Captain Moreau stared at the departing swarm of missiles as the Dragonslayer came back in to dock; without much time to spare, as the Capital was rapidly growing in the monitor. "Ready the main gun for the volley."
RC glanced up at Moreau. "Of course, sir. The railgun is already set and targeted for the first strike."
"Excellent. What's our cycle time for best impact?"
She chuckled. "In theory, we can feed a stream of magnetic pellets through this thing constantly and do moderate damage as fast as we can load it. But... for these shots, about three seconds, sir."
He nodded. "Excellent. Then we'll fire thirty seconds before we land, again twenty seconds before we land, and the last time at the last moment we can still get a good solution on the target. And land at the... second spot we hit."
"Of course, Captain." She busily typed away, relaying orders; and the course projection appeared on the screen, with red lines for the firing paths.
He glanced back at the display for a moment. "...I know they have an extradimensional space in them. But... how many missiles do our fighters carry?"
She smiled. "Ahh... Each fighter carries enough fuel for a few months operation, enough ammunition for dozens of fights... the Dragonslayer is a bit exceptional in that regard, and had over two thousand missiles aboard, though each of them has several hundred. You just saw over sixty million dollars worth of ordinance fired out over the span of a couple minutes."
Moreau shook his head. "You've got a good reading on that station. Is... that enough?"
"The relay station is... fairly substantial. It's hundreds of meters across, has over a dozen point defense batteries, shields.... and I estimate over a ninety percent chance it is completely destroyed with all hands. Considering who it is that fired the missiles, and his track record, I'd put it closer to five nines of certainty it's gone... I don't think he would have taken the shot if it wasn't going to die."
***
Inside the cargo bay, the marines were fully geared up, strapped to the walls. They couldn't even turn their heads as Eyeball walked into the chamber; his own black armor and chrome helmet a heavy contrast to their blue/silver blend, and started to strap into his own position; one of the engineers.. Dax.. checking his straps as she did so. He inhaled deeply. "Alright, gentlemen. I'm sure you've all seen the videos, and know what these things can do. We aren't talking about pushovers, or idiots, or cowards. These things make Cheetahs look slow."
The strap around his chest tightened. He nodded; and his helmet hooked to the wall when his head touched it. "You might feel like supermen right now. And in many respects you are. You aren't just the result of a chain of military service and dedication going back over a thousand years. You don't just have the stolen power of a thousand souls, and weapons representing the best human and alien minds could produce."
He studied the plot on his HUD. The Jeanne was drawing closer, preparing to fire. "The Emperor's minions, the Jotun, destroyed France. All of our homes are in ashes; the very places we were born all lay in nuclear ruin. None of us have parents, brothers, cousins. All gone. And all of it is because of this giant godforsaken space squid we came here to kill. I can make a point about what he's going to do in the future, about protecting what has yet to come. But honestly, what he's already done is enough."
***
The ship gave a slight shudder, as the first projectile launched. Down on the planet's surface, it impacted on a starport; sending the structure into a collapse and sending out a shockwave that shattered windows for miles around, killed a few of the locals who were too close, and caused a small wave to spread out in every direction.
The ship itself started to shake more heavily as the second shell fired, and the craft began to breach the upper atmosphere; this one hit an armored complex beneath the surface; something so incredibly dense and durable that it skipped across its surface after digging an enormous furrow.
The final round; one of the precious neutronium slugs, filled with anti-matter; slammed into the same structure further along; buried itself hundreds of meters inside; and detonated, flash-vaporising thousands of Imperials inside and turning a facility full of trillions of credits worth of research material into useless slag. When the Jeanne slammed down into the other end of the facility moments later... it collapsed.
The ship shook, sending anything that wasn't strapped down bouncing as the ridiculously heavy craft tore through the complex like a knife, burying itself and sending up a cloud of smoke and debris miles high; and sending out a shockwave even more intense.
If it weren't for the incoming ball of molten death that was once an Imperial fleet, or the upcoming ritual, the tsunami it caused would considered a disaster. Instead... it was an inconsequential footnote.
The moment the ship stopped moving, Kezia began her ritual; a connection forming with the world, letting her feel everything from the tiniest plants in the billions of hydroponics tanks to the highest-ranking golden Imperials in their work-places. She lay her spiritual grasp on that connection... and began to pull.
***
The intel reports of the ship had gone to every barracks on the planet. Every soldier knew the specs of the ship; the shape, and the threat it represented... and exactly where it was coming down before it actually hit.
Aircraft launched by the thousands, as every soldier, even the ones too far away to hope to reach it in time, either boarded vehicles, or simply started running or swimming; charging towards the landed vessel at full speed. They'd actually left before the impact; and while many were swept away by onrushing water, or felled by the shockwaves; mere moments after the ship stopped, the first soldiers were on it; Imperial soldiers with vehicle-mounted particle cannons and plasma weapons opening fire even as they came into range; firing, initially, just at the ship itself.
Stolen novel; please report.
As they got a better bead on just how it had landed, forces diverted; moving to approach it from behind, the more vulnerable engines... even as point-defense lasers began opening up, with a series of loud pops; flashes of light as soldiers and tanks were rendered into masses of molten metal and vaporized flesh; but they kept coming. Kept firing; and the clusters of point defense weapons were blasted in turn; lacking the awesome durability of the ship they were mounted on, they were rapidly destroyed by the onrushing horde.
At the rear of the vessel, hatches opened up between the engines; and looking carefully at their distance counters, ensuring they stayed within the radius of protection offered by the ship's hull.. the marines deployed, with Eyeball at their head.
For the first few seconds, precise weapons-fire was taking out vehicles and heavy weaponry with impunity; each of the three hatches had six marines emerge, with Eyeball joining the central group.
For the Imperials, this tiny group of humanoids presented an inviting target. As hundreds of them poured over the crater's edge with each passing second, at first they fired at extreme range; dozens dying to return fire, but uncaring as they simply needed to get closer.
Dumas was the first one hit; one of the Imperials of a silvery shell leaping seven meters from mid-sprint to slam into his side like a living projectile, a dozen tendrils each tipped with an energy blade spearing into his flesh... and barely penetrating past the skin, as the marine crushed the creature with his fist, and resumed fire; but there were too many.
Soon, most of the marines were engaged in melee, simply holding the Imperials away from the three hatches; Eyeball himself firing constantly with both the enchanted Tenner as well as the 40mm and its seemingly bottomless ammunition supply from behind the cover of a squad of three marines busily tearing Imperials apart.
Torn and broken bodies rapidly mounded up around the crew; as more particle fire and plasma blasts kept slamming into the engines. As heavily armored as they were, gaps had been left in the rear by necessity, to let the ship get sufficient thrust; and while the marines were occupied by being buried chest-deep in legions of fast, powerful aliens, rarely even touching their guns as they were forced to resort to hands, fists, and pseudoneutronium blades, signs of damage began to show; even gaps... though, not yet anything big enough for an Imperial to crawl through.
The soldiers armor was rapidly becoming little more than haggard, useless ruins; but their augmented flesh was still, for now, holding up to enemy attack; looking at the ship, and the constant fighting, Eyeball could see hundreds of futures; but there were none where he wasn't being shot. As he kept returning fire, moving back and forth, all he could do was reduce how many hits he took, how quickly his armor was being worn away.
Settling the tenner back in place; the act of popping additional clips out of the storage space in his left arm to reload was simply taking too much time, he lifted his left hand up. "Emergency mode. Fire all ordinance, rapid-fire. Leave nothing left."
The rail-gun hidden inside the extradimensional space buzzed alive; and he started launching a rain of explosives over the onrushing swarm of enemies, not aiming except at general regions of the battlefield as the surprisingly vivid red of Imperial blood covered everything... but more were still coming. The ammunition counters on the 40mm and on the implant both were rapidly dwindling; something that he had intended never to happen, exactly the reason he kept them both in the first place. The wounded were crawling forward, blades at the ready... the uninjured were firing, even into their own forces, to do just a bit more damage as they got closer.
***
Staring at the displays from the ritual chamber, Spike watched as the soldiers at the rear of the ship stood up against an army. Some of the enemies were moving so swiftly he could barely make them out; but the marines were moving just as quickly. A golden-hued creature torn apart, its parts tossed forward to slow its companions. A silver-shelled one stomped into the ground beneath the ship; all set the the background of a smoldering ruin, fire, smoke, and death in every direction.
He glanced at Kezia, then back at the display. "Captain, I think I should get out there. Maybe just jump high, flash singularity-style for a bit, disrupt the enemy ranks..."
The Romani girl was... glowing. A vivid white light. The ritual was clearly in full swing; but there were so many aliens out there, how long would this take? Could they possibly finish it before being overwhelmed?
The comms crackled. ~That's a negative, Spike. You and Ripper need to keep an eye out for interlopers. I've got tanks firing particle beams at the junctions the point defense clusters were mounted in... twelve spots. I already have a hole on the port side, though not much bigger than a centimeter wide.They might manage to make a hole big enough to start crawling through. I've got the most likely breach points on the map.~
Suddenly, a loud crackle on the comms. ~Everyone back on the ship! Right now right now right..~
Eyeball could be seen bodily tossing members of his own team through the hatch, leaping in himself even as he was shouting. The other teams backed up to the door... and there was a sudden, horrific groaning noise, as if the world itself were breaking apart..
The ship started to fall. The marines pulled back to the hatches; the most injured, Dumas, grabbed by the ankle as the ship sank into the depths, falling further into the ruins of an enormous facility. The marines shut the hatches; all three partially melted and fused, only vaguely blocking the approach.. as rocks, molten metal, and debris, as well as thousands of Imperial corpses, fell down atop the vessel, burying her.
The pile grew deeper, even as the surrounding troops started blasting away at it; vaporizing rock, metal, and flesh, trying to make a path.
Inside the airlocks, the soldiers checked each other out; mostly scrapes and minor injuries. What should have been fatal wounds turned into mild burns and bruises. Eyeball glanced down at his armor; which was mostly missing. His weapons were both low in both power and capacity; when the Imperials managed to dig their way down....
Overhead, the digging started to slow. As the marines grabbed more weapons, and the engineering team started putting patchwork repairs in the armor... there was a sudden powerful detonation overhead. The ship shook, the ground cracked; undoubtedly every Imperial nearby on the surface was killed. For some reason that seemed inexplicable, the engineer currently working on Eyeball's armor suddenly stopped, looking up, and then sat down on the deck.
There was another boom. And another. The third strike had melted through most of the debris, and actually struck the hull. Unable to see anything through the rubble, the troops braced themselves for what would likely be an unending string of nuclear detonations until either the ship was gone, or it had melted all the way down to the core. The engineer had gone completely limp now... and the HUD on Eyeball's helmet was displaying all sorts of strange, errant characters. Eyeball frowned. Was this... did the EMP actually make it that far? If so, the fourth bomb was likely about to directly strike the hull.
But... the fourth bomb never hit. The woman rose back to her feet, but seemed... unsteady. Confused.
Everything grew quiet. After a few minutes of silence, the comms became active again. ~This is the Captain speaking. It appears to be over... at least for now. I'm not getting any active comms within a few hundred kilometers, and the ones further out are getting more desperate and quiet by the moment. I've got the Disrupter running at max power right now; apologies for the headaches, my cyborg friends, but RC thought it would stop the nukes from detonating, and she was right. We seem to be seeing a few hits that just... land on the ground. We're going to leave it running until the ritual is over, and have the marines work bomb disposal; I suspect there's quite a few nukes landing around us right now.~
Buried in a radioactive pit on a world far from home, the Jeanne D'Arc rested quietly as the world died around her.