A few more questions were raised about logistical matters and tactics on how the legions would be deployed. The Romani could plan for several contingencies, but the final battle deployments would depend on whether or not the Saltic will actually come out and fight. The Brandenburger CEO wanted the worms off his planet, even if it meant the destruction of the capital city. As he put it, there were other cities that could be the capital, but his corporation could not survive with the Saltic in its borders. The meeting ended and everyone left, after receiving their deployment orders and copies of the battle plans. The Slones were asked to remain behind with the Consul and the Legati.
“Christopher,” Juan Lorenzo began, “I would like you to turn your ship command over to Paul McMann and remain here with us in the command hover. Since you will be taking over for me in less than two years, you should see how ground operations are controlled. My gut tells me this will not be the last time we have to use consular armies.” The Legati present all nodded agreement to this statement. “Alaya, we have collected the fifty best marine snipers in the fleet. Some you have worked with before. Each one had to prove they could hit targets multiple times at a range of one kilometer. This is more than twice the range of Saltic energy weapons. They will be at your disposal throughout the campaign.” Lorenzo then pointed to a 3-D projection of the capital city on the conference table. He then pointed to each location as he discussed it. “The main camp of the Saltic is in this large square in the center of the city. The battle plan calls for the army to enter through the large boulevard extending from the center to the outskirts. The legions will be entering from the north and I would like you to place your snipers on all of the high rise roofs around the enemy camp before we engage. Once the battle begins, they would have difficulty getting into position. I want you to have your snipers take out any Saltic who looks like they are giving orders or have any kind of command responsibility. Your job will be to put confusion and panic into the enemy.”
“Yes, Consul. We can put the snipers in position before dawn of the day of the attack. This way the movements should go unnoticed. We can just await further developments from then.”
“A good plan as always, Decurion Slone,” Lorenzo used Alaya’s rank when part of a land force. “Take your ship to this small plaza well behind the enemy lines and drop off your special forces. Your optio has her orders as to what kind of disruption we are looking for. They will be in charge of demolition to prevent the Saltic from falling back. They will need time to carry out their tasks; therefore they are to be dropped off immediately.” The Consul then bade Alaya good luck and ordered her to return to her ship and ferry her special forces to the drop zone. Slone remained behind to confer with the commanders. He would stay aboard Alaya’s scout ship until the battle.
Alaya returned to her ship and saw that the snipers were all aboard and getting settled in. Fortunately, the corvette was built to hold a much larger crew than Alaya used and, in a pinch could comfortably carry one hundred passengers and crew. Once the Special Forces were dropped off, the ship would again be spacious.
Alaya entered the bridge, which was fully staffed by her elite scouting crew. “Tavia, ask for clearance and take us straight up and just outside the atmosphere.”
“Yes, Captain.” Tavia got clearance and fifteen minutes later they were parked just outside the atmospheric bubble surrounding the planet.
“Hatch, make us invisible. Tavia take us over the capital and reenter the atmosphere. Bring us down on the other side of the Saltic camp and I will tell you where to land.”
“Yes, Captain.”
The ever efficient Tavia moved the invisible ship over the capital and slowly entered the atmosphere, avoiding all clouds as much as was possible. Soon they were over the city and on the other side of the Saltic camp. Alaya pointed out where to land and the ship set down with a minimum of disturbance. Now came the tricky part. Discharging the Special Forces would break the invisibility shield.
“Olivia, are there any life signs on the scanners.”
“Captain, there are no human life signs in the surrounding buildings. There are Saltic moving in the area, but none closer that a half kilometer.”
“Let me know if any move closer.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Alaya left the bridge and went down to the small hangar deck where the Special Forces were assembling. They had decided to rappel down from the hangar rather than use the bottom airlock. This way they could get off the ship as quickly as possible to avoid detection. They would also be leaving from the side facing away from the enemy camp. Alaya walked over to the commander of her forces. “Optio Brave Claw, are you and your forces ready?”
“Sss. Yes Decurion. We are set to leave immediately.”
“We do not detect any Saltic within a half kilometer of our position. You should be good to go.”
The serpent nodded and signaled her forces to start rappelling down. They did so, five at a time and in ten minutes they were gone and the cables were pulled back aboard the ship. Invisibility was intact and Alaya went back to the bridge. “Tavia, pull us up a few kilometers and move us slowly over the camp. Make sure there are no serpent ships spying out the area. I don’t want to run into any by mistake. Hatch, keep us posted on any invisible ships around.”
“Sss. Yes Captain.”
The Mary Rose moved straight up a few kilometers and then slowly moved over the enemy camp. Alaya had the video feed sent directly to the command center so the leaders could see what she saw. There were many Saltic milling about, most of those she saw were gathers and were moving under their domes. She could also see through the domes that there were entrances underground.
“Liv, see if you can scan what’s under this plaza.”
“Yes, Captain.” Olivia pressed some buttons and concentrated on the readouts. After a short time she looked up, “Captain, there is a large complex underground. Some is made up of existing utility tunnels but there is a lot of new excavation. I think they must spend a lot of time underground.”
“Like the worms that they are,” Alaya said to no one in particular. “Did you read all that, Consul?”
“Consul Lorenzo’s voice came on, yes we did. Before you return, see if there are any tunnels leading away from the base.”
Alaya looked at her daughter, who then looked up, “No new ones, but they are tapped into the existing ones and they go throughout the city. They can use them to rapidly deploy anywhere in the city.”
“Understood, return to base,” Lorenzo ordered. This put an added risk to the equation. They would have to watch for Saltic moving to outflank them or come into their rear from underground. If nothing else, the Romani were looking forward to a good fight against a worthy, though evil enemy. They also knew there would be no quarter given by either side. Any captured Romani would lose their brains and the Saltic knew the humans hated them and would give them no mercy. This was a war of annihilation.
The next day was spent in fine tuning the preparations and making certain the field hospitals were fully staffed and ready to receive casualties. Before dawn on the day of battle, the Mary Rose took off and went invisible. She then flew to the various buildings around the enemy camp and dropped off her snipers on the roof tops, being careful to remain clear of the buildings set for demolition. The scout ship then landed back in the same plaza as two days before to act as a fall back for the Special Forces operating in the area of the central plaza and to lend air support if needed.
Dawn broke over the capital and it was a beautiful spring day for that location on the planet. Brandenburg was an earth-like planet, almost the same size as Earth. It had all of the temperature zones of the human home world and a large biome of native flora and fauna. The city was the usual unimaginative construction so common in corporate space. The gates to the legionary camps facing the city to the south, opened and the legions marched out. As soon as the legions started leaving the camp, the air cover rose up from the landing areas and moved over the tr
oops. As Slone stood in the command hover, he could see everything on the video screens. It was indeed an impressive sight. The air cover consisted of 360 hovercrafts that started to move out slightly ahead of the legions. Also in the air umbrella were one hundred serpent ships. They maintained a higher altitude and remained invisible. It was their task to prevent any escape from the planet. Each of the six legions was also accompanied by a hover tank battalion consisting of sixty tanks. These were arrayed thirty ahead and thirty behind each legion. There were also sixty antiaircraft hovers assigned to each legion and these remained behind to guard the camps from air attack. The camps would be used as field hospitals and for storage of arriving supplies as needed. All of the wounded who reached a point where they could hold a weapon were constantly being brought down to the camps to act as a reserve. The legions went out with the 10th in the lead; since they had the least casualties in that they had not dealt as much with the harvester ships as had the battleships. The rapid deployment legions then went out in numerical order, Legio I Celeri, and then legions Legio II, III, IV and V Celeri. The command hovercraft was between the 10th and the first Celeri legion. Drones were up in all directions and high above the city to give a full view of the battlefield. All was set for the liberation of Brandenburg to begin.
Chapter 11 – The Battle of New Berlin
There was a long, broad avenue extending from the northern edge of the city to the central plaza. This was the main reason the Romani decided to approach from the north. Any other direction would have meant fighting from street to street to enter the city. The legionary camps were five kilometers north of the city and the legions covered this distance in a steady march, so as not to tire out before the hard work began. Across the entire area, the cadence drones kept up a steady drumbeat at normal marching tempo. As the 10th legion reached the city border, they advanced with a solid shield wall in front. As they moved into the city, there did not seem to be any resistance. The air cover went in front of the legion as they progressed down the avenue. When the command hover reached the outskirts, it rose up to allow the remaining five legions to pass under it and enter the city. Just as this was taking place, large numbers of Saltic began to come out of the basements of the buildings along the avenue. They came out with their weapons firing energy bolts into the massed legionaries. Several legionaries went down before they could stop and take a defensive stance with shields locked. The legion, which had been in a square, now expanded laterally and the legionaries returned fire along with the hover tanks that accompanied the legions. It soon became apparent that the Saltic had used their lesser quality troops for the ambush. The weapons they used were not as powerful as those used by the front line troops were and they were not wearing heavy armor. As a result, they began to fall rapidly under the fire of the legion. However, more started firing from the cover of the building basements and that meant the battle was going to be a building-to-building slog to the plaza. Slone now saw the air cover begin firing into the surrounding buildings and hitting them with missiles. Between the energy bolts coming from the basements of the buildings and the tracers coming from the Gatling guns on the hovercrafts of the air wing, the entire area was filling with points of light that reminded Slone of fireworks, although, in this case, they were lethal. Consul Lorenzo ordered the cadence increased to double time and also ordered the first five legions to move forward and ignore the fire and let the last legion take care of the rear. The hovercrafts were taking multiple hits from the energy weapons of the Saltic troops, but their armor was too thick for the bolts to penetrate. As they reached the cross streets, for the first time they saw that the Saltic had ground vehicles and these carried a mounted energy weapon of considerable size. The vehicles looked like antigravity sleds with the driver encased in an armored structure at the rear end and the energy cannon mounted on a swivel at the front end. The vehicles were fast and a group of five came out of a side street and started firing at the air cover as they darted across the avenue back to the shelter of the opposite building cluster. The Romani were taken by surprise at the sudden appearance of these vehicles and did not react in time to return fire. However, the fire from the enemy was accurate and three hovercrafts were hit and taken out of action. Two ran forward and landed in the boulevard in front of the legions. They would have to be moved around but did not do any damage. Their pilots and gunners ran back to the Romani lines. The third hovercraft took an engine hit and dropped like a flaming rock into the Legio III Celeri and caused a large number of casualties as the legionaries worked to put out the fires. The crew did not survive and the legion was reduced by almost a hundred legionaries. Lorenzo ordered half of the hover tanks to search out and destroy those vehicles and this started a prolonged street action as it became evident that the Saltic had many more ground vehicles in play. It appeared the Saltic were thinking strategically and their ground vehicles lured away and kept busy half of the Romani’s ground armor. Lorenzo could have sent the hovercrafts to take out the Saltic vehicles but he needed them for cover. He still had the serpent ships and the corvettes if needed and decided to send half the serpent ships on a search and destroy mission for any Saltic nearby as the legions continued their march into the city. The last legion was now engaged with the Saltic in the buildings and there was a heated fight into the basements of the structures. The battle was shaping up to be the most intense combat the Romani had ever engaged in and the outcome was far from guaranteed.
At the small plaza to the south of the enemy camp, the Mary Rose sat invisible as the combat channel played over the bridge speakers. Only the bridge crew was still aboard, awaiting orders and developments. They heard the response to the ambush and Alaya asked Olivia to project the combat feeds to the inside of the bridge bubble to keep better track of events in case they were called on to help.
“Captain, there is a tight beam transmission coming to us from the command hover,” Olivia said to her mother.
“Put it through.”
Olivia pushed a button and the communications channel opened. “Captain Alaya Slone, this is a priority message from Consul Lorenzo. Hold for the Consul.” The computer voice announced, then Juan Lorenzo came on the line, “Captain Slone, the Brandenburger forces have dropped to the south of your position, they will work their way up to the main plaza from there and attack the Saltic. You are to drop invisibility so their hovercrafts do not run into you by mistake. You are also to give them any support they need and cover them if they have to fall back.”
“Yes, Consul, we will be ready,” Alaya said and the line closed. She then turned to Hatch, “Hatch, make the ship visible.”
“Sss. Ship is visible, Captain.”
Alaya acknowledged Hatch and then returned to watching the feeds. The leading legion was now half way to the main plaza and the geodesic domes the Saltic had set up to live under. So far they had not come out to fight the way normal human armies did and kept firing from the cover of buildings. A pattern was developing that required the legions to clear each building as they came to it. This made progress very slow and also increased casualties among the legions. It took the entire daylight hours to work their way to the main plaza and when dusk came on the 10th legion had just reached the outskirts of the main plaza. Normally fighting at night would not be a problem, but after a full day of it, the legions were spent and had to rest. Field camps were quickly set up and all of the adjacent buildings were occupied by legionaries for the night, to make sure there were no surprises from the Saltic. The Romani knew that the Saltic did not have night vision, but were not sure if they were used to night combat. So far the Romani knew they were tough opponents who did not mind sacrificing themselves as individuals for the good of the whole. In that way they were very much like the Romani. If not for their despicable attitude towards other sentient species, the Romani could even admire them.
Aboard the Mary Rose Alaya ordered the ship at rest. She contacted all of her snipers and they had been resupplied by Alaya’s serpent special forces
since they could enter the buildings and return without detection. The Special Forces had returned to the ship before dusk and reported their mission was finished and the buildings were set for demolition when the time came.
“Captain, there is a signal coming from the Tempestas,” Olivia reported.
“Put it through.”
Tom Garner’s voice came over the communicator, “Alaya, Chris asked me to put him through to you over the ship so as not to give your location away.”
“Thanks, Tom. Put him through.”
Slone’s voice came through now, “Alaya, how are you doing and did you see any action?”
“No, Chris. All quiet here. The Brandenburger forces are camped in the smaller plaza with us and are forming a buffer between us and the main plaza. So far there has been no sign of the Saltic this far back, but we are half a kilometer from the domes. My scouts report no movement under the domes. I have no idea what the enemy is doing but it seems to all be underground so watch out. How did the first day go?”
“We have a lot of wounded; most will be back on the line tomorrow. What concerns me is our dead. Just moving through the city we took about eight percent casualties. Body count on the enemy indicates just fewer than two to one dead on their side, but we did see them pull some of their wounded out of the way. They are using tunnels, both existing and some that are not on our maps. They must have tunneled under the city. We are starting to realize we are dealing with a subterranean species and that could be a problem for us. Our science techs think it odd that they are tunnel diggers, yet they do not have night vision. I say it is a good thing for us that they don’t. The camp is going into rest mode now. Just be careful out there, Hon.”
Invasion Page 24