Eye in the Sky drone system launched...

There is a distant rumble as the huge missile launches from one of the VLS tubes. It's not especially fast or agile but its payload can easily change hundreds up to millions of lives. This system fires an anti-ship-sized missile that "skims" across the upper atmosphere of a planet and spills thousands of specialized drones across a battlefield. Each drone is about the size of a human hand, nearly silent, and able to loiter for about 12 hours. They contain extremely high-resolution cameras, thermal optics, and specialized material-penetrating radars. Together the information is compiled and turns the battlefield into a real-time updated 3d space with very few places left to hide. It is a necessity for any planet-side invasion as orbital cameras can only do so much against things like heavy foliage and roofs.

Due to the scientists planetside who are in danger having their location beacon on as well as their marines, the battlefield doesn't have to be hundreds of miles in size. I make the battlefield a 15-mile diameter circle around the centermost location of the scientists, this allows for the drone coverage to be very thick meaning all target designation can be done with less than a millimeter of deviation.

As the drones enter their spots, flying hundreds of meters in the air the initial scans come back rather dire. There are roughly three thousand unknown contacts making their way through the battlespace and more are trickling in from elsewhere. There are even some unknown contacts within 500 meters of the scientists and marines, but the group is 2 KM away from their shuttle. Luckily the area is heavily forested therefore the nearby enemies have yet to spot the scientists. I order the deployment of three additional drones loaded with ground attack munitions, focusing on anti-infantry with one or two anti-tank missiles just in case.

As the drones finish scanning the battlespace, I am now able to get a full 3D rendering of the battlefield with incredible detail. I can then start categorizing the enemy and designating targets of interest.

I note the enemy force is comprised entirely of either infantry or mounted calvalry who stick to pathways through the forest. I do not notice any outliers in their force. They appear to be trying to head toward where the shuttle is but aren't 100% sure where it actually landed. This means their formation is incredibly wide, but not in a searching formation. They still keep tight groups, marching in a sort of lockstep through the woods and along the paths, highly disciplined but overall useless. The officers are also very obvious as they wear the most flamboyant clothing imaginable, or very shiny and decorative metal-plate armor.

I don't know much about the properties of the NM metals but I also know there isn't much in the way of armor that an infantryman can wear that will protect them from a 75mm HE missile. Regardless I will first make sure the enemies are hostile to us. While I sorta trust the Shipmaster I don't entirely. These are rebels and not all rebels are terrorists or radicals. Sometimes they are the honest ones in the situation. As a short test, I order a single marine drop-pod of 4 marines to deploy and to make contact with the unknown contacts. I watch the feed as a drop pod enters and slams into the forest. This causes multiple enemy formations to start heading in that direction. The four marines immediately follow the path I draw on the map for them and they bound out toward the nearest enemy formation at a break-neck 50km/h.

They reach their target and as ordered they slow down before greeting them so as not to startle them too much. They approach them with a hand raised and I tell them to act as friendly as possible. The leading sargeant approaches and I patch into their helmet audio and she greets the commander of the approaching force,

"Howdy friends! I am Sargeant Karelia of the United States Marines! I hope we didn't startle y'all too bad!"

The commander walks forward, it is some sort of... furry werewolf thing and stands about as tall as the marine. Its expression is not friendly but marines do not get intimidated. The best man then says in a gruff tone,

"You are those in meeting with the false kingdom. Surrender and we may allow you to keep some honor knight."

The Sargeant responds,

"We are not your enemy, we wish to peacefully coexist with you and the kingdom if possible. This is not our fight. We are only trying to leave the planet so y'all can fight."

The wolf immediately draws a sword and barks back,

"No. You shall come with us now or we will be forced to slaughter or ravage you all."

I then say to the Marines over comms,

"Permission to engage granted. Lethal force authorized."

The wolf has less than a second to realize the marines have chosen violence as their enhanced human reflexes and powered armor lets them level their weapons in the blink of an eye and not much really can save someone from 50 cal.

While some might say I jumped the gun when it comes to rules of engagement, these are armored and armed combatants and the leader drew a weapon. I considered this to be the equivalent to them drawing a firearm or similar weapon. My role is to protect US citizens and that is what I will do. I will deal with the legal issues and paperwork later, right now it is time to defend my kind.

As the heavy machine guns rip apart the group of twenty aliens with complete ease I declare every non-human in the battlespace as OPFOR. I then give the order for the scientists and their escorts to escape to the shuttle as fast as they can as the nearest enemy formation grows closer. To hinder this I have a combat drone fly overhead and its internal 25mm single-barrel chemrail is put to use. A single shot is fired and the huge HE round slams into the face of the commander of that formation. Their helmet visor was up, and it now clatters to the ground empty aside from gore. This causes the formation to halt immediately as they cannot see the drone as it hovers 2 KM away. The same happens for the next three closest groups as the drones hover within the picturesque fluffy white clouds, kilometers away from their targets. One shot, one kill.

The easiest way to neuter any coordination in a large force is to start decapitating the outlying forces first, until a main leader on the field is located. Then you take them out and large forces tend to fall apart. Since it is best to run a military bottom-up with good sergeant and small force commanders with one or two overall commanders this is the only way decapitation strikes work. This isn't 1600 where a single general commanded all forces and sergeants only had the role of relaying the commander's orders. Quickly I understood this method doesn't work on this enemy as the formations either continue on their path like robots, or just stop moving until apparently they get orders from a higher up... so that means I have to find the top of their leadership, and perform an older-style decapitation.

I slowly narrow this down by watching the paths the enemy force is taking. All the vanguard forces appear to move in a way that matches a central formation. This central formation moves a certain way first, then the rest match that path after a few seconds. The center formation is composed of about 200 units and some cavalry, so it looks like a main force. I take some time observing the uniforms for me to understand which group within the formation is either the officers or an honor guard. Unfortunately, the commander in this group isn't obvious as all within the fancy group are wearing heavy plates and are covered in expensive-looking engravings and coats of arms.

I smile to myself as I get to use an older weapon I haven't been able to use in years. I order a drone to fire a "Shreiker" missile.

This missile is the final evolution of the air-bursting flechette bombs and artillery shells. The missile is a 152mm bore precision munition that detonates about 1km in the air where it deploys about 100 10cm long and 2.5cm round dart-shaped micromunitions. These are stored lining the sides and front of the initial larger missile. All of these micromunitions have control surfaces on their fins and are propelled by a small rocket. The rocket, due to the small hole the exhaust comes from creates a loud shrieking howl when deployed in atmosphere. They are guided with millimeter precision to individually designated targets, where they fall from the sky boosting into their target at Mach 1.5 where their osmium tips penetrate helmets and probably the entire soldier from the top of the skull and out their pelvis the whole way ripping and burning flesh. While designated as anti-infantry they are known for doing little miracles against light vehicles. Their main utilization is for the erasure of enemy forces when collateral damage is a concern as the weapon tends to only kill their target and without any explosive payload there is no risk for unexploded ordinance.

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The swarm of spotting drones in the sky begins highlighting targets based on my criteria, first focusing on the most well-dressed and armored individuals and then radiating out from there until all micromunitions have a single target. I watch as the missile is launched and bursts overhead. I watch some of the enemy formations look into the sky and then in a short instant it looks like 100 of the soldiers "jump" as the ground beneath them puffs from something impacting it. Then they all fall over, their skulls hollow and all internal organs shredded. Due to the sheer speed and traumatic impact of the micromunitions there isn't any blood until they hit the ground.

Now this causes the morale and chain of command impact I was looking for. I watch as all enemy formations immediately stop moving. This is about as good as it gets, I really don't want to eradicate this force because at the end of the day, it could just be the commanders of this group that are hot-headed and the actual secessionists could be semi-decent people. So my plan is to get my people out of there and I really hope there doesn't have to be a single casualty more. Unfortunately, this is not going to be the case as the formations start somewhat breaking up and multiple groups start making good time toward the shuttle. The scientists also are making terrible time and when I check with the marines they explain that some scientists are having actual panic attacks and many are unable to move cross-country with ease. I cuss to myself and make a note to ban any mobility-impaired people from fieldwork unless they do not leave a 100-meter distance from the shuttle.

The drop pod marines finished their first contact with little issue and began moving toward the scientists and I order them to assist in carrying stuff if that is causing a problem. If there is someone dragging ass they have permission to carry them. Right now no enemy has contact with any of my people so there are no current problems, but there is an enemy force moving into the path between the scientists and the shuttle. To prevent an interception I have a drone circle around and suppress the enemy force. I splatter three enemies that look like commanders then rake the ground in front of them to show that they are not allowed to go any further.

This causes them to pause and start looking about before they take a defensive formation. I then get to witness casted "magic" for the first time. In a double-line formation like an old-style red coat, they begin firing in multiple directions with impressive-looking streams of flame, bolts of lightning, and what looks to be ice shards. Their shots are slow and almost random as they try to saturate the area in their attacks. I take note none of the attacks are especially devastating, but they are doing a good job at deforestation around themselves. It appears they believe my forces are hiding in the nearby trees.

I leave them to it but have the AI watch closely for any changes in their defensive positions. I watch as my people are able to get close to the shuttle, including the dropped in marines. They arrive at the location as a new fiarly large unit of enemy combatants enter the battlefield. It's not another group of fancy-pants folks, but they are in a formation similar to that one. A distinct central group riding mounts surrounded by a screen of footmen. These riders are not dressed nicely, instead are dressed in what I would descibe as "Black Knight" armor. From what I can see from the drone footage they look rather sinister, the one in the middle the scariest by far, but they are also at the edge of the battlefield and don't appear to have any indirect fire capabilities meaning they at the moment are no threat to my people.

Just as I am about to look away and check on the closer enemies I notice the new formation open up and the central figure dismount. He then faces in the general direction the scientists and marines are and then he holds out his hand. I watch for a second confused before think he might be casting some sort of detection magic or something... I don't know it's magic. Then dust from the ground around him begins spiraling into the air above him as a small light forms. The light begins to grow in intensity until it is like a small sun over his head. I realize this might be a bad situation so I have a drone put a 25mm round through his skull just as he begins heaving forward which I assume is him launching the attack.

The HE round splashes onto the helmet whcih causes the man to stumble, but I widen my eyes in suprise upon seeing that he appears to be shaken but fine, but his attack goes wild all the same. The fireball doesn't fly off, instead it bursts outward in a huge arc of flame that expands in 30 degrees for well over 3 KM. The whole way it incenerates everything, trees, soldiers, and socrching the dirt below. I feel my mouth fall agape upon seeing this attack as it easily was a similar amount of energy to the blast from the capital ship, maybe... I decide then an there all black armored individuals need to be neutralized. I check on my people who appear to only be staring in horror at the wall of flame that appeared randomly. I order them to hurry up.

As I go to give the order for the drone to drop a missile on the strangely well-armored person, I think for a second and decide I know too little about magic, therefore all enemies who have displayed magic should be neutralized in order to ensure the safety of my people. I have the hovering drones drop more of the Shreiker missiles on large formations, eradicating entire companies worth of men in mere seconds. As they do this I test something and send another 25mm round into a different black armored individual who also survives the shot, but appears to be unable to get up as quickly as the main black armored man. In another test I have the drone shoot an APFSDS round into one of the armored individuals, whose skull contents and some white-hot spalling slam into the one behind him, resulting in minor injury to the one who got splattered. I decide that the black armor is equivalent to about 20-30mm of RHS which is insane. I check the AP rounds against the main black armored man and watch in terror as it shatters against his chest sending the hot fragments into his mount, killing it. The impact does knock him flat though and he doesn't get up quickly. It clearly hurt him, so with the drones finished with thier culling of enemy...mages I guess, I order a missile to be dropped on the main black armored man, an anti-infantry incendiary missile.

The missile slams into the ground and there is a translucent orange wave for a second as the chemicals inside expand rapidly, and then there is a pilliar of rapidly expanding flame as the ignition trigger is struck on the back of the missile as it finishes hitting the ground. The nearly clear orange gel that is a compound known as "IM-223" which is a gel composed of petrochemicals, phosphorous, alkaline metals, magnesium, and an oxidizing agent for low oxygen environments. While not a single molecule, the mixture is all mixed togther to create a new and fun space age napalm. The only issue is that the stuff has a really high activation energy for the reason of safe storage so it can only be ingnited by the ignition trigger at the back of the missile, limiting it's use outside of specialized munitions.

For a second I am worried as it appears the strange black armor is protecting the warriors inside as they struggle to move through the inferno I created around them. I make sure to note down that the black armor does have some heat proofing, and after a minute they begin collapsing as the air around them becomes either toxic to them, or just lacking in oxygen. I watch for a little longer as the forces around them begin to route and the main black armored man somehow starts standing back up. He makes a circular motion with his hand and a sudden gust of intense wind extingushes a 4 meter circle around him. Now truly fearful of this strange person I have an anti-tank missile launched at him, thankful I had these loaded.

The missile moves faster than the speed of sound, but the black armored man seems to notice it and rasies a hand toward it. The missile slams into an invisible wall and once more my mouth goes agape, but the wall apears to be barely a barrier as the first, smaller warhead detonates allowing for the main missile to move through the new gap. The large HEAT shell slams into the chest of the armored man and there is a suprisingly small explosion as the ground behind him is hit with all the explosive force and the plasma jet that was once solid steel. He doesn't survive this as the entry wound is only about 1mm across, but the exit wound through his black armor is about 1 ft.

Modern HEAT shells are quite interesting, but constructing the rear and walls of the shaped charge out of harder and tougher metals or alloys this forces more of the explosive force onto the steel penetrator. It also makes them less dual purpose due to the reduced sideways and backwards blast. The missile used there, the AGM-255B can easily penetrate ~2000-3000mm of RHS, so it was overkill. I did take note of the fact his armor held up to the explosive force of the shell as the armor surrounding the 1mm hole looks to be nearly undamaged. I designate men in that type of armor as high priority and classify them as MBTs so automatic targeting systems will hit them with powerful shots. I do the same for the other black armored individuals, but mark them as IFVs so lower caliber armor penetration can be used against them.

In the end the enemy forces without leadership begin running from the battlefield and I do not fire upon them as the marines and scientists did make it back to the shuttle and it takes off unmolested. I have the attack drones fire the remaineder of their explosive missiles at the drop-pod so no alien can get ahold of our tech as they rise out of atmosphere. A second ship is dispatched from one of the carriers in the fleet and it goes into the atmosphere where it hovers. All of the small drones swarm to it as it opens a cargo bay and all the small drones are recovered. They will be reloaded into the same missile as before because the deployment missile was recovered when it flew back to the Catfish.

I unhook myself from the system and lean back in my chair with a long sigh and a dumb smile on my face. I am proud of my actions and feel acomplished. I just won the first ever engagement with non-human intelligent life, without any losses. I then remember our new "friends" leaving my people out there to die and feel rather frustrated. I am going to give them an earfull when I get back down there and probably will verbally kick some ass over this. It's their planet, they should police it better.

I then get a message from Uriel who requests me for a meeting on the civilian vessel. With a sigh I get up and prepare to board the other ship...