron’wek, to the immediate north the shadowy bulk of habitat spires, immense conical towers of the city, their thousands of windows all blown out by shelling and air-shock. There was no sign of a solitary living thing.
Sergeant Mole and his men moved through the area with extreme caution and tight combat silence. They communicated via hand signals and battle speech.
They began passing blast-proofed bunkers of great size, all empty except for scattered support cradles and stacking pallets of grey fibre-plast. A crowd of battered, yellow, heavy lift trolleys were abandoned on the concourses before the bunkers.
“Munitions stores,” signed one trooper to Mole. “Shell stockpiles for the emplacement.”
Mole thought that a good guess. They edged on, cautious, going a half-time march and with weapons ready. They came forward past a few similar munitions bunkers and came to a cargo loading bay of tubular steel and riveted blast-board. The bay was mounted with hydraulic cranes and derricks on the surface, poised to lower cargo into a cavity below ground.
Mole smiled and signed to his men. “We’ve got our info, move back out.” As silent as they had come they withdrew from the cargo bay and back through the bunkers until they came back to the captain’s position and their company.
Hot Shot stood waiting for them. “Find anything?”
“Yes sir, we found a lot of munitions store houses and a cargo landing bay in the rear of the emplacement. It’s possible we can find a way in from there,” said Mole. The ground rumbled again and the emplacements huge barrels roared. They didn’t have much time to think of another solution.
“Alright, move out,” ordered Hot Shot. “Mole you lead point.”
The company entered the cargo bay and they went to the edge of the cavity. Clonetroopers descended on the metal grilled stairway onto a raised platform that lay alongside a wide, well lit tunnel that ran off out of sight into the impacted earth. The tunnel was modular, circular in cross section, with a raised spine running along the lowest part. Mole and Hot Shot examined the tunnel and the armored control post overlooking it.
“Maglev line,” said Mole, who had done all he could to augment his basic engineering knowledge with off-world mechanisms. “Still active too. They cart the shells from the munitions dump and lower them into the bay, then load them onto bomb trains for fast delivery to the emplacements in the hills.”
He showed Hot Shot an indicator board in the control position. The flat-plate glowed green, showing a flickering runic depiction of a track network. “There’s a whole transit system down here, purpose built to link all forge factories and allow for rapid transportation of material.”
“And this spur has been abandoned because they’ve exhausted the munitions stores in this area.” Hot Shot was thoughtful. He opened his data-feed and made a working replica sketch of the network map. He compared it to the area maps of the emplacements that orbital tactic command had gotten from orbital surveys. It was a little different but the basic elements were the same.
‘It’s a way in,” said Mole. Hot Shot nodded.
“They won’t have blocked it because they need these maglev lines active and clear to keep the bomb trains moving to feed their guns.”
“Then lets go,” said Mole. Hot Shot sensed the clonetroopers smile even though he couldn’t see it with the scout sergeant’s helmet on.
It was possible to advance down the maglev tunnel four abreast, with two men on each side of the central rider spine. It was well lit by recessed blue-glow lighting in the tunnel walls, but Hot Shot sent Mole and his scouts in the vanguard to check for booby traps.
An unopposed advance down the stuffy tunnels took them half a kilometer north-west, passing another abandoned cargo bay and forks with two other maglev spurs. The air was dry and charged with static from the still powered electromagnetic rail, and hot gusts of wind breathed on them periodically as if heralding a train that never came.
At the third spur, Hot Shot turned his column into the new tunnel, following his map. They’d gone about twenty meters when Mole whispered into the comm.
‘We need to go back to the spur fork,” he said.
Hot Shot didn’t query his scout sergeant and they retreated the whole company back to the junction they had just passed. Within a minute, a hot breeze blew at them, the tunnel hummed and a maglev train whirred past along the spur they had been about to join. It was an automated train of sixty open carts, painted khaki with black and yellow flashing. Each cart was laden with shells and munitions, hundreds of tones of ordnance from distant bunkers destined for the main battery emplacements in the area. It rolled past slick and inertia free.
Hot Shot consulted his sketch map. It was a little difficult to determine how far it was to the next station or junction, and without knowing the frequency of the bomb trains, he couldn’t guarantee they’d be out of the tunnel before the next one rumbled through. Hot Shot cursed and knew he couldn’t turn back. They had a mission to accomplish.
“Rhine! Heckler!” he called, two troopers answered to their nick-names and hurried over.
“You both have engineering training,” he stated. Both nodded. “Given the resources at hand, could you stop one of these trains?”
“Sir?”
“And then start it again?” asked Hot Shot.
“I think so sir,” said Rhine. “These trains move on the rails, sucking up a power source from them. It’s a conductive electrical exchange, as I’ve seen on batteries and flux-units. We just have to lay some non-conductive material on the rail fine enough that it wouldn’t actually derail the train. What do you have in mind sir?”
“Stopping or slowing the next train that passes, jumping a ride and starting it again,” said Hot Shot.
“And riding it all the way to the enemy,” said Mole. Hot Shot sensed another smile. Rhine and Heckler took out a bunch of material from several of the company’s packs and got to work.
A warm gust of air announced the approach of the next train, some seventeen minutes or so after the first they had seen. Rhine and Heckler had wrapped several sleeping roles over the rider-rail just beyond the spur and tied a length of the material cut from one of the scout’s camo-cloaks.
The front cart passed beyond the non-conductive layer, the electromagnetic current was broken, and the train decelerated fast as the propelling force went dead. Forward momentum carried the train forward for a while – by the track side Hot Shot prayed it would not carry the entire train beyond the circuit break, or it would simply start again – but it went dead at last and came to a halt, rocking gently on the suspension field.
“Mount up!” called Hot Shot. The 501st company clambered up onto the bomb-laden carriages, finding foot and handholds where they could, stowing weapons and holding out hands to pull comrades aboard. Hot Shot and Mole and six other troopers mounted the front cart alongside Rhine who clutched the end of the camo-cloak cloth.
“Good work trooper,” Hot Shot said to Rhine and held a hand up as he watched down the train to make sure all had boarded and were secure. In short order, the entire company, 140 troopers, were in place, and relay of acknowledgements ran down the train to Hot Shot.
Hot Shot dropped his hand. Rhine yanked hard on the cloth cord. It went taut, fought him and then flew free, pulling the sleeping packs up and out from under the cart like a large flatfish on a line. In a moment, as the circuit was restored, the train lurched and silently began to move again, quickly picking up speed. The tunnel lights began to strobe-flash as they flicked past them.
Hot Shot checked his power cartridge to see that he had 80 shots still left in it. He turned on his comm and spoke to his men. “Ready, weapons ready. Word is given. We’re riding into the mouth of the lion and we could be among the enemy any minute. Prepare for sudden engagement.”
Along the train, blaster rifles whined as they powered up, launchers clicked to armed, and the company plasma cannon hummed into seething readiness.
They traveled along for a long time it seemed, passing empty stations and unlit cargo bays. A spur to the left, then to the left again, waiting while another bomb train passed ahead of them from another siding. Then they were moving again. The tension wrapped around Hot Shot liked a straitjacket. All of the passing tunnel looked constant and familiar, there were no markers to forewarn or alert.
The bomb train slid into a vast cargo bay on a spur siding, coming to rest alongside two other trains that were being offloaded by cranes and machine lifters. An empty train was just leaving on a loop that would take it back to the munitions dumps. The chamber was lofty and dark, lit by thousands of lanterns and the ruddy glare of work-lamps. It was hot and smelled bitter, like a furnace room. The walls were, as they could see them, were draped with banners proclaiming the Royal Dynasty of Mriss.
There were upwards of two hundred Mrissians in the dim, gantried chamber working lifters or sliding bomb trolleys. None of them seemed to notice the new train’s extra cargo for a moment.
Hot Shot’s company dismounted from the train, opening fire as they went, laying down a hail of blaster fire that cracked electricity in the air. Hot Shot had forbidden the use of the heavier weapons until they were clear of the munitions.
Dozens of Mrissians fell where they stood. Two half-laden trolleys spilled over as hands released the levers. Warheads rolled and chinked on the platform. A trolley of shells veered into a wall as its driver was shot, and overturned. A crane assembly exploded and collapsed. The clonetroopers surged onwards. They fanned out in perfect formation, taking point of cover after point of cover and scything down the fleeing Mrissians. A few had found weapons and were returning fire, but their efforts were dealt with mercilessly.
Hot Shot advanced up the main loading causeway with the 1st platoon, blasting Mrissians with his blaster. Nearby, Mole and a trio of his scout marksmen were ducked in cover and picking off any Mriss soldier on the overhead catwalks.
One of the heavy weapons specialists had his heavy blaster cannon which he had liberated from a pintle mount some time before. Hot Shot had never seen a soldier fire one without the aide of recoil compensators or lift capacity before. The trooper groaned slightly and strained with the effort of steadying the howling weapon with its six cycling barrels, and his aim was more than a little below standard. He killed dozens of the enemy anyway. Not to mention a maglev train.
The 501st company led the fight up out of the cargo bay and onto loading ramps which extended up through great caverns cut into the hillside. A layer of blue smoke rose up under the flickering pendulum lighting rigs. Clear of the munitions deck, Hot Shot ordered the plasma cannon and rocket launchers up, and began to scour a path, blackening the rockcrete strips of the ramp and fusing Mrissian bone into syrupy pools.
At the head of the ramps , at the great elevator assemblies which raised the bomb loads into the battery magazines high above them in the hillside, they met the first determined resistance. A massed force of Mriss soldiers in their red battle garb rushed down on them, blasting with their las guns and other weapons. Hot Shot commanded a squad up the left flank and cut into the from the edge, matched by the rest of the platoon from the right, creating a crossfire that punished them terribly.
Hot Shot ducked behind some freighting pallets as lasfire rounds wailed down from the Mriss units at the elevator assembly. Hot Shot found he was sharing cover with two of his assault troopers. “How much ammo do you have left?” he called.
“Half gone already,” responded one. The trooper slapped in a new clip and hooked a small module onto the full auto setting. “But then there are more than enough dead to count it by.”
Hot Shot gave a wolfish grin. “With me men!” He pulled out his vibro bayonet and the three of them charged out from cover firing. They were more than halfway up the loading ramp to the elevators. The company’s crossfire maneuver had fenced the shriven in around the hazard striped blast doors, which were now fretted and punctured by blaster impacts and fusing burns.
As he charged Hot Shot felt the wash of fire behind him as his own units covered and supported. He could here the whine of the long-pattern blaster snipers, the crack of normal blaster fire, and the rattle of the heavy blaster cannon.
The three of them reached the makeshift defenses around the enemy. One trooper went down, clipped by a las-round. Hot Shot and the other assault trooper bounded up to the debris cover and cut into the now-panicked Mriss soldiers. Hot Shot emptied his blaster into the faces of a group of Mriss soldiers and ditched it, scything forward with his vibro blade. The other trooper laid in with his bayonet as well, stabbing into bodies and firing at point-blank range to emphasize each kill.
It took two minutes. They seemed like a life time to Hot Shot, each bloody, frenzied second playing out like a year. Then he and the other trooper were through to the elevator itself and the Mriss soldiers were piled around them. Five or six more clonetroopers were close behind. The assault trooper nodded in victory to Hot Shot.
The nod was premature.
The elevator doors ahead of them parted and a trio of well armed Mriss soldiers appeared. A las-round found its mark in the side of the assault troopers head and blew the body away, covering Hot Shot’s armor in a mist of red blood. He turned and was about to meet the rush of the enemy when there was the crack whine of three blaster shots. All three red clad soldiers were hit in the center chest and fell dead to the floor. Hot Shot instinctively knew that scout sergeant Mole had provided these marksman blasts.
Hot Shot got to his feet, wet and wretched with blood and fouler stuff. Hit men were moving up the ramp to secure the position. Above them, at the top of the elevator shaft, were maybe a million Mriss soldiers and personnel, secure in their battery bunkers. Hot Shot’s company was right in the heart of the enemy’s stronghold.
Hot Shot smiled.
It took another precious half hour to regroup and secure the bomb deck. Hot Shot’s scouts located all the entranceways and blocked them, checking even ventilation access and drainage gullies. Hot Shot paced, tense. The clock was ticking and it wouldn’t take long for the massive forces above them to start wondering why the shell supply from below had dried up. And come looking for a reason.
There was the place itself too: the gloom, the taste of the air, the stupid banners on the wall. It was as if they were inside some sacred place, sacred only to idiots who had some unholy work to do for their Mriss King.
The comm-link chimed and Hot Shot responded, hurrying through to the control room of the bomb bays. Mole, Rhine, and others were waiting for him. Someone had managed to raise the shutters on the vast window ports.
“What is that?” inquired Rhine.
“What we came to stop and destroy,” Hot Shot said, turning away from the stained glass viewing ports. Far below them, in the depths of the newly-revealed hollowed cavern, stood a vast megalith, a great stone carved building that smoked with chemical exhaust and the workings of steam. Electricity wires hung from its side like ivy. It seemed to be a major control conduit for the entire area.
“It won’t take long for them to notice the bomb levels aren’t supplying them with shells any more. Then we can expect serious deployment against us,” said Mole.
Hot Shot nodded but said nothing. He crossed to the control suite where Rhine and Heckler were attempting to access data. He walked over to them and watched as they manipulated the controls of the computer.
“Plot it for me,” Hot Shot said. “I have a feeling there may be more to those conduit things.”
“We’re there…” Rhine said with excitement. He pointed at the glowing map sigils. “And here’s a larger scale map. You were right. That stone conduit down there is part of a system buried in the hillsides of Doron’wek. Seven all told, in a strung out pattern. They’re all charged up with power right now, helping the Mriss operate their defences.”
“What do we do?” asked Mole.
“We have explosive aplenty,” said Heckler. “Let’s blow it.”
“No!” said Hot Shot. “We don’t know how that much built up energy will react to explosives. It could be dangerous to the entire invasion force. No, we have to break the link…”
“Sergeant Mole, load as many hand carts as you can find of Mriss warheads, prime them for short fuse and prepare to send them up on the elevator on my cue. We’ll choke the emplacements upstairs with their own weapons. Heckler and Rhine I want you to gather more of that non-conductive material again.”
They all three gave him blank looks.
“Now?” he added sharply. They leapt to their feet.
Hot Shot led the way up the ramp towards the conduit. It was smoke with energy and his skin prickled uncomfortably. He led the two engineer experts over to the edge of it and had several other troopers fan out. In their hands were forty or so sleeping packs tied together with camo-cloaks and industrial staples that they had found in the cargo bay. They wrapped it around the huge forty-foot conduit and fused it together. The material began to smoke a little and nothing happened.
“It’s not working,” said Heckler.
“Then we cut the alignment,” said Hot Shot. He called up three other troopers. “Get charges set in the supporting mound. Don’t target the conduit itself. Blow it so it falls away or drops.”
“Yes sir,” they responded.
Hot Shot tapped into his comm. “Mole, send those warheads up.”
“Acknowledged captain.”
At the elevator head, the troops under Mole’s command thundered trolleys of warheads into the car. “Shush!” said on trooper suddenly. They stopped. A pause – then they all heard the clanking, the distant tinny thumps. Mole swung up his blaster rifle and moved into the elevator assembly. He pulled the lever that opened the upper inspection hatch. Above him, the great lift shaft yawned open like a beast’s throat.
He stared up into the darkness, trying to resolve some detail. The darkness was moving. Mriss soldiers were descending on ropes and hooks like bat-things down the sheer side of the shaftway.
“They’re coming!” he yelled and slammed the hatch shut.
Hot Shot cursed, feeling the panic rising just a little. Trapped, entombed, the infernal enemy seeping in from all sides. Speakers mounted on the walls and consoles all around squawked to into life, and a rasping vice, echoing and overlaying itself from a hundred places, spat some gibberish into the chambers.
“Shut that off!” Hot Shot yelled at Rhine.
Rhine scrambled at the controls, desperately. “I can’t!” he cried.
A hatchway to the east exploded inwards with a shower of sparks. Men screamed. Lasfire began to chatter. A little to the north, another doorway blew inwards in a flaming gout and more Mriss soldiers began to battle their way inwards.
Hot Shot opened a link to his platoon commanders. “Start the retreat. As many as we dare to keep the covering fire.” Then he adjusted his intercom to wide band.
“Captain to all units! Commence withdrawal, maximum retreating resistance!” He sprinted down through the mayhem into the megalith chamber, knocked back for a second by the noxious stench that his helmet failed to filter. Heckler and three other troopers were just emerging, their arms and upper bodies caked in black tarry goo.
“It’s done,” said Heckler.
“Then blow it! Move out!” Hot Shot cried, pushing and shoving his stumbling men out of the cavern. “Mole!”
“Almost there!” replied Mole from over at the elevator. He and the trooper next to him looked up sharply as they heard a thump from the liftcar roof above them. Cursing, Mole pushed the final trolley of shells into the elevator bay.
“Back! Back!” Mole shouted at his men. He hit the riser stud of the elevator and it began to lift up the shaft towards the Mriss emplacements high above. They heard impacts and shrieks as it pulverized the Mriss soldiers coming down the shaft.
The clonetroopers with Mole were running for their lives. Somewhere, far above, the payload arrived – and detonated hard enough to shake the ground and sprinkle earth and rock chips down from the cavern roof. Lamp arrays swung like pendulums. Hot Shot felt it all going off above them. He pushed Heckler in front of him and onto the maglev tunnel. Enemy las-fire burned their way. A trooper dropped, mid-flight. Other turned, knelt, and returned fire. Blaster bolts and las-fire glittered back and forth.
Behind them all, in the megalith chamber, the charges placed by Heckler’s team exploded. Its support beams blown away, the great cackling stone conduit system teetered and then slumped down into the pit. The speakers around the chamber went silent.
Total silence. The Mriss firing had stopped. Those that had penetrated the chamber were frozen in horror as they watched the conduit fall. The only sound was the thumping footfalls and gasping breathe of respirators of the fleeing clonetroopers.
Then a rumbling started. Incandescent blue electrical fire flashed and rippled around the monolith chamber. Without warning the stained glass viewports of the control room exploded inwards. The ground rippled, ruptured; rockcrete churned like an angry sea.
“Get out! Get out now!” bellowed Hot Shot.
General Durin stood on the bridge of his hovering command craft that sat five miles out to sea before the walls of Doron’wek. His forces had been landed for the last hour with some success but the going was still tough. He watched through magnifiers as he noticed the usual plumes of shell fire disappeared. The general frowned.
“Feth but I think they’ve stopped-” he started to say.
The hills beyond the curtain wall of Doron’wek exploded. The vast network of hills and rockcrete protrusions that were weapon emplacements splintered and puffed up dust and fire, swelling for a moment before collapsing into themselves. A bell-shaped cloud of ochre smoke boiled up over the horizon where the Mriss stronghold had once been. Lightning flared in the sky. The communications station in the corner of the General’s command station wailed and then went dead.
Secondary explosions, munitions probably, began to explode along the lines of Doron’wek, blasting the heart out of everything that they held. A firestorm of shockwave and flame passed over the massed forces of clonetroopers and other groups. They found cover where they could, but some where carried off by the force of the wind.
General Durin looked at his signals officer. “Order a full advance. Now!”
They had been knocked flat by the shockwave, losing many in the flare of blue flame that followed them up the tunnel. They were blundering through the darkness and dust. There were moans and coughs.
In the end it took almost five hours for them all to claw their way up and out of the darkness. Hot Shot led the way up the tunnel himself. Finally the surviving elements of the 501st troopers of Fox company, 1st Brigade emerged into the dying light of another day. Most sat down or staggered in the mud, sprawling, laughing. Fatigue washed over them all.
Hot Shot sat down on a curl of mud and took of his helmet. He started to laugh and all the tension sloughed off him in one easy tide. It was over. Whatever else, whatever mopping up, Mriss was won.
He watched as in front of him a large, massive formation of clonetroopers supported by century tanks passed them by. An officer stepped over to him and saluted, it was a Lieutenant.
“Sir? Are you alright? We’ve just got orders for a general advance,” the clone lieutenant said. Hot Shot nodded. He got up and put his helmet back on and turned to his men.
“Fox Company, 501st! On your feet! Front and center!” he called. His men immediately responded and formed up. They were tired and hungry but they were far from finished.
“There’s some more ass to be kicked up ahead,” said Hot Shot. “Who’s with me?” The remaining 68 clonetroopers cheered and they began marching along with the rest of the army.
Mriss System, Thrashian Invasion Begins
A great flotilla of warships had been prepared for the Mriss operations. Not because they expected a strong defense, which they did, but they also wanted to make an example of their strength; that was Grand Admiral Thrawn’s plan.
- -
They didn’t wait for daybreak. They didn’t wait for clement weather, or favourable turn in the tides. They didn’t wait because they were greater than the weather and more powerful than the tides. They were brighter than the daybreak.
Along the west coast of the major continent, down the line of seaboard towns and cities that had been linked and fortified into one long snake of battlements called Doron’wek, the sky went white.. It was off-white, sour white, and the whiteness pressed down on the high roofs and machicolations. Hot, dry clouds rolled in from the sea, and pooled wire rough fog in the lower parts of Doron’wek, as if the ocean were evaporating.
There was no wind, and everything was hushed. Visible static charges gathered like ivy around the raised barrels of the weapon assemblies standing ready along the eighty-kilometer long fortress.
A door opened out to the west, out over the ocean, and cool air rushed in. In seconds I had grown into a gale, a blistering, east-ward-rushing belt of wind that lashed across the ramparts of the city-fort, and blew soldiers off the battlements, bent the stands of coastal trees into trembling right-angles, and stacked the sea up, white-top wave upon white-top wave, before driving it at the rock-crete footings of Doron’wek.
As the huge wind reared up over the coast, the earth below shook, as if a terrible iron weight had been dropped upon it, and there was a noise, the loudest noise any man has ever heard and it not kill him. It was the sound of the atmosphere caving in as billions of tones of metal fell into it like rocks into a pool.
Less than a minute later, the first strikes seared into the Doron’wek. They were not pretty things, not the lusty, romantic booms of fire a man might see delineated on triumphal fresco; they produced no halo of purifying light, no magnificence to backlight a noble hero of Thrashia.
The fist strikes were like rods of molten glass, blue-hot, there and gone again in a nano-second. The cloud cover they came through was left wounded and suppurating light. Where they touched, the ground vapourised into craters thirty meters wide. Bulwarks, armored towers, thick barriers of metal and stone all vanished, and with them, the gun batteries and crews that had been stationed there. Nothing was left but fused glass, lignite ash and deep cups of rock so hot they glowed pink. Each strike was accompanied by a vicious atmospheric decompression that sucked in debris like a bomb-blast running backwards.
The strikes came from batteries of the giant Imperial Star Destroyers hanging just above breathable atmosphere. Their sleek gun-metal gray hulls glowed gold and bronze in the pearly light of the climbing sun, and their great prows parted the wispy tulle of the high, cold clouds, so that they resembled fleet of sea galleys from the myths of legend. So thin and peaceful that realm of high altitude, their massive weapon systems blinked out the rods of visible heat with barely an audible gasp.
Other vessels, bulk carriers, had emptied themselves into the sky, like swollen insectoid queens birthing millions of eggs. Their offspring fell in blizzards from the scorched and punctured clouds, and were picked up and carried by the hurricane winds slicing in from the sea. Countless assault ships spurted like shoals of fish. Clouds of drop-pods billowed like grain scattered from a sower’s hand.
The defenders of Doron’wek began to fire, although their efforts were merely feeble spits of light against the deluge. Then heavier emplacements woke up, and sprawling air-burst detonations went off above the coast. At last, substantial orange flames began to splash the sky, twisted into streamers by the monstrous gales. Bars of black smoke streaked the air like a thousand dirty finger marks.
To its occupants, Doron’wek had always seemed horizontally inclined: the long parapets and curtain walls running for kilometers, bending and twisting around the curves of the coast, with flatness of the tidal mud beyond, the hinterlands of marsh and breeze-fluttered grasses and the undulating plane of the grey sea. It was a place of wide angles and vistas, o breadth.
In five minutes, that inclination had changed. It became a vertical place, where that verticality was emphatically inscribed down the sky by the beams and stripes of glaring turbolaser energy jabbing down from the clouds. The sky became tall and lofty, illuminated by inner fire. The fortified blocks of Doron’wek were reduced to just a trimming of silhouette at the bottom of the world, as the towering sky lit up above it, like some vision of the ascent to heaven.
Shafts of light, so pure and white they seemed to own the quality of holiness, shone down from an invisible godhead above the sky, and turned the clouds to polished gilt and the smoke to grey silk.
The blizzard of crenellated assault landers fell upon Doron’wek’s burning lines. They came droning lie plagues of crop-devouring insects, and struck like spread buckshot. Furious scribbles of light and pops of color lit up the eighty kilometers of wall in an effort to repel them. Thousands of tracer patterns strung the air like necklaces. Flaming rockets roared up in angry arcs, trailing hot dirt. Rotating cannons drummed and pumped like steam pistons and turned the sky into a leopard skin of black flak smoke. In the steep fortress walls, gunports oozed with light like infected wounds as energy weapons recharged and then sprayed out their ribbons of light.
Drop-ships and assault landers alike burned in mid-air. Some melted like falling snowflakes in sudden sunlight and some blew out in noisy, brittle flashes and pelted the battlements with metal hail. Some fell into the sea, trailing plaintive smoke, or buried themselves like tracer rounds in the towers and great ornate spires of Doron’wek. One great tower, at the southern end of the city region, half collapsed after such a collision and left just part of it standing above the billowing dust, a finger of stone with broadening crest like a giants thigh bone rammed into the ground.
The vast majority of drop-ships and assault ships made it to the ground however. From their hulls spilled hundreds of thousands of white armored clonetroopers, blue uniformed Thrashian regulars, and the green uniformed auxiliary infantry recruited from conquered planets. With them rumbled tides of century tanks and above stalked the massive forms of OZ mobile suits. With cries of “Long live Treize Kushrenada” and “For the Emperor” the ground forces of the Empire of Thashia assaulted the fortified region of Planet Mriss.
- * - * -
Beyond the towers, that particular sector of the fortress of Doron’wek was a wilderness of fire and rubble. Captain DDA-3177, also known as “Hot Shot”, gathered up his men and managed to get linked up with the rest of his company, Fox Company, 1st Brigade, 501st Legion, which had come down in their transport inside the perimeter wall of the fortress. There was no sign of his CO, Major AA-2909.
They were closer to some of the area’s major gun emplacements, and were subjected to the side-effects of their bombardments.
The emplacements, mainly anti-air and long range cannon, were firing at full rate. Their flashing concussions tore the sky overhead, and the ground shook continuously. For a normal man it would overcome the senses, too bright for the eyes, and no voice would penetrate it. They however were not ordinary men. They were the 501st.
Motioning his men forward the clonetroopers moved along a drainage trench and past several culverts. They spotted a few dead white armored bodies lying in some of these, evidence of another assault group’s passage. At the end of the culvert Hot Shot caught up with his scout squad led by “Mole”, a clonetrooper scout who was one of the best in the business. Mole nodded to his commanded and Hot Shot gave him the go ahead.
They crossed a smoke-washed concourse and came towards what Hot Shot was certain were the munitions silos for the two thundering emplacements way off ahead. Mole took them as far as the low wall, and then got them into cover.
Hot Shot wasn’t sure why at first until he saw puffs of stone dust lifting off the top of the wall, and realized that they were under ferocious small-arms fire, the noise of it lost in the bombardment. He nodded his thanks to Mole who simply shrugged and gave him the thumbs up sign. One trooper was slow getting down. He walloped over onto the ground and lay there with his legs kicking furiously for a few seconds. Then his limbs went slack.
When the firing became sporadic, Hot Shot led them over the wall. He did this with a simple comm tap and gesture. The forty or so clonetroopers surged up and over the low wall of cover and charged into the fire zone.
Hot Shot reached the cover of an upturned slab of rockcrete that a rocket had scooped out of the yard, got down, and lifted his blaster rifle over the rim and gave cover fire. It felt good to him to finally be firing his weapon. He poked his eye cam over the lip of the slab and looked at what was in front of them.
There in the haze of smoke and dust was a bunker. It was an ugly protruding piece of rock that sat on the slope a hill. Beyond it was a taller rockcrete building from where the enemy was firing large cannon at the invasion forces. That was their objective.
Three of his men fell before they could reach any kind of cover from the las fire that ripped out of the bunker. Mole reached the cover of some mangled engine debris five meters away from Hot Shot. The captain activated his comm.
“Mole this is Hot Shot, do you copy?” The comm fizzed for a moment and then finally the line opened up. Mole turned his head in the direction of Hot Shot and nodded.
“Affirmative, I read you Captain.”
“You still have a few of those smoke detonators?” asked Hot Shot.
“Yes, a few. Why? Have a plan?”
“Yes. I want you to blind that bunker. Once that is done lead your men up the left and get on the flank of that bunker and find the entrance. Wait there for my signal. I’ll take the rest of the company up the right and move around to the rear. Heavy weapons squad will be in reserve to cover us.”
“Understood sir,” said Mole.
The scout sergeant rummaged through his satchel webbing for a moment and took out three smoke detonators. He handed two of them out to a couple of his scout mates. They all pressed the activation button. With a quick movement they rose up and launched them into the air.
With great skill the smoke detonators landed just in front of the fire gunport of the bunker and went off. A great fog of black smoke launched up and effectively blinded the bunker.
“Go!” With the patter-patter roar of a heavy blaster cannon firing from the heavy weapons squad the rest of the clonetroopers charged forward.
Sergeant Mole led his men up the left side over the rocky and pit scarred ground. They got around the side of the bunker and came upon a flight of steps made of rockcrete that were sunken into the ground and headed into the side of the bunker. He signaled his men to set up and wait for the signal.
Hot Shot led his men at the fastest possible pace and charged up. His back slammed up against the rockcrete of the bunker as he reached it, he was less than a meter from the fire gunport. The enemy continued to fire blindly into the smoke. His men began circling around the right side of it. Hot Shot took out a detonator satchel charge from his webbing and pulled the pin on it. He waited to the count of ‘4’ and with a quick toss he sent it strait into the gunport. He dived away to the ground and into cover.
There was a fantastic explosion and the ground shook. Rockcrete erupted outwards and shot into the air like trailing smoke like flaming meteors. Great billows of gray smoke erupted and blew over the area.
Hot Shot shook off the dust and small pieces of rubble that covered him. He picked up his blaster rifle and opened the comm. He set off a small pattern of clicks to signal. He looked at his handy work and saw that the entire front of the bunker was now a gapping crater of ruined rockcrete.
Sergeant Mole received the signal and got his men ready. After a few moments they heard movement coming up from the stair well. Covered in dust and coughing four enemy soldiers came up from the depths of the bunker. They were wearing long red dust covered battle coats and had round helmets on their heads, metal goggles covered their eyes. One of them had a weapon of some sort in hit hand.
Mole didn’t hesitate. Before the enemy even knew to be surprised the troopers unleashed a hail of blaster fire and mowed down the troopers. They were long dead even before they crumpled to the ground. Mole had two of his men get out frag detonators and sent them launching into the bunker entrance. They heard the krump-krump of the detonators going off and a few screams.
“Clear,” said Mole into his comm.
The company reassembled behind the ruined bunker. The support heavy weapons squad jogged up as well and lugged their blaster cannons. Hot Shot had them get into a defensive circle and decided what to do next.
They were on the decline of the hill and could make out the tall cannon bunker that the enemy was using ahead of them. Every few seconds the ground would shake and another spout of flame and smoke would erupt from the extended barrels of the emplacement. Their mission was to nock it out and give some relief to the other men further down the beach.
“Mole, get your men up there and tell me where an entrance is,” ordered Hot Shot. The scout sergeant nodded and with a hand signal had his men sweeping up the hill in a semi circle formation. Hot Shot turned to his men and ordered them to stand down for a moment. A few lifted off their helmets and drank water out of the canteens they carried. Others checked their weapons and slapped in new power cartridges. They waited in earnest for the scouts to return.
They moved through a wide section of drainage pipelines, through rain-washed rockcrete underpasses stained with oil and dust. The gray smog of the battlefield drifted back over their positions. To the west rose the great curtain wall of the Doron’wek, to the immediate north the shadowy bulk of habitat spires, immense conical towers of the city, their thousands of windows all blown out by shelling and air-shock. There was no sign of a solitary living thing.
Sergeant Mole and his men moved through the area with extreme caution and tight combat silence. They communicated via hand signals and battle speech.
They began passing blast-proofed bunkers of great size, all empty except for scattered support cradles and stacking pallets of grey fibre-plast. A crowd of battered, yellow, heavy lift trolleys were abandoned on the concourses before the bunkers.
“Munitions stores,” signed one trooper to Mole. “Shell stockpiles for the emplacement.”
Mole thought that a good guess. They edged on, cautious, going a half-time march and with weapons ready. They came forward past a few similar munitions bunkers and came to a cargo loading bay of tubular steel and riveted blast-board. The bay was mounted with hydraulic cranes and derricks on the surface, poised to lower cargo into a cavity below ground.
Mole smiled and signed to his men. “We’ve got our info, move back out.” As silent as they had come they withdrew from the cargo bay and back through the bunkers until they came back to the captain’s position and their company.
Hot Shot stood waiting for them. “Find anything?”
“Yes sir, we found a lot of munitions store houses and a cargo landing bay in the rear of the emplacement. It’s possible we can find a way in from there,” said Mole. The ground rumbled again and the emplacements huge barrels roared. They didn’t have much time to think of another solution.
“Alright, move out,” ordered Hot Shot. “Mole you lead point.”
The company entered the cargo bay and they went to the edge of the cavity. Clonetroopers descended on the metal grilled stairway onto a raised platform that lay alongside a wide, well lit tunnel that ran off out of sight into the impacted earth. The tunnel was modular, circular in cross section, with a raised spine running along the lowest part. Mole and Hot Shot examined the tunnel and the armored control post overlooking it.
“Maglev line,” said Mole, who had done all he could to augment his basic engineering knowledge with off-world mechanisms. “Still active too. They cart the shells from the munitions dump and lower them into the bay, then load them onto bomb trains for fast delivery to the emplacements in the hills.”
He showed Hot Shot an indicator board in the control position. The flat-plate glowed green, showing a flickering runic depiction of a track network. “There’s a whole transit system down here, purpose built to link all forge factories and allow for rapid transportation of material.”
“And this spur has been abandoned because they’ve exhausted the munitions stores in this area.” Hot Shot was thoughtful. He opened his data-feed and made a working replica sketch of the network map. He compared it to the area maps of the emplacements that orbital tactic command had gotten from orbital surveys. It was a little different but the basic elements were the same.
‘It’s a way in,” said Mole. Hot Shot nodded.
“They won’t have blocked it because they need these maglev lines active and clear to keep the bomb trains moving to feed their guns.”
“Then lets go,” said Mole. Hot Shot sensed the clonetroopers smile even though he couldn’t see it with the scout sergeant’s helmet on.
It was possible to advance down the maglev tunnel four abreast, with two men on each side of the central rider spine. It was well lit by recessed blue-glow lighting in the tunnel walls, but Hot Shot sent Mole and his scouts in the vanguard to check for booby traps.
An unopposed advance down the stuffy tunnels took them half a kilometer north-west, passing another abandoned cargo bay and forks with two other maglev spurs. The air was dry and charged with static from the still powered electromagnetic rail, and hot gusts of wind breathed on them periodically as if heralding a train that never came.
At the third spur, Hot Shot turned his column into the new tunnel, following his map. They’d gone about twenty meters when Mole whispered into the comm.
‘We need to go back to the spur fork,” he said.
Hot Shot didn’t query his scout sergeant and they retreated the whole company back to the junction they had just passed. Within a minute, a hot breeze blew at them, the tunnel hummed and a maglev train whirred past along the spur they had been about to join. It was an automated train of sixty open carts, painted khaki with black and yellow flashing. Each cart was laden with shells and munitions, hundreds of tones of ordnance from distant bunkers destined for the main battery emplacements in the area. It rolled past slick and inertia free.
Hot Shot consulted his sketch map. It was a little difficult to determine how far it was to the next station or junction, and without knowing the frequency of the bomb trains, he couldn’t guarantee they’d be out of the tunnel before the next one rumbled through. Hot Shot cursed and knew he couldn’t turn back. They had a mission to accomplish.
“Rhine! Heckler!” he called, two troopers answered to their nick-names and hurried over.
“You both have engineering training,” he stated. Both nodded. “Given the resources at hand, could you stop one of these trains?”
“Sir?”
“And then start it again?” asked Hot Shot.
“I think so sir,” said Rhine. “These trains move on the rails, sucking up a power source from them. It’s a conductive electrical exchange, as I’ve seen on batteries and flux-units. We just have to lay some non-conductive material on the rail fine enough that it wouldn’t actually derail the train. What do you have in mind sir?”
“Stopping or slowing the next train that passes, jumping a ride and starting it again,” said Hot Shot.
“And riding it all the way to the enemy,” said Mole. Hot Shot sensed another smile. Rhine and Heckler took out a bunch of material from several of the company’s packs and got to work.
A warm gust of air announced the approach of the next train, some seventeen minutes or so after the first they had seen. Rhine and Heckler had wrapped several sleeping roles over the rider-rail just beyond the spur and tied a length of the material cut from one of the scout’s camo-cloaks.
The front cart passed beyond the non-conductive layer, the electromagnetic current was broken, and the train decelerated fast as the propelling force went dead. Forward momentum carried the train forward for a while – by the track side Hot Shot prayed it would not carry the entire train beyond the circuit break, or it would simply start again – but it went dead at last and came to a halt, rocking gently on the suspension field.
“Mount up!” called Hot Shot. The 501st company clambered up onto the bomb-laden carriages, finding foot and handholds where they could, stowing weapons and holding out hands to pull comrades aboard. Hot Shot and Mole and six other troopers mounted the front cart alongside Rhine who clutched the end of the camo-cloak cloth.
“Good work trooper,” Hot Shot said to Rhine and held a hand up as he watched down the train to make sure all had boarded and were secure. In short order, the entire company, 140 troopers, were in place, and relay of acknowledgements ran down the train to Hot Shot.
Hot Shot dropped his hand. Rhine yanked hard on the cloth cord. It went taut, fought him and then flew free, pulling the sleeping packs up and out from under the cart like a large flatfish on a line. In a moment, as the circuit was restored, the train lurched and silently began to move again, quickly picking up speed. The tunnel lights began to strobe-flash as they flicked past them.
Hot Shot checked his power cartridge to see that he had 80 shots still left in it. He turned on his comm and spoke to his men. “Ready, weapons ready. Word is given. We’re riding into the mouth of the lion and we could be among the enemy any minute. Prepare for sudden engagement.”
Along the train, blaster rifles whined as they powered up, launchers clicked to armed, and the company plasma cannon hummed into seething readiness.
They traveled along for a long time it seemed, passing empty stations and unlit cargo bays. A spur to the left, then to the left again, waiting while another bomb train passed ahead of them from another siding. Then they were moving again. The tension wrapped around Hot Shot liked a straitjacket. All of the passing tunnel looked constant and familiar, there were no markers to forewarn or alert.
The bomb train slid into a vast cargo bay on a spur siding, coming to rest alongside two other trains that were being offloaded by cranes and machine lifters. An empty train was just leaving on a loop that would take it back to the munitions dumps. The chamber was lofty and dark, lit by thousands of lanterns and the ruddy glare of work-lamps. It was hot and smelled bitter, like a furnace room. The walls were, as they could see them, were draped with banners proclaiming the Royal Dynasty of Mriss.
There were upwards of two hundred Mrissians in the dim, gantried chamber working lifters or sliding bomb trolleys. None of them seemed to notice the new train’s extra cargo for a moment.
Hot Shot’s company dismounted from the train, opening fire as they went, laying down a hail of blaster fire that cracked electricity in the air. Hot Shot had forbidden the use of the heavier weapons until they were clear of the munitions.
Dozens of Mrissians fell where they stood. Two half-laden trolleys spilled over as hands released the levers. Warheads rolled and chinked on the platform. A trolley of shells veered into a wall as its driver was shot, and overturned. A crane assembly exploded and collapsed. The clonetroopers surged onwards. They fanned out in perfect formation, taking point of cover after point of cover and scything down the fleeing Mrissians. A few had found weapons and were returning fire, but their efforts were dealt with mercilessly.
Hot Shot advanced up the main loading causeway with the 1st platoon, blasting Mrissians with his blaster. Nearby, Mole and a trio of his scout marksmen were ducked in cover and picking off any Mriss soldier on the overhead catwalks.
One of the heavy weapons specialists had his heavy blaster cannon which he had liberated from a pintle mount some time before. Hot Shot had never seen a soldier fire one without the aide of recoil compensators or lift capacity before. The trooper groaned slightly and strained with the effort of steadying the howling weapon with its six cycling barrels, and his aim was more than a little below standard. He killed dozens of the enemy anyway. Not to mention a maglev train.
The 501st company led the fight up out of the cargo bay and onto loading ramps which extended up through great caverns cut into the hillside. A layer of blue smoke rose up under the flickering pendulum lighting rigs. Clear of the munitions deck, Hot Shot ordered the plasma cannon and rocket launchers up, and began to scour a path, blackening the rockcrete strips of the ramp and fusing Mrissian bone into syrupy pools.
At the head of the ramps , at the great elevator assemblies which raised the bomb loads into the battery magazines high above them in the hillside, they met the first determined resistance. A massed force of Mriss soldiers in their red battle garb rushed down on them, blasting with their las guns and other weapons. Hot Shot commanded a squad up the left flank and cut into the from the edge, matched by the rest of the platoon from the right, creating a crossfire that punished them terribly.
Hot Shot ducked behind some freighting pallets as lasfire rounds wailed down from the Mriss units at the elevator assembly. Hot Shot found he was sharing cover with two of his assault troopers. “How much ammo do you have left?” he called.
“Half gone already,” responded one. The trooper slapped in a new clip and hooked a small module onto the full auto setting. “But then there are more than enough dead to count it by.”
Hot Shot gave a wolfish grin. “With me men!” He pulled out his vibro bayonet and the three of them charged out from cover firing. They were more than halfway up the loading ramp to the elevators. The company’s crossfire maneuver had fenced the shriven in around the hazard striped blast doors, which were now fretted and punctured by blaster impacts and fusing burns.
As he charged Hot Shot felt the wash of fire behind him as his own units covered and supported. He could here the whine of the long-pattern blaster snipers, the crack of normal blaster fire, and the rattle of the heavy blaster cannon.
The three of them reached the makeshift defenses around the enemy. One trooper went down, clipped by a las-round. Hot Shot and the other assault trooper bounded up to the debris cover and cut into the now-panicked Mriss soldiers. Hot Shot emptied his blaster into the faces of a group of Mriss soldiers and ditched it, scything forward with his vibro blade. The other trooper laid in with his bayonet as well, stabbing into bodies and firing at point-blank range to emphasize each kill.
It took two minutes. They seemed like a life time to Hot Shot, each bloody, frenzied second playing out like a year. Then he and the other trooper were through to the elevator itself and the Mriss soldiers were piled around them. Five or six more clonetroopers were close behind. The assault trooper nodded in victory to Hot Shot.
The nod was premature.
The elevator doors ahead of them parted and a trio of well armed Mriss soldiers appeared. A las-round found its mark in the side of the assault troopers head and blew the body away, covering Hot Shot’s armor in a mist of red blood. He turned and was about to meet the rush of the enemy when there was the crack whine of three blaster shots. All three red clad soldiers were hit in the center chest and fell dead to the floor. Hot Shot instinctively knew that scout sergeant Mole had provided these marksman blasts.
Hot Shot got to his feet, wet and wretched with blood and fouler stuff. Hit men were moving up the ramp to secure the position. Above them, at the top of the elevator shaft, were maybe a million Mriss soldiers and personnel, secure in their battery bunkers. Hot Shot’s company was right in the heart of the enemy’s stronghold.
Hot Shot smiled.
It took another precious half hour to regroup and secure the bomb deck. Hot Shot’s scouts located all the entranceways and blocked them, checking even ventilation access and drainage gullies. Hot Shot paced, tense. The clock was ticking and it wouldn’t take long for the massive forces above them to start wondering why the shell supply from below had dried up. And come looking for a reason.
There was the place itself too: the gloom, the taste of the air, the stupid banners on the wall. It was as if they were inside some sacred place, sacred only to idiots who had some unholy work to do for their Mriss King.
The comm-link chimed and Hot Shot responded, hurrying through to the control room of the bomb bays. Mole, Rhine, and others were waiting for him. Someone had managed to raise the shutters on the vast window ports.
“What is that?” inquired Rhine.
“What we came to stop and destroy,” Hot Shot said, turning away from the stained glass viewing ports. Far below them, in the depths of the newly-revealed hollowed cavern, stood a vast megalith, a great stone carved building that smoked with chemical exhaust and the workings of steam. Electricity wires hung from its side like ivy. It seemed to be a major control conduit for the entire area.
“It won’t take long for them to notice the bomb levels aren’t supplying them with shells any more. Then we can expect serious deployment against us,” said Mole.
Hot Shot nodded but said nothing. He crossed to the control suite where Rhine and Heckler were attempting to access data. He walked over to them and watched as they manipulated the controls of the computer.
“Plot it for me,” Hot Shot said. “I have a feeling there may be more to those conduit things.”
“We’re there…” Rhine said with excitement. He pointed at the glowing map sigils. “And here’s a larger scale map. You were right. That stone conduit down there is part of a system buried in the hillsides of Doron’wek. Seven all told, in a strung out pattern. They’re all charged up with power right now, helping the Mriss operate their defences.”
“What do we do?” asked Mole.
“We have explosive aplenty,” said Heckler. “Let’s blow it.”
“No!” said Hot Shot. “We don’t know how that much built up energy will react to explosives. It could be dangerous to the entire invasion force. No, we have to break the link…”
“Sergeant Mole, load as many hand carts as you can find of Mriss warheads, prime them for short fuse and prepare to send them up on the elevator on my cue. We’ll choke the emplacements upstairs with their own weapons. Heckler and Rhine I want you to gather more of that non-conductive material again.”
They all three gave him blank looks.
“Now?” he added sharply. They leapt to their feet.
Hot Shot led the way up the ramp towards the conduit. It was smoke with energy and his skin prickled uncomfortably. He led the two engineer experts over to the edge of it and had several other troopers fan out. In their hands were forty or so sleeping packs tied together with camo-cloaks and industrial staples that they had found in the cargo bay. They wrapped it around the huge forty-foot conduit and fused it together. The material began to smoke a little and nothing happened.
“It’s not working,” said Heckler.
“Then we cut the alignment,” said Hot Shot. He called up three other troopers. “Get charges set in the supporting mound. Don’t target the conduit itself. Blow it so it falls away or drops.”
“Yes sir,” they responded.
Hot Shot tapped into his comm. “Mole, send those warheads up.”
“Acknowledged captain.”
At the elevator head, the troops under Mole’s command thundered trolleys of warheads into the car. “Shush!” said on trooper suddenly. They stopped. A pause – then they all heard the clanking, the distant tinny thumps. Mole swung up his blaster rifle and moved into the elevator assembly. He pulled the lever that opened the upper inspection hatch. Above him, the great lift shaft yawned open like a beast’s throat.
He stared up into the darkness, trying to resolve some detail. The darkness was moving. Mriss soldiers were descending on ropes and hooks like bat-things down the sheer side of the shaftway.
“They’re coming!” he yelled and slammed the hatch shut.
Hot Shot cursed, feeling the panic rising just a little. Trapped, entombed, the infernal enemy seeping in from all sides. Speakers mounted on the walls and consoles all around squawked to into life, and a rasping vice, echoing and overlaying itself from a hundred places, spat some gibberish into the chambers.
“Shut that off!” Hot Shot yelled at Rhine.
Rhine scrambled at the controls, desperately. “I can’t!” he cried.
A hatchway to the east exploded inwards with a shower of sparks. Men screamed. Lasfire began to chatter. A little to the north, another doorway blew inwards in a flaming gout and more Mriss soldiers began to battle their way inwards.
Hot Shot opened a link to his platoon commanders. “Start the retreat. As many as we dare to keep the covering fire.” Then he adjusted his intercom to wide band.
“Captain to all units! Commence withdrawal, maximum retreating resistance!” He sprinted down through the mayhem into the megalith chamber, knocked back for a second by the noxious stench that his helmet failed to filter. Heckler and three other troopers were just emerging, their arms and upper bodies caked in black tarry goo.
“It’s done,” said Heckler.
“Then blow it! Move out!” Hot Shot cried, pushing and shoving his stumbling men out of the cavern. “Mole!”
“Almost there!” replied Mole from over at the elevator. He and the trooper next to him looked up sharply as they heard a thump from the liftcar roof above them. Cursing, Mole pushed the final trolley of shells into the elevator bay.
“Back! Back!” Mole shouted at his men. He hit the riser stud of the elevator and it began to lift up the shaft towards the Mriss emplacements high above. They heard impacts and shrieks as it pulverized the Mriss soldiers coming down the shaft.
The clonetroopers with Mole were running for their lives. Somewhere, far above, the payload arrived – and detonated hard enough to shake the ground and sprinkle earth and rock chips down from the cavern roof. Lamp arrays swung like pendulums. Hot Shot felt it all going off above them. He pushed Heckler in front of him and onto the maglev tunnel. Enemy las-fire burned their way. A trooper dropped, mid-flight. Other turned, knelt, and returned fire. Blaster bolts and las-fire glittered back and forth.
Behind them all, in the megalith chamber, the charges placed by Heckler’s team exploded. Its support beams blown away, the great cackling stone conduit system teetered and then slumped down into the pit. The speakers around the chamber went silent.
Total silence. The Mriss firing had stopped. Those that had penetrated the chamber were frozen in horror as they watched the conduit fall. The only sound was the thumping footfalls and gasping breathe of respirators of the fleeing clonetroopers.
Then a rumbling started. Incandescent blue electrical fire flashed and rippled around the monolith chamber. Without warning the stained glass viewports of the control room exploded inwards. The ground rippled, ruptured; rockcrete churned like an angry sea.
“Get out! Get out now!” bellowed Hot Shot.
General Durin stood on the bridge of his hovering command craft that sat five miles out to sea before the walls of Doron’wek. His forces had been landed for the last hour with some success but the going was still tough. He watched through magnifiers as he noticed the usual plumes of shell fire disappeared. The general frowned.
“Feth but I think they’ve stopped-” he started to say.
The hills beyond the curtain wall of Doron’wek exploded. The vast network of hills and rockcrete protrusions that were weapon emplacements splintered and puffed up dust and fire, swelling for a moment before collapsing into themselves. A bell-shaped cloud of ochre smoke boiled up over the horizon where the Mriss stronghold had once been. Lightning flared in the sky. The communications station in the corner of the General’s command station wailed and then went dead.
Secondary explosions, munitions probably, began to explode along the lines of Doron’wek, blasting the heart out of everything that they held. A firestorm of shockwave and flame passed over the massed forces of clonetroopers and other groups. They found cover where they could, but some where carried off by the force of the wind.
General Durin looked at his signals officer. “Order a full advance. Now!”
They had been knocked flat by the shockwave, losing many in the flare of blue flame that followed them up the tunnel. They were blundering through the darkness and dust. There were moans and coughs.
In the end it took almost five hours for them all to claw their way up and out of the darkness. Hot Shot led the way up the tunnel himself. Finally the surviving elements of the 501st troopers of Fox company, 1st Brigade emerged into the dying light of another day. Most sat down or staggered in the mud, sprawling, laughing. Fatigue washed over them all.
Hot Shot sat down on a curl of mud and took of his helmet. He started to laugh and all the tension sloughed off him in one easy tide. It was over. Whatever else, whatever mopping up, Mriss was won.
He watched as in front of him a large, massive formation of clonetroopers supported by century tanks passed them by. An officer stepped over to him and saluted, it was a Lieutenant.
“Sir? Are you alright? We’ve just got orders for a general advance,” the clone lieutenant said. Hot Shot nodded. He got up and put his helmet back on and turned to his men.
“Fox Company, 501st! On your feet! Front and center!” he called. His men immediately responded and formed up. They were tired and hungry but they were far from finished.
“There’s some more ass to be kicked up ahead,” said Hot Shot. “Who’s with me?” The remaining 68 clonetroopers cheered and they began marching along with the rest of the army.