NationStates Jolt Archive

The organization known as AG4 had carried out ruthless attacks upon civilian vessels and worlds with small populations. Although they have not made clear their demands or have any known ideals they have attacked a Ganoxian convoy heading towards New Ganoxa. The government hired the mercenary group Mithril to hunt down these terrorists and secure their convoy lines.

The AG4 leader, Vaclav, entered the room. A subordinate turned around and reploed,"General Vaclav sir! Its good to see you!"

Vaclav immediately shot him in the head, "Still treacherous to the last. Take his body and feed it to my pets."

"Yes general."

"Those bastards nearly captured me at Althos, if it weren't for my spy I couldn't have escaped. Captain Melanie report!"

"Sir our base at Althos has been destroyed along with our bomber forces their."

"I see we must teach them a lesson. Lets see... ah yes! Gelos, heavily populated to an extent enough to make clear of our intentions."

"Yes sir!"

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The Tuatha De Danaan arrived at the colonial system of Trelos, a small populated world with no real importance other than its exports of nickel-copper ores. "Ma'am our scanners are not picking up any enemy units. Its is possible the trace misled us."

"I see. Patrol the system before we jump out of system." said Teletha Testarossa the ship's captain.

"Aye ma'am."

Five minutes later one of the techs alerted Tessa, "Captain we are recieving a message from a neighboring world called Gelos, they seem to be under attack by unknown vessels."

"Hmm, perhaps our trace was correct. Commander have the ship jump to that system"

"Aye ma'am, Commencing jump to system." Mardukas complied.

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A bomber came down on the city and released its payload into the city square, some jumped to safety while several were not so fortunate. The pilot turned his head and laughed at the people squandering. He looked back to find a Arm Slave firing its 40 mm Assault rifle. Arm Slaves were jumping out of the TDD's hangar firing down from high altitude. "This is Urzu 2, we have landed in the city square, but its a mess down here."

"Warning three aircraft approaching from 187." the AI said.

Mao pointed the 40mm and fired at the bombers coming down on her. One was clipped and flew into a building while another exploded when taking and immediate hit. The last successfully fired some missiles at her. She made the AS immediately roll to the side and fire at the fleeing bomber. Suddenly it was destroyed, she did not hit it."

"Urzu 6?"

"You got it!"

"I still don't know how you can shoot like that."

Seeing that they are fighting things with teeth the bombers immediately fled the system. "Ma'am bombers have escaped, we were unable to deploy tracking beacons on them."

"Its okay. Alert the local authorities if they require any assistance."

"Aye ma'am."

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"Insolent fools! How dare they mess with my plans!?" Vaclav said angrily,"No matter our plan will not be halted. Begin our next phase!"

"Yes General." Melanie said.

((OOC: I'm gonna assume that I'm in on this, as per our deal in my intro thread.))

IC:
"Well, would you look at that," Hrallmar Halfdan grinned in amusement, his face illuminated by the glow of the screens he was watching. "Oh, yeah. Uh, sir, we've got some action on the probe screens you might be interested in." The burly mercenary slouched back in his chair to crane his neck around as he hailed his commanding officer.

Cuthalion, sharp as always in his black combat suit, was immediately looking over Halfdan's shoulder as the mercenary tapped the replay button. "These stupid bastards don't have any planetary defenses, no picket fleets, no nothin'!" Halfdan chuckled as he watched the bombers close on the planet, little pinprick flashes marking where they struck Gelos' atmosphere. "TDD shows up, shoots down a few Aggies and zoom, they're off again!" The monitor showed the bombers accelerating away from the planet and disappearing one by one as they engaged their FTL. Cuthalion's lips curled in a sharp smile.

"Vroom-a-zoom-zoom," the Eldren murmured. Halfdan's mirth threatened ever more to boil over completely as he watched the scene end for the second time.

"I mean, have you ever seen a fuckin' cat-and-mouse game with two equally incompetent players? The one can't get a proper attack off 'cuz they send in bombers to attack a planet without any support, and the other can't catch 'em to save their goddamn lives 'cuz they're too busy blowin' em up! This is pure comedy! I can't believe they're payin' us to watch this..." The big mercenary trailed off into more laughter as Cuthalion stood back up, his smile widening.

The probes were doing their job: ever since the Tuatha de Danaan had left Eos after making the deal with the Aletes for assistance in tracking down the terrorist organization AG4, Cuthalion and his mercenary battlecruiser Collateral Damage had been tracking the TDD's FTL jumps and covertly inserting tiny probes via tesseract module into each of its destinations, watching for signs of AG4 and their confrontations with Mithril. So far it was the same as how it had been when the Aletes had first met the counterterrorists: Mithril would pounce on an AG4 cell and cause some carnage, but the terrorists always managed to slip away rather easily after the initial attack. What perplexed Cuthalion the most was why Mithril never bothered or attempted to take any prisoners; how did they expect to ever do any real damage to a non-conventional force when they insisted on using conventional tactics? The farcical aspect of the situation that had Halfdan in stitches was not lost on the Eldren captain.

Nevertheless, Mithril had agreed to pay the Aletes well in hard military materiél, so Cuthalion had to take the situation as seriously as he could. The Aletes had managed to snag one of AG4's bombers in a previous suicide attack at the end of their negotiations, snatching the small craft with one of their battlecruisers' gravitic projectors before it actually hit the asteroid it had been about to slam into; Cuthalion considered the Aletes one up on their employers in that respect. But the interrogation of the pilot was being handled by other captains, and Cuthalion had had no word of any useful information yet.

"I do not suppose we could track the FTL vectors of those bombers the way we have done with the Danaan?" the Eldren mused aloud, setting his hand on the back of the seat of his instrument tech, a rotund little Zap named Mort.

"I'm afraid not, Captain," the Zap's translator device said a bit tinnily. Zaps were little bristly beach-ball creatures that "saw" in electromagnetic radiation and communicated with each other with strings of electrical pulses, and thus a translator was necessary to transcribe their pulses into speech that the rest of the Aletes' mercenary races could hear. "We would have to be in-system when they jumped to establish a lock, like we did with the Danaan. The probe's no good for that kind of thing."

Cuthalion nodded. "Very well. I guess we will just have to keep following Tom and Jerry around until we get the opportunity we need." Cuthalion and his Commander-Captain Rhadamanth Archaios, the leader of the Aletian mercenary fleet, had already worked out a plan for getting to AG4, but they were still missing the crucial bit of information they needed to set it into action.

"Sir we are ready to begin the next phase. Our fleet is ready to attack Leon." Melanie said

"What a glorious fleet they have provided for us. We shall use it well. Our first objective is to blockade the planet ensuring no one escapes. Then we begin the landings. If all goes well we shall have a world of our very own." Vaclav said

"Yes sir!"

The fleet was a mixture of old Victory star destroyers dreadnoughts and one Imperial class Star Destroyer, old relics but still useful. They began to move out of the stable asteroid region and prepared for a jump to hyperspace towards Leon.

___________________________________________

Meanwhile Sousuke was doing his homework, studying Japanese history during the Feudal Era for his midterms back at Tokyo Jindai High School. Highlighting key terms to study, Suddenly Tessa came in, and Sousuke immediately stood at attention. "Captain!"

"No no please don't sit down."

Sousuke sat back down and resumed his studies. "So how are things at the school?" she asked.

"No problems. Chidori and I are back together, life resumed like it was before."

"I see, considering what has happened, you two became close."

"Yes, we have."

"So what are you--" alarms began to rang. They both immediately got up both going separate directions. As soon as she got in she was met by Lt. Commander Kalinin, "Madam Captain, we are receiving a distress signal from the most populous colony Leon. They are under attack by a rather medium sized fleet. Then the transmission was lost after that."

"Do we know the fleet strength?"

"We don't have specified numbers but all we can gather is that its rather large."

"It can't be AG4?"

"There may be something more. It could be possible that there is a larger player in this."

"Just like Amalgram?"

"Yes madam Captain."

"I see. Approach Leon but keep our distance, we cannot engage the enemy fleet."

"Aye ma'am!" Commander Mardukas said.

________________________________________

The blockade began to take shape, communications were jammed and landers immediately began pouring out. "Yes go my men! Conquer this planet for our cause!" Vaclav laughed.

Bombers poured down onto the planet's surface, razing everything in sight. People were scrambling to get away, trying to hide inside buildings and subway stations to escape falling debris. Dropships settling in park squares and intersections pouring out men. Leon was theirs. "Good! Now no one can stop us!" he laughed.

"Holy damn..." Halfdan swore as the data from the latest probe flooded into his monitors. "Captain! Check this shit out!"

Cuthalion was at Halfdan's side in a flash. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly as he took in the scene before they narrowed again, as the Eldren mercenary's mind kicked into combat mode. "This is it," he said. "We are engaging them as soon as I get some reinforcements in order. Keep watching that monitor and tell me if anything significant happens. Mort! Get me the Commander-Captain on the horn!" Cuthalion turned swiftly from Halfdan's monitor station, his single long braid whipping behind him.

"You sound excited, Cuthalion!" Rhadamanth's voice boomed over the speakers. "Found something good?"

"Very good, sir. There's a fleet of capital ships that appears to belong to AG4 bombarding a Ganoxan colony world. I need at least 12 battlecruisers and as many picket craft as you'll give me."

"Are you sure it's a worthy scrap to get into?" Rhadamanth asked. "We don't have a lot of ships to throw around into any old battle, you know."

Cuthalion knew that Rhadamanth already knew he was sure - he was one of Rhadamanth's more cautious captains, and he had never squandered his manpower on fights he had any doubt that they could win - but the Commander-Captain liked to hear the reasoning behind his decisions. That, and Rhadamanth enjoyed hearing himself give orders and ask questions of his subordinates, but that was secondary. "Sir, if we can disable and commandeer even one of those capital ships, we'll have access to all the information we need and more to set our plan in motion. Plus we will have acquired a brand new capital ship for ourselves."

"Bully!" Rhadamanth exclaimed loud enough to make Cuthalion's sensitive ears twitch. "I'll get ya everything you need to complete this mission. Should be there in less than 20 minutes!" The speakers crackled as the transmission was cut off.

Cuthalion returned to Halfdan's station as he waited for the mercenary fleet to arrive. "How in the nine hells does a mere terrorist organization pull the materiél and the manpower to field such a fleet so suddenly?" he mused aloud. "More to the point, why have they encountered no resistance from the Ganoxans themselves?"

"Sumthin' stinks about the whole thing, I know," Halfdan grunted. "I mean, look at that sumbitch," he tapped the Imperial-class Star Destroyer, leaving a fingerprint on the screen. "She looks a little old and clunky, but gawdamn is that still a lot of firepower. And that ain't even including those other ones," he waved a greasy finger at the Victory-class SD's and the dreadnoughts. "Are all terrorists in this part of the galaxy so damn rich?"

"She's the one we'll take first," Cuthalion said softly, pointing his slender finger at the Imperial. "A dozen battlecruisers warp in, bracket her at these points," he pointed to places all around the huge vessel, "Take out an area of her point defense so we can get drop pods through, break into her bridge and jack one of our AI's into her systems, then space most of her crew. We'll have the element of surprise, so it should work."

"Aaaand, what about the others?" Halfdan asked, indicating the other capital ships in the terrorist fleet.

"If the plan works, we'll have a working capital ship to turn on them that's at least double the size of the Collateral Damage," Cuthalion answered, working through that next stage of the operation himself. "We'll have to jam their communications and engage our FTL inhibitors as soon as we enter the system. That should throw them for a loop for a bit. I do not want the rest of AG4 knowing who it was that cut this fleet to pieces. It would complicate things further on."

"Sounds like a plan, boss," Halfdan sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Ah, looks like our boys are here. That was fast."

Sure enough, a dozen more Aletian battlecruisers slipped out of their spatial rifts around the Collateral Damage, 30 small frigates and slightly larger destroyers squeezing through after them.

"Enough talking, where's the shit I gotta blow up??" a raucous voice blasted over the intercom suddenly, causing Cuthalion to wince slightly.

"We're not even in the enemy system yet, dumb-fuck," another voice crackled a little more quietly, though sharp with exasperation. "This is the rendezvous with Collateral Damage, remember?"

"Good idea, you guys do all the strategifyin' and tell me what to shoot!"

Cuthalion let out an imperceptible sigh. The captains of the Aletes had arrived.

It took only a few minutes for Cuthalion to explain his plan to the 12 captains; it was simple and straightforward on purpose, and the mercenaries didn't set much stock by complicated operations anyway. "If no one has further questions, charge your weapons and prepare for jump. The probe has already mapped out most of that vessel's weapon emplacements, so stick to your own firing zones and let's get this party started." The intercom buzzed with a chorus of affirmatives.

The chaos around Leon was well underway when the little Aletian fleet tore out of subspace, their 13 battlecruisers bracketing the Imperial SD on all sides, fore, and aft. The Aletian capital ships immediately opened a storm of plasma, laser and c-frac fire on the Star Destroyer, seeking to overwhelm its shields quickly before its crew could begin to retaliate. The frigates and destroyers blazed away at the Imperial's two shield generators with their kinetic slugs, missiles, and laser weapons. In addition, the Collateral Damage and her sister ships flooded as many frequencies as they could with jamming static, and began to throw an FTLi shroud around the AG4 fleet. The attack was an audacious one, that depended on speed and surprise to get a temporary advantage over their prey, and they didn't want it running off or doing anything unexpected until they had a more tenable position.

((OOC: Could you give me some actual numbers of what ships AG4 has and how many? Thanks))

Vaclav looked on as the enemy pounded his ship from all sides, they were all sudden, the scanners did not pick them up. "Get the Victories to cover us! I want bombers to peel off the surface and engage those ships!"

Five of the twenty Victory Star Destroyers began to move to support the flagship. Their turbolasers opened fire on the ships. "Sir o...our shields are failing. We are down 76% already!"

"What!?"

Bombers pulled out of the planet's surface and began to make their runs on the enemy ships. "Are these those Mithril bastards!?"

"No sir, I don't think so!"

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Tessa noticed on the tactical display that a fleet jumped in and engaged the bigger ship of the AG4 fleet. Their attack was not only a surprise to the enmy but a surprise to her. She noticed how they were wittling down their shields probably for a boarding assault. She noticed that the ships were Aletian, "Open transmissions to the Aletian fleet."

May we be of assistance. We can come in from the engine side of the flagship and drop in Arm Slaves to take care of the Turbolaser turrets making your landings easier.

OOC: The colony is not Ganoxan but in a neutral territory. Lets just call it the Neutral Colonial Region. The only thing Ganoxan are convoys going through. Sorry for any confusion.

OOC: Gotcha.

IC:
Neither the bomber pilots nor Vaclav himself seemed to have heard of the concept of point defense. Coil gun turrets on the three foremost battlecruisers, the Cruel and Unusual, the Preemptive Counterattack, and the Blaze of Glory, opened up on the bombers well before they were in range to make their bombing runs. The rapid-firing magnetic cannons spat a blizzard of flak projectiles towards the small craft at 10 km/s, a wide spread that filled their paths with screaming kinetic death.

But while the bombers could be swatted aside like flies, the Victory Star Destroyers could not. They were about as large as the Aletian battlecruisers themselves, and were already in firing range. Laser bolts flashed as they hit Aletian armor, which was highly reflective for just that purpose. It wasn't perfect, and the plating started scarring and pitting as the bombardment went on, but it was sufficient to take a decent chunk of the punch out of each volley of fire. The Collateral Damage and four of her sister ships took the opportunity to start slugging back at the Victories for all they were worth, while the other eight continued pounding the Imperial's shields down.

"Yahooooo! Take that, you godd-kkkkkktht-kkkkt-face-kkkt-motherf-kssssssht-" Beelzebub Crane, captain of the Cruel and Unusual, shouted over the one frequency they kept open for their own use, the transmission cutting out at opportune moments.

"Can't hear you, Beetle!" came the voice of Rhodian Athanatos, captain of the Preemptive Counterattack. "Cuthalion, I just picked up pieces of a transmission from the Danaan that they tried to send us on a jammed frequency. Something about dropping Arm Slaves in the flagship's engines? I don't really know what they're on about."

"I'll take care of it," Cuthalion replied. "Mort, get them on the open frequency." The Zap complied and burbled an electrical command at his equipment. "Tuatha de Danaan, you would be most helpful to us by keeping those smaller battleships off of our backs so that we can concentrate our efforts on the flagship." Off-channel, he looked back to Mort. "What is the report on their shields?"

"They're beginning to fluctuate erratically, sir," the Zap said excitedly. "I think we're getting close to busting them!"

Cuthalion nodded in approval. "Aletians, charge your gravitic projectors and get your boys into their drop pods. We are coming up on stage two."

"Aye-aye, mon Capitan!"

Several hundred mercenary troopers across all 13 ships belted on ludicrous amounts of weapons and ammunition and piled into small drop pods in the battlecruisers' cramped hangars. Targeting systems slaved to the vessels' AI's aimed them at the area around the Imperial's bridge and waited for the signal to launch.

"General! Our shields are down!" Melanie said.

"Damn it all to hell!"

"Sir bombers are nearly wiped out."

Vaclav looked in disbelief, his glorious force was being destroyed by mere mercenaries. "We will not falter among these who should take our new home away. We shall annhilate these monsters from our space! Send the fleet into point blank range!"

The Star Destroyers began to move towards the Aletian fleet.

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The TDD-1 began to swoop in from the back of the Star Destroyer, Tessa hoping the terrorist won't notice the tiny signature coming in from behind. "Prep nuclear warheads! Arm Slave pilots to their stations!

"Aye ma'am prepping warheads. Pilots are at their stations."

The destroyer pulled in from behind the Star Destroyer and launched nuclear warheads at the Victories. Arm Slaves began launching towards the Star Destroyer opening with their 40mm Gauss rifles at the enemy defense turrets. While the rest were securing a perimeter two Arm Slaves pulled out monomolecular swords and cut into one of the vital parts of the Star Destoyer. They opened tranmissions towards the Aletian fleet, "This is Urzu 2 to Aletian mercenaries we are clearing the area for your boarding."

OOC: Kindly refrain from RPing my drop pod launch for me, plzkthx. :) I have something specific in mind for that.

IC: "Sir, the rest of those battleships are peeling off from the planet and coming at us!" Halfdan hollered over his shoulder. "The Tuatha's giving us supporting fire, but they also dropped mechs onto our baby!"

"Damn it!" Cuthalion hissed, more at the first bit of news than the second. The bridge vibrated slightly under a spray of Victory fire, as the Eldren swiftly mastered his composure. "Beetle, I want to see casualties," he snapped at the Cruel and Unusual's slightly unhinged captain. "Tell me you're not falling off the wagon already?"

The subtle kick in the pants was all Captain Crane needed. "Oh I'll get you yer -kssbttthtssssht- casualties, Elfy!" he howled back, bawling orders at his crew before he even switched the channel off, only one or two of which were conflicting.

"Captain! Captain! The enemy vessel's shields have collapsed!" Mort chortled excitedly, waving an appendage at his instrument monitors.

"Then we are ready to start Phase 2. Collateral Damage through Victim of Circumstance, charge electromagnetic manipulators and prepare the cone. Mort, tell Nausicaä to upload herself into the data nodes in the drop pods." Nausicaä was the AI residing on the Collateral Damage who had volunteered to accompany the boarding parties; uploading herself into multiple pods would protect her from being deleted if the pod she was in should happen to be shot down by point defense.

-----

Captain Beelzebub Crane himself led the Aletes' spearhead attack against the incoming Victory Star Destroyers. The Captain might have had a few arguable mental imbalances, but he still possessed a sound grasp of warship tactics and stratagems. "We need more speed!" he proclaimed intensely. "If we can get up to a good 4 kilometers per second we can dump kitty litter on em and shred those motherfuckers all to bleeding hell!" Kitty litter, as Beetle called it, was a melange of differently-sized inert tungsten spheres that were released from ships traveling multiple kilometers per second to slam into targets like a hyperkinetic shotgun blast.

"We don't have nearly enough room to accelerate that much, Captain!" protested his helmsman, an Eldren named Uriel Uillach. "They're closing in for close range at full impulse!"

"We'll bust past 'em and slingshot around Leon, Uri," Crane ordered. "Fusion engines full forward, we'll broadside 'em and flame 'em with our exhausts on the way past! Now relay that order!"

The Cruel and Unusual and her three sister ships fired their fusion engines at their maximum output, belching out torches of plasma and flame hundreds of meters long as they accelerated forward at the incoming Victories. As they closed, all four battlecruisers belted out as much firepower at the closest Victories as they could. Besides that, all they could do was cross their fingers and hope their four vessels made it through the gauntlet of 20 Victories.

Five of the victories were badly damaged by the enemy fire, some of the commanders were taken aback by the ferocity of the attacks that stricken their vessels. By the time they could turn the enemy ships would be past their line.

"General enemy vessels blew past our Victory screen and the mechs are cutting into our vital parts. All our fighters are being destroyed by the enemy destroyer as soon as they come out. I'm afraid we are at a loss."

"Dammit! Why did it have to come to this. My world. My beautiful world was in my grasp."

The apparent suicide charge had actually worked; even outnumbering the mercenary cruisers five to one, the Victories let them straight through, and even got roughed up some for their trouble. Cuthalion's eyebrows rose, though the rest of his face stayed blank. AG4 had gotten some fancy toys, but clearly failed to utilize them to their full potential.

That wasn't to say that they were completely ineffectual. As Beelzebub's little group rocketed free and blasted towards Leon's gravity well, the cruiser Innocent Bystander lagged behind and began to list, her hull badly pocked and scorched in several places. Smoke and puffs of vented atmosphere vapor issued from several bad hull breaches and a number of smaller punctures.

"We took a bad volley, Cuthalion," said the Bystander's captain, Milos Raudebjorn ruefully. "All remaining decks are sealed and most of our weapons are still operational, but they must have gotten a lucky shot through to our drive block. We're only getting 63% power out of her."

"No worries, Milos," Cuthalion replied. "Find somewhere out of the way and we'll come and get you after this is all over."

In the meantime, the most crucial part of the operation was at hand. On Cuthalion's order, the Collateral Damage and her seven companions fired their EM field manipulators, combining them to create a funnel-shaped EM field extending all the way to several decks below the Imperial's bridge. The electromagnetic cone was in place to protect the drop pods from point defense fire, and even though the Imperial didn't seem to be putting up much of a fight in return, Cuthalion refused to take chances.

A split second after the field was up, several dozen drop pods were fired at high speed from the Aletian battlecruisers. The little pods, each carrying about ten mercenaries, swooped into the funnel and slammed into the Imperial's hull, magnetic clamps sealing them in place. Plasma cutters mounted on the flat front of each pod began cutting into the hull; the mercenary troopers waited tensely for the plasma cutters to finish their work and for the pod bulkheads to crash open, weapons of every kind locked and loaded and ready to raise hell.

OOC: bump?

OOC: Sorry I work graveyard and had to do some errands, like getting my comp fixed.

"Sir we are detecting hull breaks in sectors Two, four, seven, nine, twelve, and fifteen."

"Send all available men to secure those sectors."

"Yes sir."

The men got their assualt rifles and hid behind barracades in the corridors. Waiting for them to cut through and board the ship. Waiting nervously to fight for their cause. Even if that means to the death.

_______________________________-

"All Arm Slave Units, set up a perimeter around the dropships! I repeat set up a perimeter around the dropships. Urzu Six and Seven begin a perimeter sweep for any hostiles."

"Affirmative" said Urzu 7

"Gotcha" said Urzu 6

The two began to look for anything remotely hostile, turrets, men in EV suits.

OOC: No sweat, just wanted to make sure the RP hadn't died. :D

IC: The first of the plasma cutters finished their work, and slabs of hull fell forward with a crash and a shower of molten sparks. The Aletian mercenaries howled battle cries and lobbed HE and smoke grenades in both directions before piling out into the corridor, guns of all description blazing wildly to lay down covering fire. They had no way of knowing where the AG4 terrorists would be hiding themselves, but they assumed that they would be waiting for them; so they played it as safe as they could and hosed as much fire as possible in both directions down the corridor as they could.

Gunbjörn, the man in charge of the boarding parties, was the first to leap out of his pod and start spraying baseball-sized globules of plasma from his heavy plasma cannon down the corridor. His men piled whooping and hollering out of their pods to either side of him, spraying random automatic fire in either direction from their motley assortment of kinetic slug throwers, plasma and laser weapons, and flechette guns.

"FIND A COMPUTER JACK!" Gunbjörn roared as he exited the pod. Nausicaä had uploaded herself into a single data stick upon the pods' collision with the Imperial, which Gunbjörn now carried in one of his many pockets. If they could get the AI in control of the SD's systems, the battle would be almost as good as won. At that moment, however, AG4's men began to return fire.

The men looked at their fellow comrades burning to death in front of them. The rest behind opened up with their assualt rifles and heavy machine guns. Down the corridor a voice could be heard, but the gunfire drowned out the voice.

In the pit on the bridge Melanie looked up at Vaclav. "Sir, scans are reporting boardings, they are heading for the computer terminals in sector twelve."

"Probably going to hack into our database. Do we have any men near that area?"

"Yes sir a squad are just one block from it," she said.

"Get them over there, if all else fails blow it,"

"Yes sir."

The troops hid behind barracades and other obstructions, others were planting the C4 on the computers. Now they wait.

OOC: Just to clarify, the Aletians don't actually know where any computer terminals are, they're just looking for them as they're trying to shoot their way through the corridors to the bridge.

IC: Bullets thudded into armor and flesh, and the Aletes separated to both sides of the corridor and pressed themselves against the walls. The mercenaries were wearing light combat armor under whatever other clothing they had, so most body shots were deflected but bullets still found homes in legs, arms, and the occasional lucky neck shot. A dozen Aletes went down, but there were still a hundred more in the first drop pod wave.

The smoke grenades had had time to fill the corridors at either end of the entry zone with thick smoke. Those Aletes that had combat helmets were equipped with scopes that allowed them to see through the haze, and began taking more precise shots at AG4's men as they popped out from behind their barricades. The mercenaries tossed a volley of napalm and HE shrapnel grenades at the barriers, aiming behind them to get at the men using them as cover.

"OH MY GOD!" a man yelled in terror as the burns melted his flesh off his body. As men grabbed his legs they slipped an exposed the muscles underneath his skin, this sickened Tilman, "Fight brothers, fight for Vaclav. Fight for our right to this world. FIGHT!" he heard the squad leader trying to rally the troops only to be torn to shreds by enemy fire seconds later. He retreated into the computer terminal with the rest of the squad. Ready to make a last stand in the section.

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The Arm Slaves that made a perimeter around the drop pods, were defending ferociously against fighter attacks trying to pick off the ships. Shotcannons bursting out 52mm flak rounds did a number on the bombers while the ones with 40mm assault rifles took out the fighters. "Agh!" Urzu Ten's voice was heard through the radio.

"Ricky!"

"I'm fine, Ike is reporting moderate damage to the right shoulder."

"Keep your eyes out everyone they maybe rookie pilots but that doesn't mean they can't get the lucky shot."

"Yes ma'am." they all said.

"Enemy fire's slacking off!" an Aletian trooper proclaimed excitedly, right before a bullet tore through his upper arm. The hapless mercenary was dragged cursing into the relative safety of a drop pod by his fellows, along with the rest of the dead and wounded. Despite his comical bad luck, his observation was correct; AG4's fighters seemed to have fallen back from their barricades.

"What's the count, Moloch?" Gunbjörn barked at his second-in-command as he sprayed another volley of blue-hot plasma down the corridor for good measure.

"13 dead, 12 hurt too bad to fight," the lanky mercenary called back from inside the pod. "The rest of the boys just need to bind 'emselves up and they're good to go." Moloch crouched just inside the entrance to the pod as he hooked a fresh ammo belt up to his machine-coilgun (OOC: Along the lines of the Ork shoota (http://uk.games-workshop.com/orks/orkshome/images/ork-boyz.gif) on the left; but much more soundly constructed) and primed the weapon.

"Leave a few behind to watch over the wounded, and get everyone else along before we lose the initiative," Gunbjörn grunted, ordering his mercenaries to cautiously advance with a hand motion. Moloch slipped to the front and led a dozen troopers slightly ahead to the barricades. Burnt bodies and melted equipment were scattered about, but the Aletians gathered up what functioning weapons and ammunition there were and added them to their own personal arsenals.

Moloch clicked on his helmet's infrared sensors and peered quickly around the corner. "Looks like a squad hiding down at the next junction!" he hissed excitedly back to the rest, his voice made tinny by his helmet's microphone. Gunbjörn crouched beside him, using one of the barricades as cover.

"Toss a frag down there and clear 'em out quick," he grunted. "I want to get to the damn bridge before they bog us down."

Heedless of the C4, one of the Aletians obligingly unclipped a fragmentation grenade from her belt, squeezed the ignition button and lobbed it underhanded down the corridor at the terrorist squad.

The grenade flew by Tilman as he looked on. It bumped against the computer terminal and he instinctively took cover in a encasement of some sort. The frag triggered the C4 which caused and explosion barreling down the corridor towards the squad and the enemy. The squadmate turned to their horror as they were engulfed in flames as it continued down the corridor.

Moloch had time for a wide-eyed "Oh shi-" before the blast wave hit and swept the Aletians down like ninepins. Those who had been crouching behind barricades at the time faired best, though the heat of the blast still scorched hair. Those without cover were struck down mercilessly by the shockwave and landed with a crash in a tangle of bodies and weapons. As the explosion passed, they frantically began to untangle themselves and get to their feet, groaning and swearing.

"Gaw-damn!" a wild-haired mercenary exclaimed irately at the Aletian who had thrown the grenade. "What the hell did you put in that thing, girl?"

"I didn't put nothin' in it!" the woman yelled back. "Didn't you hear the two different explosions? They had a surprise waiting for us to get a little closer!"

"Shut up and fall in," Gunbjörn grated at them as he staggered to his feet, his head throbbing from being dashed so hard to the deck. He checked Nausicaä's data stick, which was unharmed, and then checked his men. Two humans and an Eldren had been burned pretty badly, and needed to be taken back to the pods and the rest of the casualties.

"Gunbjörn, what the hell did my sonic sensors just pick up from your deck?" came Cuthalion's voice over Gunbjörn's radio. "What is your status?"

"We're good, Cuthalion," the boarding commander replied gruffly. "Seems AG4 laid an anti-personnel charge for us that we detonated prematurely by mistake. On the bright side, the way looks clear from here to the bridge. Where exactly do we go from here, by the way?"

Cuthalion took a second to peruse the readouts of the Collateral Damage's scans of the Imperials interior structure. "It should be straight ahead a ways, then take the first left and the second right. Hurry up, but do not run straight into another trap like that."

"Yeah, we'll do our best. Gunbjörn out."

He motioned his 82 remaining mercenaries forward with a hand wave, and they set off for the bridge at a jog, pausing briefly at each junction to toss a cautionary grenade around the corner before proceeding.

-----

Outside the Imperial, the AG4 fighters and bombers that attempted to engage the Arm Slaves chose suicide by entering the collective point defense range of eight Aletian battlecruisers. Their coil gun turrets swept the area with deadly kinetic flak, making sure not to hit Mithril's troops or the precious Imperial. They traded blows with the Victory Star Destroyers still attempting to drive them away from their prey; even with the damage done by Beelzebub's breakaway, that still left 15 reasonably undamaged SD's against Cuthalion's eight battlecruisers. The Aletians tried to compensate by belting out

Then Beelzebub's little battlegroup came rocketing around from the far side of Leon at 7 km/second. Uriel the helmsman had managed to swing a course that would take them above and along the line of Victories rather than straight from behind them; he had managed to convince his captain that the collateral damage of spare kitty litter slamming straight into his own fleet and the massive vessel they were trying to capture just wasn't worth it. As it was, the four battlecruisers vented 200 tons of solid tungsten spheres from their storage bays in a spread large enough to bracket the Victory line without much chance of harming their allies. At 7 km/second, each sphere packed almost five and a half times its weight in TNT's worth of blam upon impact.

Five more Victories were destroyed in the hail storm of debris that hurtled towards them, some of the debris striking the ion reactors causing them to go critical incinerating the ships in balls of flames, two more were seriously damaged, firing only a couple turbolaser batteries and a few torpedo tubes. The rest seemed to have dodged the the blast radius in time, and continued to harass the battlecruisers. One bolted towards the Imperial Star Destroyer attempting to fire on the drop pods that landed on the ship.

_______________________________

Mao noticed the Victory closing in on their position, she knew it would be a matter of time before they would be fired upon. Urzu Ten through Fifteen, get your HEAT Hammers ready. Give us covering fire on my mark. The rest of you follow me."

Mao jumped the Arm Slave and ignited the jet pack, speeding towards the Victory, the others followed suit. "Now!" she ordered.

They fired their weapons at the Victory, firing EMP shells at the Victory hopefully dwindling its shields. Since the destroyer was too busy trying to pick off the pods it hadn't noticed the ten small mechs coming at them. The first volley of shells hit, damaging systems within the area. Mao and the team opened up their weapons on the Victory to help with dwindling the shields.

"Stop that battlecruiser!" Cuthalion snapped, seeing it break away from its fellows and charge the Imperial. He feared it might do something monumentally stupid yet devastating like ramming the larger ship, but instead it started spraying the landing zone with laser fire. Luckily the EM cone was still in place and stopped most of the shots, but they were still shooting at an area of hull that was thin enough for the drop pods to cut through. Taking out just one pod, or one lucky shot blasting through the hull, would blow the pressure throughout the deck and who knew what else.

Cuthalion's eight battlecruisers opened up on the lone Victory with their c-frac and laser batteries, aiming to break the shields and punch at least one hull breach through the bridge without causing the entire ship to explode. A close-quarters explosion of that magnitude would be disastrous.

"Reform the EM screen," the Eldren captain ordered as well. "Make a solid bubble around the landing zone instead of a cone, they could fire down the center and blow the atmosphere."

"That would indeed be bad," Halfdan sarcastically over his shoulder as Mort frantically made the necessary adjustments in tandem with the other seven instrument techs.

-----

"This is it," Moloch said via microphone to the others, pointing at the double doors of the bridge. There was a flurry of movement as the mercenaries took the opportunity to reload their weapons and check their equipment.

"You half get on the other side of the door," Gunbjörn growled, motioning at 40 of his troops with his plasma cannon. "Anything comes outta that bridge that ain't ours, I want those doors plastered with suppressing fire." The mercenaries rose and moved quickly past the double doors, taking up positions and covering the entrance. (OOC: That's assuming the doors are closed; if not, we can just go from them being shot at. I'll wait for your word before proceeding.)

"They're at the main doors sir." Melanie said.

"Send every available unit to the doors, they must hold the line." Vaclav said.

As Melanie gave the orders Vaclav turned and walked down a corridor, and climbed into an escape pod. Melanie, unassuming, lead the troops to the doors and awaited the enemy.

Vaclav climbed into the escape pod, and activated the protocols. The pod bursted out of the bridge holding and flew down towards the planet. Meanwhile Melanie, wielding a sword led the AG4 troops to the doorway waiting for the enemy to pour through.

In space the M9s landed on the attacking Victory and instantly started to take out the offensive weapons, planting large charges and neutralizing them with HEAT Hammers. "That should ease some pressure on our friends down there."

"Ma'am we have friendly fire coming at 0-3-2."

"All units disperse. Jump now!"

The pilots did what they were told shooting their weapons at the Victory as they jumped off to avoid the fire raining down on the cruiser.