Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Telgros: Township of Rula; June 25th, 003 SDE, 0330 hours:

The force commander leaned over the table, studying the map. Alpha division had landed south of Rula and then made a fast march on the town. Aside from some small encounters, the entire operation had so far gone without a hitch. As Forrest’s right hand girl she was feeling very proud of her troops. Alpha division was the pride of the fleet, and she was going to prove it. Especially since she felt quite honored to be one of the two generals underneath General Forrest.

Forrest was the overall commander of the fleet’s marine complement. Every soldier on all three ships answered to him. The Coto and Umikaze both had their own marine complements, but nothing large enough to constitute a division, which meant they didn’t need a general to lead those troops. She had been chosen personally by Forrest to lead Alpha division and honestly she wanted to prove him right. The force commander knew well that there were a few officers who had been demoted following the Battle of Earth. Something that was needed given that the fleet required a clear chain of command, but that didn’t mean everyone liked it. Commander Williams was especially vocal in the navy, while Commander Jameson in the inferior Beta Division didn’t seem to like it. He had been just shy of making general when he got demoted back to Commander, but she knew from experience that his former rank was due to connections. Something Forrest had begrudgingly allowed since he had no hand in that, but those connections were no more. Hence his rather large demotion.

She recalled that the Fleet Marines and the Navy had slightly different ranks, but there was a lot of overlap in order to prevent confusion during joint operations. A commander was a commander, be they Marine or Navy, same with captain. Of course there was a little difference in some enlisted ranks. Like the lowest rank of crewman didn’t make much sense for a marine.

Setting rank aside, she gave the map a look. The battle plan as laid out by Forrest was simple enough. The key points were that she was to land her division south of Rula and then march on the township, where she was to engage the local defenders and relieve the advance force sent to capture the bridge. Control of the bridge would be important for the next move on the port, their main objective. She also had a secondary objective to seize the warehouses on the west side of Rula.

Between her and those objectives was the Rula Garrison. Intel put the force of the garrison at about thirty thousand troops, perhaps a little stronger since smaller units have been moving and linking up at the township. The main air defense battery was bombed earlier, which removed one concern, but the town wasn’t defenseless.

Intel had identified several locations of interest. Two military motor pools, and several bunkers. The local garrison had also been observed from aerial recon and orbital scans to have started fortifying positions throughout the township. Most of the defenses were at the main garrison, which according to scans had both a surface level and an underground region.

Nothing she planned to take head on. A direct assault would likely win the day, but she would rather soften the enemy up before committing the troops. To that end she had already ordered the shelling of the town.

As if to remind her of the order, she heard the whine of a cannon firing. The battlefields of old were marked by the thunderous roar of cannons, but today’s photon shell cannons don’t use chemical compounds to accelerate their projectiles. Instead, these weapons use a magnetic coil to accelerate a projectile containing a photon warhead to potentially hypersonic velocities. Another whine and then a thrum told her the artillery crew she was sharing her walker with had fired. Of course anything approaching maximum velocity tended to become exceptionally flat. This did wonders for armor penetration but made it quite difficult to fire over a hill. On a different note, firing at hypersonic was great for counter-fire against smaller orbital vessels. Ships with inadequate armor would be ripped to shreds by the shells, especially if it was a proper penetration allowing the warhead packed inside to detonate inside the hostile hull.

She had a feeling the Valorians were in for a bad day, these rounds were 178-millimeter (seven-inch), high-velocity shells, outfitted with a low-yield photon warhead. Although low yield didn’t mean these shells weren’t going to do damage. In fact they were going to do a lot of damage on impact. Something confirmed by the orbital image being shown on the screen to her right, where she saw a shell smack into a house. Leveling the two-story building, and its neighbors outright while other nearby buildings were left as little more than ruins. The 90-kilogram shell detonated in a brilliant display of blue light and left a small crater behind. Not unsurprising since the shell had a yield in the low kilotons. Several more impacted in nearby areas with similar effect, leaving nothing but craters and burned out husks behind. Fires erupted to cause even more damage. While computer targeting adjusted shell angles and velocities for maximum impact on the target area.

0341 hours, Rula Township:

The building shook and the young pilot kept her head down. This was all wrong, she should be in the air, not on the ground hiding in a hole while hostile forces shelled the town. Not that she could do anything to change that. Her plane was a crashed wreck near Hesa and the rest of the air fleet had been bombed by alien fighters and shuttles.

A moment later a klaxon blared before an announcement rang out, “All troops stand ready. Defensive positions, the enemy is advancing.”

She blinked and then glanced to the man next to her, who was peeking out the viewport from this bunker in the local garrison. “How does it look?”

“Bad, the town has been reduced to craters and crumbling ruins. I still can’t believe we are getting shelled.”

“Why not?”

“It’s artillery, why not use the guns on their ships? They could bombard us from orbit. Why use ground-based artillery?

The girl shrugged, she was a pilot not a soldier. “Don’t ask me.” She looked out her own viewport at the devastation. Not far from here she could see the buildings near the bridge, which seemed to still be intact. A stark difference from the wasteland just meters from them. Somehow she didn’t think that was an accident, “But it certainly seems to have been effective.”

“I guess, just keep sharp.”

Her gaze turned back to the wasteland, which seemed oddly quiet. The shells had stopped at least for now. Were the aliens reloading or something?

A moment later, her fellow said, “There in the shadows! Did you see that?”

She blinked and looked out again. There was nothing, it was just quiet, calm. Only the occasional fire, there wasn’t even life out there. It was a lifeless wasteland like something out of those dusty history books her father had loved. She was looking out at no-man’s land and there was just something eerie about this that sent a shudder down her spine. For a moment she didn’t see anything else, but then her eye caught something. A shadow slipped out and darted into another so fast she almost missed it. “What was that?”

“They’re here,” said the man.

At first she wasn’t sure what he meant, but then she saw another figure move and the dots connected. She was looking at alien scouts moving in the ruins. It was hard to figure out where they were, however the aliens were using some kind of active camouflage. Like something the Voskar might have used. For all she knew they were using Voskar technology. Now wasn’t the time for theories. Adjusting her grip on the rifle she had been issued, she took aim. Just moments before someone else opened fire on the shadows.

A flash of blue light streaked from the sky an instant later and pierced a viewport to her right. From elsewhere a shout echoed down the hall, “SNIPER! Take cover!”

Suddenly opening fire didn’t seem that good of an idea. Yet it proved only the beginning. It wasn’t long before she saw armored alien figures enter the area. Moving in a loose formation and quickly. She blinked, these aliens were fast, very fast. Several guns opened up, trying to hit them. Most of the shots went wide but a few found their marks. The alien armor glowed slightly as the plasma rounds washed harmlessly over the suits.

A moment later, the alien troops slipped into cover. One of them pulled something off their back, and aimed it at one of the fortified pillboxes. There was a whine, then a bolt of blue light flared out before instantly smashing into the box. The shields protecting the concrete structure blazed brightly for a moment before her vision was obscured by an intense blinding flash.

She blinked, water in her eyes. It took a couple of moments, maybe a bit longer before her vision cleared. Where she could now see, several firefights broke out, and a broken pillbox. While more alien soldiers were taking positions to engage. She raised her rifle to fire at a few, just as she saw the familiar streak of light caused by an alien sniper rifle. She kept her head down just in case, but she felt a little safer here than elsewhere. This tower had a good view of the bridge, and several other areas on the west side of the main garrison.

A moment later, the klaxon blared again, this time with a new announcement. Most of it didn’t matter to her, but she quickly digested the report that enemy troops were now in the base. The commander of this position in the tower shouted, “Eighth Squad watch our rears!”

The pilot wasn’t very worried about her rear right now, she was more worried about the front. Even more so when a heavy weapon started firing from a broken building on the right flank. Its powerful and rapid discharge of particle bolts quickly cut down a squad of troopers making their way back to the main base. Survivors from a broken fortification on the edge of her sight.

This wasn’t looking good. From another tower, she saw the flash of a sniper trying to suppress the alien heavy weapon position. Several rounds splashed against the building, but she didn’t have a good view of the building. Making it hard to tell if there was any effect from the attack.

She however had other things to soon worry about, as alien fire splashed against her viewport. The pilot pulled back quickly and it was quite fortunate as an energy pulse punched through the window. Slamming into the wall with brutal force, leaving a charred hole in the wall behind her through which she could see daylight. Making her quite glad that hadn’t hit her, if it had she would have been dead. No question about that.

Taking a breath, she took a moment to calm herself before peeking out again. This time things looked worse, as several alien tanks came into view, their cannon firing at targets out of her view. From the direction of the river came counter fire, large heavy looking plasma bolts. Last she checked there wasn’t anything on the other side of the river. She felt something grow in her belly as she realized what that meant. Reinforcements had arrived!

A crashing sound drew her attention back to the alien forces, where she saw something massive plow through a ruined apartment building. It was absolutely huge, with a large somewhat flat looking body, a giant curved tail floating above that, and what looked to be large gun mounts securely settled on its back. Six huge and thick legs provided support, while a clawed arm smashed a ruined structure allowing the behemoth to move forward. “What the fuck is that!?” she exclaimed.

A second later, she watched an energy burst emerge from heavy emitter diodes mounted in that tail. For what seemed like an eternity a long beam of blue death swept out across the river. Hitting targets she couldn’t see, but it had only been a second if that. Then she watched a soldier with a rocket pop out from cover, and shoot the thing. The plasma rocket slammed into its side, and fizzled leaving behind an unblemished hull. In the next moment, a shadow materialized from nowhere and gunned the rocket soldier down. Leaving her wondering what they were going to do against that thing.

EFS Enterprise, 0420 hours:

Willaims settled into her seat at the table. Across from her Commander Jameson reclined, while taking a sip from his mug. Sighing, she inquired, “So how did things go on your end?”

“Well I put out a few feelers, General Kirk seems quite enamored with General Forrest. I doubt she would support us, but I think we have a road up with General Evanov. Evanov and Forrest have had a bit of a rivalry and Forrest currently stands between him and further advancement.”

“Oh? So I presume you don’t mind serving under Evanov?”

He gave her a look, “I’d still be a general, I can wait a bit. It will be much easier to advance back to the top where I belong.”

She glanced to the side, “On a different note, what do you think about the situation on the ground?”

“Kirk has a good head and these Valorians are badly trained. I think she will have the port by the end of the day if not sooner.”

“That leaves us with the question of what to do with the planet?”

Jameson sighed, “From what I have heard it’s a treasure trove. Personally I would like to keep it and make it our new home, but I think we will be hard pressed to defend it.”

“I agree. Ruri created something interesting, so I was thinking we should use it.”

“Hmm, you mean those planet-cracking satellites? A bit extreme, but you might be right. We can vote for it on the council.”

“Yes, well, the council has a habit of going with that Machine. Think you can organize something?”

“Ah, I think I know what you want and I have just the solution.”

“Perfect, just don’t move too quickly. Lets give the council a try first, but keep it in place just in case.”

“Will do!”