The trip back to base was a quiet one. Vosjlaw sat in the back of the APC, weary eyes staring out through the armour and into the distance, looking at nothing. Nobody disturbed him as his sergeants ensured that radio silence was maintained. He was grateful for it. The last thing he wanted was to hear Grevorich' whining about how they'd gotten away. His mind was spinning in circles as he desperately tried to think of a way out of this predicament. For a way to turn the tides. It didn't come to him. He felt, for the first time in a long while, the urge to take a long hot shower and get a proper night's sleep. Might be that rest would bring him a solution. He refused to pull his mind away from the issue, though. They had wounded a number of them, at a heavy cost, and that had been from an ambush that had been sprung perfectly. Fat lot of good that'd done them.
He sighed and abandoned his attempts to think of a solution from the middle of things. Time to start it over from the very beginning. How many was he dealing with? He called up his notes and glanced at the old estimate. He would have to adjust his earlier guesses, their teams were smaller than predicted. Would they all be nine large? Or had there been more? What about the one without shields? He had the feeling it wasn't one of the superhumans, but a normal soldier. Why would — No, he chastised himself. Focus on the bigger threat. He continued his calculations.
"Two thousand," he muttered aloud, the number chilling his very soul. It stopped his thoughts dead in his tracks, his mind's eye beginning to wander to old battlefields. Most wars were fought as lightning campaigns, ground troops only appearing for vital conquests that the navy couldn't indiscriminately shell. Violent landings, breaking defensive lines and then it was urban combat. The ancient word of Sturmtruppen hammered itself in place behind his eyes. Shock infantry blitzing through hostile lines, avoiding frontal charges on strong points and sneaking past, demolishing everything they found. The Empire had taken that concept and perfected it. He shivered as he imagined hundreds of them storming out of cover, raging across the battlefield in a cold, concentrated attack. Overwhelming firepower applied in critical areas, buckling defences and routing any defenders. They would be like an avalanche. Little wonder the headquarters on Lufer had been overrun so quickly.
"And we struggled with not even ten. How do we stop something like that?"
He blinked, realising belatedly that he had spoken the number out loud. He looked around, glad for his expression to be hidden under his helmet, and found the speaker, a younger soldier, Kavot. He quickly made a point of looking at the men around him. They weren't sitting as straight as they usually did. Exhaustion, mental and physical, had hit them hard. Especially those who had been part of the original ambush.
"Stop them?" Mikelski, one of his older sergeants, laughed. "Kid, we fucking won't. I shot one of the bastards on full auto. Pumped over a hundred rounds into him." He shook his head. "His shield didn't even wink out. They're virtually invulnerable."
"Shields," another joined in. "Never imagined anyone would ever get that working. Reckon they're weighing at least two tons with all that equipment."
"Yeah. Shields suck up power like Fenstil's mother." An outraged cry and a shared laugh rang out while Sergeant Palova bowed his head in acknowledgement of the remark, before continuing. "Has to be a portable fusion generator." His voice didn't waiver in the slightest. It was said with a gruff surety to it.
"You know of this, Palova?" Vosjlaw asked, deciding to abstain from chastising people for now. Instead he settled for tilting his head back as he eyed the man. His power armour was covered in long scratches, from where shrapnel of a near miss had skid across the plates, but the man underneath was still fully intact.
Palova flipped his captain a middle finger. "You bloody forced me to take up those engineering courses, remember boss? You know how everyone and their mum feels about the prospect of putting shields in our suits. There's more than one sod offering a reward out for a functioning shielded suit." He shrugged. "It can't be done, but they got as close to the theoretical application as possible. Fusion's the only option that makes it feasible. Nothing else generates enough oomph."
"What about cells? Those things hold a ton of power, don't they? I mean, most of our equipment runs with it," Mikelski countered. "Hell, even our suits use the things."
Palova shook his head. "You can't compare the two, Mikel. Shields have a very erratic drain rate. The cells could give enough power to sustain it for a while in pure numbers, but you need to build in enough insulation and power banks to rotate the power through the entire field. Then there's the issue of the projectors taking a hit and all that power going haywire, keeping it separate from your ammunition and other equipment, and let's not forget that you're not grounded. If that current slips into you, you're burnt toast. So you need additional equipment to deal with that. So you'd need even more cells for the weight of all that. You'll end up a lot larger, too, which means more area to cover," he raised a finger. "Which means more of everything again. By the time the weight — consumption balance levels out, you're bigger than most tanks."
"So in short—" Mikelski began, only to be interrupted by Palova clicking off his helmet and tossing it at Vosjlaw. "So in short, we're dealing with freaks weighing over two tons capable of moving at least a quarter of their equipment's mass on their own without servo-support." He gave everyone in the APC a good glare. "And last I know of none of us even came close to lifting that in the gym, let alone being capable of prancing about with it."
"If they're so heavy," Kavot interjected, "can't we place anti tank mines? They won't go off if we walk across them, but I reckon they'll blow those fat raggards to kingdom come."
"Not feasible," Mikelski shook. "We can't predict them well enough. Took us over a week just to get lucky with this ambush and you can bet they'll not fall for it again."
"True," Vosjlaw added, arching an invisible eyebrow. An idea was beginning to form. "I doubt they'll let us mine half the city as well."
"What about..."
He allowed them to discuss it. One suggestion after the other was made, all of them inevitable clashing with one of the three great denominators; either they would need to predict where they were going to appear, they would never be allowed to employ those tactics in the populated areas, or they simply didn't have access to the right type of firepower. Quite ironic given that this was the logistical hub. The only way they could somewhat fight back would be with a massive influx of reinforcements. Armoured battalions, assault regiments, gunship wings, proper intelligence units, things real armies had. Without those, they could never properly corner the impossible bastards.
Palova spat on the ground before going "Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure," to the rambunctious laughter of the others. Nobody remembered where the quote came from, but it was one of those things that transcended time, language and cultural barriers.
"Yes," Vosjlaw's frozen voice interjected, causing the laughter to evaporate within a heartbeat. He slowly unfastened his helmet, revealing his face. The last vestiges of weariness were being chased off by newfound determination, marred only slightly by the dark, foreboding look that lay in his eyes. A sombre chuckle rang through the metallic interior as his gaze slowly wandered from soldier to soldier, before the corner of his lips briefly twitched upwards as he finally settled it again on Palova. The veteran soldier shivered under his commander's attention.
"I suppose it is the only way to be sure, no?"
"I think I'll name that one Cindy," Verloff chuckled softly as the Nova Cannons finally dug deep enough into the gargantuan superstructure to hit the main reactor. Explosions bloomed through the massive core of shipyard alpha forty-seven, like a flower bud unfolding. It was the biggest one yet, dedicated to maintaining and repairing dreadnaughts. Metal plates the sizes of frigates were torn loose and set adrift into space, forcing the nearby Imperial vessels to blast them apart or pull high G manoeuvres to dodge them. Unsurprisingly, most chose to dodge them, letting the enormous pieces of debris become a problem for the Novican fleet hot on their heels. Verloff turned to his two Captains, who were busy glaring at each other as they were still working out who had the final command on the Blackest Night. The Per Aspera Ad Astra had been far too badly damaged to remain in the battle line and he had moved his command staff. The integration had gone smoothly, the officers and crews embracing the added downtime the reinforcements had brought. With one notable exception.
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"Slow turn, helm," Captain Kirsten said, her vicious glare daring Captain Lannic to open his mouth. "Tell the Libel they have seven minutes to send their shuttles in." The affirmations followed and the nearby supply ship quickly confirmed their orders.
Verloff shook his head warily as Lannic matched his counterpart's glare ounce for ounce. Not that the captain really had a right to, given that the officer was supposed to be asleep, but he could relate to the man's feelings. Captains were notoriously protective of their vessels, fully convinced of the idea that nobody could treat it as well as they themselves could. Even his vaunted reputation hadn't counted for much when he had tried to issue a few commands of his own, Kirsten nearly snapping his head off in return. And that had been nothing compared to the... discussion that she and Lannic had when his captain had made a few decisions she had disagreed with. The officers present had learned a lot from their little debate, though, as the pair were veteran ship-commanders and each could back up their arguments with facts and statistics.
He returned his attention to the display, putting the two warring Captains firmly out of his mind. They were professional enough that they wouldn't make mistakes despite their bickering. If anything, they were performing even better than ever, knowing their every move was being watched, the other Captain ready to snipe them with an off-hand comment should even the tiniest mistake be made. "I reckon we're just about done here. Connect me to Lessirk."
He only had to wait a brief moment until a feed was established. The Vice-Admiral looked weary, lines of exhaustion marring his reasonably young face. "Is it urgent?" he asked. "I'm a bit busy at the moment."
Verloff grinned at his second-in-command's cocky attitude. Busy was an understatement. He and his task force had jumped into the system and immediately gone dark, which seemed to be his favourite tactic these days. The kid, as he fondly thought of the man who would one day be his successor, was beginning to read the flows of battle damned well. Within three hours of them arriving, which was about eight minutes more than it took for the visuals of the shipyards to reach them, he had put in a request for reinforcing his force with virtually every Paris in the battlegroup. Which Verloff had granted, but only if he promised to not miss a single damned shot.
When the Novicans finally realised that Nemesis wasn't lurking around Nagalan, waiting to ambush them, and had sent their fleets out in a desperate bid to reinforce their besieged shipyards, Lessirk had kept his word. Verloff could have sworn he had heard the man giggle when the mass rounds jointly shredded the hostile heavy capitals. And true to his word, not a shot had been missed. The Novicans really ought to have been more careful of their rear. Now he and his task force were in the middle of the scattered Novicans, using his small, coherent force to hand out nightmares like candy on Halloween. They had him outnumbered, but that advantage was somewhat dimmed by the presence of four Citadels which were lighting up space all around the, shattering anything that came close to them, doing so utterly unopposed. Lessirk's opening salvo had deprived the Novicans of a lot of capitals.
"I could use a mass-salvo on the stations in front of sector delta three. We'll be flying past them soon and I'd rather not be turned into a sieve."
Lessirk glared at the feed for a moment, before shouting out orders and letting his fingers dance across the display, calling up more information panels. "Ninety-eight minutes. They need to get clear of the debris field first. I can give you twenty-four shots, six salvos. Then they're fully out and I'm having them pull back. Can't promise they'll all arrive either, there's a lot of ships giving chase and I lost a third of the Brawlers so far. If I give them cover, the others are going to come after you."
Verloff closed his eyes for a minute, closing himself off from the outside world for a bit as he imagined the battlefield. Nemesis was split up in dozens of task forces, which were each even more divided as they laid waste to the gargantuan complex. Most shipyards were already wrecked beyond repair and billions of tons of debris were floating through space, launched away from the ruined docks as the reactors went nuclear. The supply ships were in the midst of that mess, staying close to the Imperial warships, shuttles ferrying much needed supplies back and forth while risking themselves to hostile fire. Then there were the roughly thirteen hundred Novican ships that were consistently trying to close in on them, without losing too much of their coherency. It was the strangest game of tag. Novicans trying to hunt down supply ships and the long ranged attackers, while taking care to avoid the Citadels. Most of Nemesis trying to steer clear from the Novicans, while trying to level shipyard and defensive stations alike and requiring careful coordination, the massive stations carrying enough firepower to outclass two Citadels. Lessirk duelling with another eight hundred odd vessels with less than two hundred of his own, trying to keep them from regrouping fully, guarding his Paris-class Cruisers and keeping them from leaping after Verloff and the rest of Nemesis. Fighting in two directions was damned difficult in space and the Novicans could hammer him just as hard as Lessirk had done to them. So many things to balance and juggle. And all that while they were pressed for time, because more fleets were rapidly closing in.
When he opened his eyes, he had reached a conclusion. "Let them come. Those stations are a priority. We'll use a few mines to slow them down, but once those stations are down we'll blast our way out to the other side. We'll make for the edge of the system and jump out. I'll set up an external rendez-vous point. It's going to cause a lot of delay though, but I'll take that over being run down. We have enough support vessels with us to resupply on route. Me and mine will regroup there."
It took a while before Lessirk's next response came in. The man had his own juggling to do. "That's not a minor delay," he slowly said, concern crossing his face. "You'll need to jump out far enough to avoid being spotted, then swing around to link up with us again. That's going to take several days." He brought his knuckles to his mouth and softly bit on the skin. The one nervous habit he had. Then he shook his head. "That's going to delay our planned pick up. Maybe we should... No, never mind." His face looked clear and determined at first glance, but Verloff knew him well enough to spot the underlying concern.
"Weighing the lives of few against the many?" the old Admiral chuckled. It was one of the ancient, harsh truths of combat, and the Empire swore by it even more, as they fought for lives rather than ground, glory or honour. Not that any officer worth his salt enjoyed it.
Lessirk's face contorted even further, the vile distaste of necessary sacrifice casting a dark shade on his young visage. The man might be deeply distrustful of the inhuman supersoldiers, but he recognised their worth. Yet in the end they were only two thousand odd men. Not even enough to crew a cruiser. Ten lives lost here. A hundred saved there. The infernal equations.
Verloff gave him a broad grin. "I wouldn't worry overmuch. Genesis went in relying on subterfuge," he chuckled. Lessirk gave him an empty gaze back, not understanding, causing the veteran Admiral to laugh out loud. "Sometimes I forget that you never had the ground-pounder experience I had," he explained. "When the boys and I used to go in for subterfuge, we relied on stealth, distraction, misdirection, all sorts of tricks. Never on direct combat. Unless bereft of choice." Verloff's wolfish grin damned near split his face in half and Lessirk paled as it dawned on him. "Then..." he laughed. "Then things got ugly."