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In the depths of space a mass of drifting wreckage marked the destruction of most of the Lyren space fleet, they had never imagined that the technology of Earth could have developed so much faster than their own. Only four small cruisers escaped to the safety offered by the powerful Phasers in orbit around the planet of Lyre, and others set on the far side of its one moon. That had been three days ago, and the space fleet of Earth had already moved since then and attacked the Lyrens on the enslaved planet in the Malan system, which was the last of the planets to be incorporated into their Federation. Long before the war had started the Soldiers of Christ had been secretly landed onto the planet by a ship operated by the intelligence bureau run by Tom Parkinson, and unknown to Colonel Michaels there was also three squads of the space marines special forces along with them. The ship was built on Lyre so that it would go unnoticed amongst the Lyre Federation. It was just another small freighter paid for by Earth with gold from their huge reserves, if the galaxy knew just how much gold Earth held in its vaults the value of it would drop to that of iron.
The Soldiers of Christ and the marines had met with each of the groups of freedom fighters on the six enslaved planets of the Lyre Federation, but not the two colony worlds of Argos and Arcadia, which were the first of the planets to be enslaved and which had too large a Lyren population to make them a reasonable bet. They had convinced most of the freedom fighters to stop all operations until the fleet of Earth was strong enough to declare war upon the Lyrens and win. After the fleet had arrived and taken out the larger and more powerful weapons that Lyre had mounted on each of the planets, the freedom fighters could renew hostilities.
Earth had also promised to equip the freedom fighters with Phaser weapons when the time came, but they were having second thoughts now. They did not want to alienate the Lyren people with news of a blood bath on the slave planets, they hoped to force the surrender of the Lyren troops and then to send them home.
The cessation of the majority of hostile operations for the past year had begun to allay the suspicions of the Lyren occupation forces, and this allowed the slaves to move more freely around the military posts of the enslaved planets of the Lyre Federation. Over the last days of relative peace before hostilities commenced, this relative freedom of movement allowed the slaves to conceal electronic tags on all of the major military targets. When the starships from Earth arrived out of hyperspace to blockade the planet of Malan, the space cruisers easily took out the radar installations, the powerful mobile Phaser cannons and the storerooms where fuel and ammunition were stored. The Lyren military had used the locals to do all the heavy manual work which allowed them access into places that they shouldn`t have been allowed into. With this phase of the fighting over most of the hated overseers were then killed with an arrow somewhere in their body; collaborators were hung from the tallest trees for all to see. Only the civil authorities were so far left untouched, as they were in the urban areas on the planet, and so had troops armed with Phasers to defend them, this might not be enough, not when the slaves arrived with captured weapons.
The earthmen did manage to extract some promises from the local warriors, that the women and children would be spared, and as the space fleet of Earth had left a light cruiser behind for use as artillery by the local freedom fighters, the earthmen could threaten to withdraw it should the locals threaten to kill every Lyren that they found.
Also a small detachment of ground troops had now been sent down to the planet, they were there to protect any Lyren soldiers or civilians who surrendered, they in turn had set up a small defence shield, should the locals turn nasty and did attempt to murder every Lyren that they came across.
The space fleet then moved on to the next enslaved system, they were still not committing a large amount of land forces to the bloody battles down on the planet`s surface. It was only the Soldiers of Christ and the few marines who had initially stood in the way of a lot more bloodshed, and who called on the Lyrens to surrender to them before it was too late.
The Lyren authorities back on the home world only knew that one of their colony planets had been besieged by the space fleet of Earth, and that the fleet had begun to fire down on it. Nothing else had come out of the system as the Earth ships destroyed the transmitter on the planet soon after their arrival, thanks to the use of the electronic tags that permitted the space cruisers to target anything of strategic importance.
Galaxy Spies Page 27
