Many people would tell me that bringing my daughter along while I squash a foreign insurgency is irresponsible parenting—my friends included. However, as I never intend to present myself to a fair fight, I find myself on Mab, temporarily tied into her command suite as she is still attempting to remove herself from the impromptu integration with the hull from the battle.
There are more than five thousand cats left on Clotho, my industrial money-making moon, and if I meet more than a hundred I combat I’ve failed at ruling a space Empire.
“Have the A-M torpedo’s been retrofitted with my napalm dispersal units?”
“Yes Admiral, seven of them were converted and ready for use.”
“Excellent, Captain Burgess. A spread of kinetic and our Aether-based thermobaric torpedoes on the sites of highest concentrations per this intrusion map.” I link a basic image of my Empire display of current Herrati. “Fire kinetics on buildings, delay five to seven minutes then target the buildings again with the napalm. Delay ten then blanket the area in firebombs.”
“That seems a tad excessive Admiral, we have several hundred marines onboard for clean up.”
My eyes narrow as I consider the nature of his comment. Was it doubt? Admonishment? Or a simple disagreement based on what we know of the enemy’s capabilities? Lets default to the latter and address.
“Captain Burgess. The most likely survivors of a bunker busting strike are the most advanced. I have personally faced, and felt challenged by, Herrat of level 45 with the ability to teleport short distances while sword fighting. While I have the utmost confidence in the ability of my Marines, I would not have them face such danger without some exhaustive air strikes. After the dust settles, a company of Marines and I will end the threat, but not before Titania takes her price in bodies.”
“Momma? What can I do?” my adorable golem baby asks
“Do you feel comfortable around my marines and can you stealth?”
“Duh, mom. I can use wind to dampen every sound ever.”
Uh, what? When did my daughter find her second element? “Baby, when did you discover your second element?”
“What? No. I was just trying to sneak up on Auntie Jenna and this is how I did it.”
“Zia, hon, the wind answered, that’s your element. Space and wind will make you the fastest person on Astoria. Can you dampen the whole group?”
“Of course! No more than seven plus me though, still working on it.”
I look over to the Marine platoon leader and quirk an eyebrow. “Captain Spencer, do you understand the capabilities of a wind operative?”
The man stutters a moment before looking me in the eyes; “I know how to treat a non-combatant specialist, Ma’am. Best I can do.”
“Zia, honey, Captain Spencer says that you are at higher risk than the average Marine. You still want to do this?”
“I want to help, and I want to be a citizen. I will follow the Captain, but let me do this.” She pleads. My tiny, baby golem is asking me to trust that tiny girl frame. FUCK! What do I do? Responsible Human makes me want to pull her into a cocoon and never let her out. The Fey in me wants me to throw her to the wolves to see what kind of leader she will make. The Fey are cunts.
“Okay baby, don’t hoot or bite unless you have to, and listen to Captain Spencer.”
When the platoon and my daughter group together for transport I already know I’m going to blow up a moon, it just depends on if my daughter comes back or not. My facilities can be rebuilt, but this exact, curious, loving version of my Zia may never be the same. This is when I know that I’m going to commit genocide.
I was on the fence about what I was willing to do to the Herrati and their deceitful advance on my civilization. The fact that they expected to lose some ships and that they already deployed a combined colony and slaver ship has me livid.
When Alaris arrived on scene in Sol-system yesterday, she got a hit on the long range relays in the Centauri system with readings of waste radiation consistent with the trashy patch job the Herrat use to install warp capabilities on their invasion ships. She didn’t find any more concrete evidence of their location, but Aether mixed with annihilation energy is a big clue.
Andromeda takes a bite when you kill a majority of civilians. The colony ships are a herring and are a loss at any bet. Which is why the Herrat put colony crews on a slaver ship and basically de-incentivize attacking their slaver fleet. I wonder though, with their penchant for attacking newer inclusions to the Matrix, if the defenders cared all that much or even had the opportunity to learn about that quirk in the Matrix. It’s likely an anti-interdiction ploy.
This, however, can wait until I respond to the Herrati Warleader’s disrespectful attitude. Now though, my 9th level child wants to participate in a stealth recon mission while the Marines and I clean up after the pummeling I’m about to ask Titania to begin.
“Begin bombardment.” The Captain orders Navigation to orient the ship and Weapons to fire weapons groups as the ship begins to hum with energy. To my surprise, the opening salvo includes rail gun ballistics, instead of explosive penetrating ordinance. I know a lot about weapons, but I’ll admit that I don’t know what’s going to happen to the hypervelocity rounds that are being fire from orbit. I find that my Cruisers are equipped with a few dozen rounds with heat and wind resistant shielding. Well, if it’s not going to burn up in atmo, then it should do the job.
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Less than ten minutes later the torpedoes start dropping void napalm in a thin blanket across the pummeled building and the still settling cloud of dust. Then we set it on fire.
“You coming on the shuttle Admiral?” a Navy pilot asks me.
“No thanks, Sailor. Haven’t tested the re-entry capabilities of this armor model yet.”
The look on his face priceless. After a few seconds of gaping in surprise, he shakes his head and replies, “Copy that, rendevouz in 17 mikes.” He salutes and then escapes back into the shuttle.
“All hands, once leaving Titania’s hull, we’re comms dark until enemy contact. Ship’s crew, maintain standard operation for moon surveys and comms regarding recovery. Our bombing run seem to have taken them by surprise, but we don’t want them to know we’re waiting for them to escape the rubble.”
I get clicks in response.
Walking over to environmental shield that allows shuttles to exit without venting atmosphere, I stop to turn around and salute the ship “I have permission to go ashore,” I say before jumping backwards through Titania’s envelope and into space. I burn my thrusters toward the moon and point my body like a dart in anticipation for the atmosphere that extends nearly 60k km off the surface. As silly as it sounds, when the heat visor comes down and noise cancelling suite activates, I’m at my most peaceful despite hurtling toward the ground at hundreds of km/s.
I contemplate my next moves during the minutes it takes me to fall, wondering if I employ my ‘bad kitty’ device before I help the Herrati POW’s build a city or after. I suppose that depends on the intelligence report that comes back from Sol. Hmm, that’s not entirely true: I’ve committed to using it already, now I just need to gage how well supported their fleet headed toward Earth is. It’s possible that the ships already committed will continue to be committed after I destroy their command structure. Though, it is a near surety that their remaining military craft will have more to worry about after I strike.
The proximity alarm in my suit tells me to pay more attention to my tiny falling body through the surprisingly large moon’s atmosphere. Smallest of the trio, but also further out, Supiter’s magnetic field doesn’t cover it as well as it’s habitable sister moons. Hence why I made it my industrial center: Radiation is high enough that not a lot grows here, but the solar winds are buffeted enough that the moon can keep its gasses around.
As soon as the temperatures of my shields begin lowering, I engage the ripple strips on my suit to slow me down to a hand-full of mps and engage my thrusters to reorient myself to the LZ we discussed in my briefing. With my acceleration tolerance being elevated to 15-18g, I come in hot and make my ripple drive stop me a meter from the ground and drop the remainder.
A quick area survey tells me that there are thermal readings where I expect cats to be emerging from the adjacent factory to help the survivors from the bombing. I had no misgivings that I would have gotten them all with the bombing tactics, but it’s nice to see that my setup was successful. As much as I want to go in there and start cleaning up, I know my Marines are two to three minutes out and it would be hard for me to gain the remaining Herrati’s concentrated attention for that long. After raiding the Vengeance and the Aggressor, I know for a fact that they have rifles that can hurt me—I designed them after all. Nothing I know is more frustrating than being shot at with weapons I made that were never supposed to see life in other race’s hands.
Several drones detach from the incoming landing craft to lay covering fire for their approach. As soon as the drones are in range, I fly up and engage the enemy from high above even the drones. I pull out a long-gun I developed with the punching power of an Indian Elephant falling from a cargo aircraft. The first Herrati Elite I hit at an angle tumbles tens of meters with a cracked shield. The second I hit from a much higher angle, driving them to their knees with a hole punched through a heavily cracked shield and a small spray of blood from their pelt. Stupid cats not wearing body coverings and relying on shields alone.
They force the drones and me to take evasive maneuvers, returning fire into the sky as my forces land on the far side of the rubble that was a mine factory. I switch to the much more versatile pulse rifle and start staggering and softening the shields while the drones use their ballistics to put down the weakened threats.
\Admiral, the Company has landed and debarked.\
/Thank you Major. Populating targets. Use long range fire to group them, then deploy ordinance before advancing./
Confirmation clicks issue through the connection as I continue to dodge the enemy’s long-range weaponry. Or attempt to, anyway, I catch the occasional small arms fire, and am forced to pump Aether from my reserves in order to keep my shields up. The telltale crack of Merc Arms long guns topple Herrati Fighters and or wound several normal Herrat as the rounds scream through the air.
As soon as the dozen or so Elites and Fighters regroup, the rockets begin landing amongst the grouped survivors and the oncoming rescue teams. I was never much for remorse or fairness in combat, so murdering them while they’re down is a valid tactic to me. When the quartet of Phaseblades emerge from the smoke with blood matted fur and rage in their eyes and snarls, I know that my Marines are in trouble.
I begin teleporting grenades at them, but the swerving, sword blinking approach they’ve adopted for advancing on a machine gun nest keep me from placing bombs inside them. Did they share my tactics, or are they just dodging ballistics? They approach within 100m of my shuttles and I react by teleporting in while switching to a plasma saber and my prized auto pulse pistol—Private Empress tech, never shared you furry bastards. I swipe down on an elite that has begun to throw his sword, he snarls as he phases. I know where his sword is going so I full auto some pulses at the twirling blade. The first two plasma bolts flip the Herrati combatant and the next two pierce the shield and cripple his left leg. I warp in and away with the sword he let go of to dress the wound I caused, as I shift toward the next Phaseblade.
Three Marines that identify as Marine Vanguard surge forward as fully kitted battle betties in plated suits and tower shields made of circulating energy. Plurality Shields are expensive shields, and tie their durability to the person employing them—as long as the marine lives, the shield is durable, and vice versa. In a firefight, this means, that while the Marine is active, it is like trying to penetrate a space ship hull with small arms. To bad the high priced bulwark is vulnerable to conventional weapons.
/Employ range-mele crews. Three
\Demo Teams Charlie through Foxtrot, deploy for teleporting foes.\
Four teams advanced, one melee two ranged with mixed weaponry engage the Elites. In the opening salvo, my Marines surprise them with a stunning shield bash while pulse rounds impact their shields. When the Phaseblades recover, the melee are completely passed and engage on a ranged combatant. Focused on their respective trios, they aren’t focused on me as I wait for an opening.
The next stun has me teleporting with my saber into one as I blip to another, placing my repeater within an inch of the body and stream plasma through the man. Two down on their side, eight down and 15 wounded as far as my side is concerned. That shouldn’t be possible with the cloud of dust and the swarm AI interference. They did warn me that their tech dominance was better than ours.
The Company’s rifleman are instructed to continue fire on the main group as the specialty troops engage the Elites in trades that barely overcome the Phaseblades in superior numbers.