They translated into the Xeras system on the outskirts, in the shroud of the system's dense asteroid belt.
There was no doubt that their emergence signature had been detected, but running at minimum power, they would be difficult to find amongst the vast fields of tumbling rock. Halastar kept them in the field for three days, slowly circumnavigating the system as they were stalked by nearly a dozen vessels.
They had decided that we would split the company. Justinius would take eighty men for the ground operation, and Halastar would keep twenty aboard the ship under the command of Justinius’ executive officer Marcus, in reserve for any ship-to-ship engagements.
Justinius’ complement stood ready, kit ready to go in the Fury’s teleport ready room. They had been at ready-condition since the moment they had entered the system.
When Halastar assessed that the better part of the system’s fleet was out searching for The Fury, he kicked things off.
Halastar detonated a three-megaton nuclear warhead in the asteroid field, secreted away by The Fury as it made its clandestine way through the field. The white hot detonation enveloped an enemy cruiser, flaring its shield into incandescence as it struggled to cope. The enemy fleet converged to the point, anticipating a fleet engagement.
Once every enemy vessel was accelerating to the blast site at maximum velocity, The Fury’s shipmaster broke from its concealment in the asteroid field and red-lined the vessel towards Xeras Prime. The enemy ships detected them almost immediately, but at maximum velocity they were unwieldy, and The Fury raced away before any could mount a turn. They had friends in-system however, and two cruisers vectored out from Xeras Prime to confront them.
Halastar didn’t even slow down.
Raising front shields to maximum, Halastar blew through the blockades, focusing his fire to disable one of the two cruisers. The undamaged cruiser turned to pursue, and a kill team of Justinius’ men departed via teleport jump to disable the vessel to prevent any pursuit. They would either seize control of the vessel and flee, or they would die trying.
With great pride, Justinius listened over the comm as Halastar’s voice reported that the enemy vessel had broken off its trajectory, and was heading back out-system.
As The Fury broke into an orbit of Xeras Prime, the target location came into view on the ships observation cameras. It was called Factory Beta, but the name did no justice to the behemoth it described. Factory Beta was a sprawling megapolis that covered most of Xeras Prime’s western continent. From orbit, stacks and great structures could be seen towering over a sea of forges and factories. A dark gray smog hazed the polluted skies of the world, staining the globe with a murky, almost sinister darkness.
Pitched above this sprawling city-scape, Justinius beheld their weapon of choice: Xeras Station.
In the void above the city, hung a behemoth of an entirely different quality. Xeras Station was a grey cube above the world, with jutting scaffolding and docking gantries protruding from every surface. It was the largest space-station Justinius had ever seen, nearly two-hundred kilometers wide in each dimension.
Initially, Justinius had hoped a drive-by nuclear torpedo or two into the heart of Xeras Prime would be sufficient to disrupt the operations of the megapolis. Halastar had simply shaken his head.
“They’ve got defensive orbital guns. Any munition we drop from orbit will be intercepted, and we can’t stay long enough for any prolonged attack.”
Justinius and Halastar debated the issue for a long time before Marcus had given them a suggestion.
“Surely even defensive orbital guns can’t stop everything. What if we just throw everything we have at it? Surely something will get through.”
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Halastar smiled at that, wagging his finger at the soldier.
“You are very correct Marcus. What we need is a battering ram, and I think I know the perfect one.”
So it had been decided.
The sirens sounded in the teleport's ante-room, and Justinius and his men rushed onto the platform in the adjoining room. Halastar’s voice crackled into Justinius’ helmet.
“We’ve got a whole fleet coming in behind us. I’m only going to be able to get one orbit, then we’ll have to cut and run. Do try and be done by then. It’d look bad if I left you behind.”
“Acknowledged.”
The teleport fired with a breathtaking bang, and the wind was knocked out of Justinius’ lungs.
The Fury’s teleport room disappeared and through a haze of smoke, Justinius saw hazard taped walls and crates of goods.
His ten man kill-team had translated through with him, all intact and operational.
Aboard The Fury, Halastar was about to engage in a battle that would be retold for generations.
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Justinius ran through the halls of the station in a sprint.
His men, either side of him, kept pace, covering hallways and adjoining corridors as their comrades passed. Three times, squads of Xerian troops attempted to dissuade them. The four armed creatures famously favoured energy pistols and blades, and at several junctions they blitzed crackling beams of energy towards the advancing humans. The soldiers of the Terran First didn’t even slow down. Justinius' men ran headlong into the fusillade, decapitating the shooters with sweeps of their combat blades.
Several troopers took direct hits, but to their credit they were not slowed despite the blood leaking from the scored holes in their armour.
Xeras Station was not a military installation, but it was well guarded. It served as the central distribution center of all the goods produced on Xeras Prime, and thus had a population in the hundreds of thousands, a not insignificant portion of which were employed to keep the peace and defend the station.
To lose momentum in a place such as this meant death, and all the men knew it.
If they were stopped, even for a moment, they would be converged upon and beaten down by sheer numbers. On the other hand, destroying the station provided an additional benefit simply sabotaging the city below did not. Stockpiles of munitions and fuel were kept here, several months worth if Committee intelligence could be believed.
He checked his tactical map and mission timer. They were approximately three-hundred meters from the dorsal control room, which handled operations of primary systems on this side of the station. Here they could access the thruster controls and force the station out of its geostationary orbit. The resistance was thicker here, and his team scored nearly a dozen kills before they eventually reached the control room.
Without stopping, the lead trooper threw himself at the steel security door that led into the control room. The security door crumpled like tissue paper, and the trooper rolled through the entrance. The second trooper entered, and several shots rang out.
As Justinius followed in, he quickly found the terminal they needed.
He began to hear heavy footfalls converging in the outside corridor, and comm traffic confirmed that all squads had arrived at the objective, with no casualties. Justinius set the controls, keying in a manual override that would fire the dorsal thrusters, and force the station down into a death spiral. Two privates jogged into the control room, and began silently removing their bulky backpacks. Each contained a package the size of an oil-drum, matte-gray and cylindrical, except for a remote detonation control-unit into which the privates entered authorization codes. Their work done, they stood, nodded at Justinius, and left to assume defensive positions.
The packages were their insurance. In the event they could not successfully push the station out of orbit, they could detonate the devices and at least cripple it. The devices were not powerful enough alone to de-orbit the station alone however, and so they had brought them as a plan B.
Justinius checked his timer. Thirteen minutes had passed since insertion. Halastar had told them he’d orbit the planet once, to maintain his momentum, teleport extract them, and they’d run for the system edge. There they would jump back towards committee space.
He had estimated one orbit to take twenty minutes.
From somewhere far away in the station, Justinius could hear the sound of thousands of people realizing something was deathly wrong.