by Dark Knight
“How good was your colony’s DMS Lilly? I mean, could it hack into enemy comms links? We could learn a lot about the taz’aran operation by listening to their chatter.”
“Yes, it could record some limited comms and I programmed it to do so, but only passively.” – answered Lilly tilting her head to the side embroiled in thought.
“The taz’arans never found it, otherwise they wouldn’t have trailed after me with such passion,” – she sighed – “yet, reaching the device was never a part of my plan. Too busy trying to survive, you see, but you can rest assured I can find it with my eyes closed.”
Cat nodded and rummaged through the rest of her battle notes – she had to use relevant tactics. Her captain had left her in command of their shore party, and this time success was doubly important. Recovering the DMS meant that they would probably find the kidnapped colonists, and with them, those who dragged them away kicking and screaming. Cat’s cybernetic arm contracted almost on its own – she hated slavers with every fiber of her body.
Next to her, Dozan, while anxious to face the taz’arans in battle, stood silent the whole time with the exception of that moment when everyone vowed to keep Vasilisa’s absence from the battlefield a secret. He was well knowledgeable in Spacer culture and their Ritual customs. The woman probably would lose standing with her own family even, if they knew she’d left Alric’s side. Their devotion to the person they chose to spend their lives with was most commendable. It was the same with all Terran women, really, yet Spacers had somehow managed to take this custom and made it one of the pillars of their relationships.
Dozan smiled and started whistling the anthem of the Imperial Minarchy. It was a beautiful melody, composed in the fashion of old classical music, and its rhythm amazing. Catching everybody’s attention, Dozan unleashed one of his disarming smiles:
“What can I do, the Minarchy’s hymn is so catchy! I am a morale officer after all.” – The kil’ra tapped both his sword’s handle and ornate cap with gloved hands.
While his new crewmates were exchanging hopeful smiles, Dozan was all but sure of something. The taz’aran in command of that vessel who fought against them, was different. Everything that his Master had taught him screamed proper Lord Captain, perhaps one hailing from the depraved empire’s core worlds. Yet his new captain, the dzenta’rii Anit’za, manhandled that person with the usual cunning precision one could expect from his race, moreover, the stratagems used were a delightful mix, between honored Terran artillery tradition and dzent’a subterfuge. He was beginning to like the man, even more so after experiencing his collected, and at times even cheerful manner under duress.
It was as if the burden of command was enjoyable for him to carry, and that meant less work for him to do. For a morale officer that was more valuable time that he could devote to others, who actually needed him the most and he gave the bunny another look. The morale officer refrained from petting her – after all she was a warrior now, not some careless civilian. He was given plenty of information about Lilly’s incredible accomplishments by her captain. All of her heroic resistance against slavery and oppression occupied his thoughts and every free moment he’d spent writing a battle song. The morale officer decided that its name will be “Hazel eyes” and had completed it before them reaching Carrola.
Dozan remembered what he had recently lived through on Semoa colony. Fact is, he almost perished there and despite his peerless heroism, that would’ve been his first, and last battle. It had left him with a gaping, bleeding wound that he’d successfully concealed from those he led then in battle. Their state being such, that had they seen him stagger, there was no saying what would’ve happened. At least he got some loot from the whole ordeal, not counting the devastating Berreta snub-railgun gifted by that gunsmith. Sadly, the ship’s armory officer was unable to spare the time needed, to resize and repair his looted suit of armor, as it would’ve taken one full week of uninterrupted work on his own. Yet, the crafty star warrior was still able to fashion something for him and left it next to his armor alcove, all wrapped in ragged, old piece of cloth.
It was a shield, and one he was expertly trained to wield in combat. Despite what most people thought, shields weren’t just another means of protecting oneself, they was also potent weapons in their own merit. His teacher, although old and decrepit, had taught him well the art of shield and weapon combat. It appears that he was trained form an early age in something that the people of Earth living on the continent of Europe called HEMA. It was later than he understood what it meant both culturally for the European peoples and in terms of sheer survivability. HEMA stood for historical European martial arts and its spread had preserved old warrior traditions for generations. When those invaders struck there were plenty of humans, well trained to fight in the newly adopted modern melee warfare.
Master Ulfric was one of those men. Alone he was on the front during all of those initial battles and facing multiple enemies. All kil’ra greatly respected and honored their elders, and that human would stand tall among even the very best of Kil’ra. Out of respect, members of the Kil’ra Alliance would gladly gift him with rewards and other boons.
Dozan smirked. His master was a hard man to catch when it came to rewards – his old uniform back from the Great War was so encased with medals, that they almost formed an additional layer of armor protection. After training him, his last and best pupil, Master moral officer Ulfric Wagner had finally retired and with full honors. He was murmuring something about the calm peace of a vegetable garden somewhere in the German countryside, cold beer in the evenings with some charcoal roasted bratwurst on the side.
Universe! That man had more than earned his small measure of peace.
The elevator doors opened and the crew split in two groups. Alric, Boris and the captain ran towards the airlock, while Cat, Brynjar, Lilly, Dozan and Vasilisa turned around the corridor entering the ship’s armory. Vasilisa and Brynjar quickly grabbed one backpack each, stuffing them with emergency rations, spare power packs and medsprays. Cat simply walked over to where the armor stands were. There were ten alcoves along the ship’s armory furthest wall and currently only three of them were occupied. One had a broken, mangled and all but destroyed heavily armored spacesuit that had barely saved her life. Sadly Cat was unable to spend enough time to fix most of its damaged parts. Instead at a discount price she had procured one medium-sized field armor. Fully upgraded, the mark two “Squire” boasted integrated engines, fire protection, a command PDA and augmented armor plating. Cat grabbed her scanning goggles, strapped them on her face and entered the armor. Quickly its parts wrapped around her body and she calmly placed the helmet last, activating the PDA and linking her goggles with it.
She heard the suit’s VI murmuring – “Situational awareness increased; Range fifty meters at ideal conditions; Mapping subroutines updated;” – Cat started quickly filling her mag-slots with weapons. Grenades first, followed up by her Krupp auto-laser, the great-axe and instead of her favorite heavy auto-railgun she picked up an RPG. While she was quickly locking the spare missiles her suit’s VI muttered again – “Weapon list updated; Heavy load-out detected;” – Cat sighed, loading the best type of ordinance she thought they could use in this environment. The lock-on weapon was scanner guided, could fly around corners, and its warhead held an enhanced fragmentation mine. The back of that armor was set up with multiple more mag-slots for spare weapons, which in this case she used to haul more ammunition. She picked up two additional anti-personnel, two anti-tank missiles and walked away from the ordinance rack.
A professional soldier, Cat was ready for battle far quicker than her crewmates. She stood for a whole thirty more seconds near the door of their armory, while the rest were still preparing. Immediately after, Dozan walked ready beside her, hands grasping his new shield. Cat was surprised to see the thing only coated with a simple layer of forest green paint. Both exchanged a look, and the towering morale officer smiled tapping the shield’s metal surface. She
was all but sure – in the hands of a Kil’ra, this almost plain looking shield would probably kill more taz’arans than her grenades.
Probably.
Lilly checked her gear, strapping the already prepped backpack on her shoulders. This time, the equipment that Lilly had access to was luxurious to say the least. Mark two light field armor of excellent quality that her friend had personally crafted, her armor suit caused not discomfort when worn. Instead of more and thicker armor plating, she had insisted on having an integrated medical system, and such that was connected directly to her PDA. Lilly had bled too many a time and her bunny blood soaked into the soil of her home planet; this time she’d ordered the best medsprays.
True to her word, Lillyana investigated who crafted the meds that saved her life during her ordeal. She found the person inside one small medical equipment store on Cav, and tried expressing her gratitude. The old man simply smiled, told her how happy he was that his meds had saved another life... and gave her a discount. Seriously, while most clients in this galaxy were suffering, her kind and the rest of Humanity’s sentient followers won from the lottery of existence – big time!
Lilly also had an extra big, spacious backpack – the spare power packs, grenades and light anti-personnel mines she wanted to carry with her had to be stored somewhere. As for her armor upgrades, Lilly, of course, had one lightweight exoskeleton installed, plus some extra melee protection. Inspecting her suit one last time she checked if the data-stream from her scout goggles was linked to her PDA, and turned around jumping up and to the sides a couple of times to “feel” the weight of her extra equipment.
She then pointed at the large crate that her Captain had told her about earlier:
“Bee, check this out! Cap mentioned earlier that you should grab this before planetfall, a present of some sort he said.” – and carefully checked her spare power pack energy levels while the Asgardian casually picked up the crate, weighting the thing with one arm before opening it. He whistled in amazement instantly grabbing the long rifle that was laying within, shouldering the weapon. The second piece he pulled out of that crate was a sheathed large sized dagger, which was apparently taken directly from someone’s power armor, and a space-fiber body harness. He strapped it on his armored suit and quickly locked on some spare heavy power packs, needed to power a weapon of this size.
Lilly pointed at the long rifle eyes wide, and elbowed Vasilisa:
“Wait, is that what your hubbie does? Crafting monster rifles based on anti-tank railguns in his spare time?” – The spacer nodded smiling, whilst picking another spare power pack for her Winchester “Space Sweeper” rail-shotgun. Vasilisa had more than enough ammo for the pistol. There wasn’t a true spacer that walked around without at least two extra mags on top of what anyone else carried for their sidearms.
The bunny stood next to her Asgardian friend comparing her own size with his new rifle’s length. She whistled again. Brynjar, after grabbing another hand-held anti-tank grenade and sticking it to his boot, tapped the bunny’s head gently and exiting the armory noted:
“Thank the Ancestors your man didn’t install some useless holo-sight on this Vasilisa, for I am not a man who indulges in luxuries. As far as I know this is a design based on the Finnish Mosin anti-tank rifle, and he all but perfected it. Not exactly a sniper myself, I can still give you accurate long range fire support.” – While they were all trotting toward the hangar, Brynjar smiled and added – “I promised Lillyana, next time you go into battle it won’t be alone!” – And striding a tad bit forward the Asgardian muttered under his nose – “Ancestors, grant me a meeting with at least one of those who originally assaulted the colony!”
After entering the hangar proper, the group boarded Vasilisa’s starship and engines spooling her landing struts demagnetized, all but instantly retracting in its hull. The “Princess Frog” controls laid in Vasilisa’s hands, and she finally closed her faceplate, deactivating the comm link for a short while. Tears ran down her face and with lips trembling she whispered:
“Universe protect him, for I cannot!”
She then punched the main engine accelerator controls to the max, immediately after the hangar door opened before her, revealing the incoming pirate star marines. Fanned out like vulture’s wings, their boarding teams were flying forward, proudly wearing their Aleska clan colors. True to her discipline, Vasilisa only fired a couple of bouts from her wing mounted railguns and with engines screaming on full power whizzed past the stunned pirates, on course towards Carrola Prime...
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Running towards ’Empress Throne’ hangar bay, Nedal had to leap over damaged bulkheads and dodge wounded crewmen. The corridors were full of steaming hot air and he saw many lying on the floor-plating, cooked alive inside their spacesuits. It was happening again!
This time, and with Omasa in command, he couldn’t just leave everything and escape – that crafty bastard had thoughtfully sent all of the hyperspace capable dropships away on a boarding mission. No crewman or star trooper could sneak away too, they all had to stand and fight. Taz’arans, like anyone else in this situation would dearly sell their lives. What was that those filthy Terrans said – “Put your troops on the edge of a cliff and they will fight to the last man.”
Annoying as they were, this time the humans were right.
The doors slid open revealing his already loaded up, heavy troop transport. It was chalk full of troopers and vehicles – somebody had even mag-locked the contents of his not-that-well-smuggled crate on its main deck. Nedal nervously gulped as he noticed that his PA was not alone, and the deck crew had prepared it for combat. Next to it stood in line and well secured too, six other power armors. Their pilots jokingly were throwing some rookie’s snagged helmet that they had painted with a red dot, as if nothing had happened to their starship just a couple of minutes ago.
Fucking mecha jocks!
Even though his own training in the academy was thorough and hard, he hated being assigned to the PA corps. Super heavy soldiers were not that expandable as their fleshy brothers and sisters, but instead deployed to the most dangerous places on a given battlefield and then expected to win at any cost. Nedal did everything in his power; he plotted, killed even, but managed to somehow survive his first deployment on Sirius Prime and got the transfer to the command division. From there it was easy returning back to the academy for retraining. Now, he was back. Back inside the cockpit of that walking coffin with a bulls-eye painted on its hull!
Nedal jumped inside the heavy transport as his young underlings saluted him – almost too enthusiastically and he was forced to salute back in return. Strange. The troopers looked shiny almost, with their upgraded lightweight field armors and clean rifles, medical teams carrying big backpacks full of medical equipment. Something in all of this kind-of reminded Nedal about those propaganda holo-ads and he, despite the fact that they were all going into battle, unleashed a crooked smile. There was some silent murmur from the lower enlisted ranks but it quickly dissipated as he leaped inside his PA and sealed the cockpit shut. The transport shook while she took off, and as the vessel left ’Empress Throne’ it veered to its port side, taking the shortest navi-route through the debris field. It was flying on full burn too, and had Nedal’s PA not been well secured the XO would’ve fallen squarely on his ass.
“Be careful, you suicides! I want to land on that pitiful planet, not crash and die out here!” – Nedal shouted on the comms, trying to warn the two pilots to be careful.
“Lord Captain’s orders, your Excellency! We are to reach Carrola Prime as fast as possible!” – the voice of that pilot sounded strangely familiar, but then again to him, the “wobblers” as cargo pilots were called, all sounded exactly the same.
On his command link Nedal noted the size of his force and since there was nothing else to do during the trip, he started studying the unit’s equipment. He certainly wasn’t ready to fraternize w
ith his minions by talking to them directly.
*Empress Mantle!*
The Lord Captain had assigned under his command one full star trooper mobile company strengthened by a PA squad. Correction, a reinforced command PA squad, since he was in the cockpit of his own power armor too. Nedal had armored fighting vehicles (AFV’s) for all his star trooper sections and on top of all that, three fire teams equipped with plasma charge mortars. Those drove around in dangerously open, lightly armored grav-cars, but that was none of his concern right now. If everything went according to plan, protecting that crash site down there should be the remnants of a taz’aran platoon, well entrenched and eager to join his forces.
That made Nedal feel a tad bit better, and when one of the pilots sent him his last sensor data-stream, he began snickering gleefully – on the optical view they could see only one small Terran shuttle, quickly flying towards the planet. Certainly that craft was not able to field as many troops as they had, nor carry vehicles and heavy equipment. Nedal finally felt the calm, and reassuring presence of the thick layer of high quality cannon fodder that surrounded him. He actually felt safer here, than on board the ’Empress Throne’.
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Vala could see everything displayed on her faceplate and although the hardened pirate marine didn’t want to admit it, she and her clan mates were completely, and utterly, fucked.
And yet, the boarding op started so promising.
Their enemy starship was moderately damaged. She’d waited long enough so that the particle guns of her Lord Captain would work their magic. And so they did. Not in the way she’d hoped, though. The navigator who piloted that Terran starship was superbly skilled, nay, a real prodigy. In her long life on the battlefield Vala had seen many a promising pilot, but not one of them could come even close to flying a vessel of that size and in such a manner. That would mean only one possible thing when Terrans were involved – Spacers! Cold shivers crawled down her spine. If the vessel’s crew was comprised entirely of those insane gunslingers, there was no chance Vala would storm it. Not if she had a choice, and not on her own. The mercenary contract bound Vala and her Marines to Omasa though, and there was but only one option available to them now – all-out attack!