Chapter 10; A Brutal Morning
Kadaeux
Delta Imperator
- Location
- Vortice between realities
Chapter 10;
A Brutal Morning
Xarsis
3021 (2157)
The people of the Turian colony of Xarsis had been unprepared for a number of the Turian picket ships sent to retreat to their location bearing knews. And as little as they had been prepared for it, they had been ever more unprepared for what had come to follow. Two ships arrived over the poles of the Star and began to broadcast in their curious way, the signals going nowhere anyone could see. They were unaware that as the recon ships had pursued the Turians one had dropped off the chase every forty lightyears to act as a relay. And the proximity of the colony to the area left two of the Alien recon ships watching the system and its Turian colony.
As the picket ships discovered the pursuers hiding in the lagrange point over the northern pole of the star and were dispatched to deal with it, the amount of intelligence sent by the craft continued unabated for some time. "This is the Kronos of the Turian Heirarchy to unknown vessels. Power down your systems and prepare to be boarded." The transmission was sent to the two craft that, as they closed in, they watched them furl small sails... and disappear in a flash of cerulean light. "Sensors, I want those ships found!"
"We have nothing sir..they are gone, this isn't some kind of stealth." There was a long pause as they continued to work at the problem for five, seven, then ten minutes...
Light reached them of the two craft arriving in the L3 point for the Xarsis colony. Light ten minutes old. Without using their faster than light drives, it would take them hours to catch them once more. "Captain. They're broadcasting those weird signals again. ALARM ALARM!"
Five objects appeared in the system, this time in the L2 Lagrange point for the Xarsis colony, fed incredibly accurate data from the two recon ships the five vessels moved in on the colony as fast as their main drives could accelerate them into orbit and the Captain felt terror grip his heart. Four craft the size of small dreadnoughts were escorting one very large one.
Twenty ovoid craft detatched and began a burn to enter the atmosphere of the Turian colony.
---
Zaeed Massani, the youngest ever Khan of Clan Burrock sat in the seat of his Command Mech as six entire Galaxies dropped with him. Twelve of the dropships deploying them were the modified Overlords, filled to the brim with mechs, the other eight were occupied by armoured Clusters. The five dropships remaining attached to the Potempkin were all Titans loaded with aerospace fighters ready for anything. Two were only now detaching to escort them in.
"Alright shitheads, we are dropping in twenty kilometres from largest city, surrounding it. We're not playing around here, but we are also not going to fuck this up, orders from on high is to dispatch resistance with maximum prejudice but aim to avoid collateral at all costs. IF they shoot at you, you are authorised to shoot back. Star Captains of the Armored Trinaries, I want you to set up FOBs and take up defensive position and let the artillery boys and girls set up their toys. Anyone operating a mech, our job is to move up to the outskirts of the city and suppress any heavy defences. Sorry boys, but the orders are the Elementals will be responsible for securing the city proper. Try not to kill innocents, and don't break their stuff if you don't have to. We're here to make a point, we can hit them, but we aren't trying to hurt them. Let us not give them a reason to chuck a tantrum."
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Shanxi
3021 (2157)
The Cruisers and four Dreadnoughts arrived in orbit of the world occupied by the alien race, dropships and gunships spilling from the Dreadnoughts bellies as smaller craft descended to deploy troops directly. They had worked hard to locate the human world, and they would not make an ass of a showing of their attack, the enemy fleet presence here was light, having been dispatched mostly to joint the group at Relay 314. They were ready for the attack however and it didn't take long for them to bring weapons to bear on the Turian task force. But the McKenna, Sovetskii Soyuz and pair of Quixote class vessels were divided too much to put up a concerted response and, withering under fire from the four Turian Dreadnoughts, the McKenna erupted in nuclear fire, if not before her naval PPC's rendered down one of the Dreadnoughts into crippled slag that would require aid to tow away.
"The Primarch has tasked us with securing the colony here on this world, avoid needless civilian casualties but do not hesitate to put down anyone armed and trying to kill you."
---
"Strike right! Strike right!" The order came from a Sergeant as he moved towards the outer edge of a plaza. Two teams bearing missile launchers stepped out of cover and raised their weapons as the machine moved from behind one of the buildings. It moved quickly, damned quickly. It's arms comically raised overhead made for a deceptive sight as the two emerald beams swept out from it and eliminated a fireteam across the street. Two missiles shot into the air and the machine spun on its torso and the missiles detonated against a kinetic barrier. The fire teams were practiced however and already firing a second rocket. The machine decided not to stick around and hurtled off into the streets and the momentary terror of the moment disappeared. "This is Sergeant Varn. We have one of those flippy hand machines rushing south-west." Static was their only answer as a pair of armoured vehicles moved up the street, their mass accelerators searching for more of the human vehicles.
The scream overhead of powerful thrusters filled the air before something dropped down into a street several blocks over. A sound that had successfully masked the thumping of footsteps as it surged into the plaza. The first Varn knew of its presence was the crack as both tanks fired their mass accelerators at the machine. He turned in time to see the dissipating light of a kinetic barrier glowing cherry red. And he soiled his hardsuit.
It was bipedal and turned its arms on the tanks. The missile teams fired.... and the air buzzed as a point defence weapon blazed and shot down both missiles, and the teams firing them incidentally, the weapons on its arms glowed and fired some kind of particle beam weapons at the first tank causing it to erupt in flames before the hell machine turned three emerald laser beams on the second, a timely arrival of a squadron of gunships pouring missiles into the machine until its anti missile system couldn't compensate anymore and it went down in a sheet of flames.
The walkers were utterly devastating machines. It surprised the Sergeant that there seemed to be little presence of infantry, they should have been opposed by no...
Missiles reached up from the rooftops and destroyed two of the Gunships, leaving the last to retreat ignobly as it tried to avoid sharing the fate of the first two. They had been trying to secure the city with as little damage and collateral as possible, but none could have envisioned the response by the forces on the ground. Even as the enemies last ship blinked away in a flash of light the forces on the ground continued to fight.
"Move up. Move up..." He hesitated, lookng at the sprayed wall where the missile teams had fired from, they weren't the targets of the enemies anti-missile system, they'd simply been behind the path of fire. "Command, I need more anti-tank teams here." He stopped and looked at nothing in shock, "What do you mean there are none available?"
The sound of thrusters firing drew his attention back to the square as ten figures landed in the square. They weren't the same bipedal machines they had encountered. They were far far worse. Ruby laser fire picked out every one of his men in the open scrabbling to find cover as they disgorged the missiles on their shoulders at the damaged tank blowing it appart in a spray of shrapnel that sliced him open to the bone, his left arm little more than shredded meat.
A sniper fired, a kinetic barrier flared and failed, a second shot piercing the thick armour protecting the face of the armours occupant, a man or woman who had been too slow to move. And then there was screaming coming from within the building from his sniper before his body came flying out the window to crash on the ground below.
His men were behind barricades to protect themselves against the human power armoured troopers.
As he looked up, he wondered for just a moment what was going to protect him from the civilians with incendiary bottles. He didn't have to wonder long. The answer was nothing.
A Brutal Morning
Xarsis
3021 (2157)
The people of the Turian colony of Xarsis had been unprepared for a number of the Turian picket ships sent to retreat to their location bearing knews. And as little as they had been prepared for it, they had been ever more unprepared for what had come to follow. Two ships arrived over the poles of the Star and began to broadcast in their curious way, the signals going nowhere anyone could see. They were unaware that as the recon ships had pursued the Turians one had dropped off the chase every forty lightyears to act as a relay. And the proximity of the colony to the area left two of the Alien recon ships watching the system and its Turian colony.
As the picket ships discovered the pursuers hiding in the lagrange point over the northern pole of the star and were dispatched to deal with it, the amount of intelligence sent by the craft continued unabated for some time. "This is the Kronos of the Turian Heirarchy to unknown vessels. Power down your systems and prepare to be boarded." The transmission was sent to the two craft that, as they closed in, they watched them furl small sails... and disappear in a flash of cerulean light. "Sensors, I want those ships found!"
"We have nothing sir..they are gone, this isn't some kind of stealth." There was a long pause as they continued to work at the problem for five, seven, then ten minutes...
Light reached them of the two craft arriving in the L3 point for the Xarsis colony. Light ten minutes old. Without using their faster than light drives, it would take them hours to catch them once more. "Captain. They're broadcasting those weird signals again. ALARM ALARM!"
Five objects appeared in the system, this time in the L2 Lagrange point for the Xarsis colony, fed incredibly accurate data from the two recon ships the five vessels moved in on the colony as fast as their main drives could accelerate them into orbit and the Captain felt terror grip his heart. Four craft the size of small dreadnoughts were escorting one very large one.
Twenty ovoid craft detatched and began a burn to enter the atmosphere of the Turian colony.
---
Zaeed Massani, the youngest ever Khan of Clan Burrock sat in the seat of his Command Mech as six entire Galaxies dropped with him. Twelve of the dropships deploying them were the modified Overlords, filled to the brim with mechs, the other eight were occupied by armoured Clusters. The five dropships remaining attached to the Potempkin were all Titans loaded with aerospace fighters ready for anything. Two were only now detaching to escort them in.
"Alright shitheads, we are dropping in twenty kilometres from largest city, surrounding it. We're not playing around here, but we are also not going to fuck this up, orders from on high is to dispatch resistance with maximum prejudice but aim to avoid collateral at all costs. IF they shoot at you, you are authorised to shoot back. Star Captains of the Armored Trinaries, I want you to set up FOBs and take up defensive position and let the artillery boys and girls set up their toys. Anyone operating a mech, our job is to move up to the outskirts of the city and suppress any heavy defences. Sorry boys, but the orders are the Elementals will be responsible for securing the city proper. Try not to kill innocents, and don't break their stuff if you don't have to. We're here to make a point, we can hit them, but we aren't trying to hurt them. Let us not give them a reason to chuck a tantrum."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shanxi
3021 (2157)
The Cruisers and four Dreadnoughts arrived in orbit of the world occupied by the alien race, dropships and gunships spilling from the Dreadnoughts bellies as smaller craft descended to deploy troops directly. They had worked hard to locate the human world, and they would not make an ass of a showing of their attack, the enemy fleet presence here was light, having been dispatched mostly to joint the group at Relay 314. They were ready for the attack however and it didn't take long for them to bring weapons to bear on the Turian task force. But the McKenna, Sovetskii Soyuz and pair of Quixote class vessels were divided too much to put up a concerted response and, withering under fire from the four Turian Dreadnoughts, the McKenna erupted in nuclear fire, if not before her naval PPC's rendered down one of the Dreadnoughts into crippled slag that would require aid to tow away.
"The Primarch has tasked us with securing the colony here on this world, avoid needless civilian casualties but do not hesitate to put down anyone armed and trying to kill you."
---
"Strike right! Strike right!" The order came from a Sergeant as he moved towards the outer edge of a plaza. Two teams bearing missile launchers stepped out of cover and raised their weapons as the machine moved from behind one of the buildings. It moved quickly, damned quickly. It's arms comically raised overhead made for a deceptive sight as the two emerald beams swept out from it and eliminated a fireteam across the street. Two missiles shot into the air and the machine spun on its torso and the missiles detonated against a kinetic barrier. The fire teams were practiced however and already firing a second rocket. The machine decided not to stick around and hurtled off into the streets and the momentary terror of the moment disappeared. "This is Sergeant Varn. We have one of those flippy hand machines rushing south-west." Static was their only answer as a pair of armoured vehicles moved up the street, their mass accelerators searching for more of the human vehicles.
The scream overhead of powerful thrusters filled the air before something dropped down into a street several blocks over. A sound that had successfully masked the thumping of footsteps as it surged into the plaza. The first Varn knew of its presence was the crack as both tanks fired their mass accelerators at the machine. He turned in time to see the dissipating light of a kinetic barrier glowing cherry red. And he soiled his hardsuit.
It was bipedal and turned its arms on the tanks. The missile teams fired.... and the air buzzed as a point defence weapon blazed and shot down both missiles, and the teams firing them incidentally, the weapons on its arms glowed and fired some kind of particle beam weapons at the first tank causing it to erupt in flames before the hell machine turned three emerald laser beams on the second, a timely arrival of a squadron of gunships pouring missiles into the machine until its anti missile system couldn't compensate anymore and it went down in a sheet of flames.
The walkers were utterly devastating machines. It surprised the Sergeant that there seemed to be little presence of infantry, they should have been opposed by no...
Missiles reached up from the rooftops and destroyed two of the Gunships, leaving the last to retreat ignobly as it tried to avoid sharing the fate of the first two. They had been trying to secure the city with as little damage and collateral as possible, but none could have envisioned the response by the forces on the ground. Even as the enemies last ship blinked away in a flash of light the forces on the ground continued to fight.
"Move up. Move up..." He hesitated, lookng at the sprayed wall where the missile teams had fired from, they weren't the targets of the enemies anti-missile system, they'd simply been behind the path of fire. "Command, I need more anti-tank teams here." He stopped and looked at nothing in shock, "What do you mean there are none available?"
The sound of thrusters firing drew his attention back to the square as ten figures landed in the square. They weren't the same bipedal machines they had encountered. They were far far worse. Ruby laser fire picked out every one of his men in the open scrabbling to find cover as they disgorged the missiles on their shoulders at the damaged tank blowing it appart in a spray of shrapnel that sliced him open to the bone, his left arm little more than shredded meat.
A sniper fired, a kinetic barrier flared and failed, a second shot piercing the thick armour protecting the face of the armours occupant, a man or woman who had been too slow to move. And then there was screaming coming from within the building from his sniper before his body came flying out the window to crash on the ground below.
His men were behind barricades to protect themselves against the human power armoured troopers.
As he looked up, he wondered for just a moment what was going to protect him from the civilians with incendiary bottles. He didn't have to wonder long. The answer was nothing.
