Talosian Chronicles 6: Armageddon

by Ben Winston

  "Thumper, this is Dancer Strike. Their are two heavy tanks that seem to be having a run of luck. I'll paint them for you," the soft voice said.

  "Missiles sync'ed," Thumper replied. "Bringin' the thunder. Thanks for the hand-off Strike. Heads up folks, this is gonna rock their world."

  When the missiles hit the two tanks from directly above, the resulting explosions filled the crater with shrapnel and confusion. The Imperial forces began to retreat from the edge of the crater only to discover Dancer squad had appropriated their crashed ship as cover. The bottom of the crater became a killing field was Dasher reached the upper edge and added their guns to those of the fighters and the other squad. The Imperial troops and vehicles had no where to hide, but continued to fight back until there were only a few soldiers left. They had been hiding in the wreckage of one of their personnel transports. When they looked up to see where the enemy was, they saw the nine FROGs standing boldly on the rim of the crater with their weapons trained on them. Above, the two fighters slowly circled.

  After a brief communication, the remaining imperial soldiers dropped their weapons and walked out from cover. As one they all removed their helmets and fell to the lunar surface.

  "Why do they have to do that?" someone asked quietly. "Wouldn't it have been more honorable to go out fighting?"

  "Command, we're done here. No prisoners," Paula reported.

  "Good work, all of you. Thumper Flight, return to base for an escort mission to Earth. Dasher and Dancer squads, find a place to park your drones and take a fifteen minute break, but stay on comms and close to your control sets," Command ordered. "This isn't over yet, but we're getting a lull for the moment."

  TDF Star Dancer

  TDRS Necromancer

  Earth Space

  Sol System

  "Apache actual to Guardian actual, Raptor Priority!" Jana's voice issued from the speakers.

  Ian touched the accept icon. Raptor Priority meant it was vitally important and Ian also knew Jana and her teams had been hanging around the 'third' wave fleet since they arrived in the system. They had been sitting on the far side of the system, apparently content to let the rest of the Imperial forces do all the fighting.

  "What's up Jana?" Ian asked.

  "Our friends out here have run out of patience. They're moving in, they're going pretty slowly for the time being, but they are definitely on their way to Earth. Current ETA is about two hours," Jana replied.

  "I guess it makes sense, were pretty much at a stalemate in the battle. Both sides have taken a lot of damage. What is the final count on that fleet?" Ian asked tiredly.

  She smiled at him sadly. "Eighty-four ships, forty of them are those weird transports. We've been planting demo charges on their hulls, since we got here but couldn't get them all since we had to make our own anti-matter. We tried to focus on the fighting ships, so they should lose another thirty-three ships once we detonate them. We can plant a couple more before they get too close, though." She paused. "Are you alright Sir? I reported most of that when we arrived."

  He smiled back at her. "I got knocked in the head pretty good since then. Continue to plant your charges, but be ready to bail on short notice. I'll see what I can scrape together to stop them."

  "Have we taken that much damage?" Jana asked, concerned.

  Ian nodded. "We've taken pretty significant losses. However, the Empire has taken a shit load as well. Over-all, they've taken more than we have, but the fighting is still pretty wide-spread. They started running low on missiles a few hours ago, and that's given us an advantage; they will lose this fight… eventually.

  "Earth is still safe, but there has been a lot of damage. Several of the world capitols took direct hits and the leaders were killed. So far, the UN is still safe, but New York has been heavily damaged thanks to the Caldarians. Civilian casualties are estimated in the millions. There's still some fighting going on down there, but it's isolated and mostly under control now.

  "The Centauri system is still fighting. That battle has turned into a running battle of attrition. Both sides are getting worn down, but so far, the planet has been left alone. Some of the space facilities have taken damage, but none of them have been totally destroyed. We're going to have a lot of work on our hands getting everything rebuilt after this is over with," he finished, tiredly. He sighed. "We've lost three hundred ships, a hundred and seventy thousand soldiers and ship crew. Another two hundred thousand have been recovered from wrecks."

  "Jesus, we had no idea it was that bad," Jana replied, shocked.

  Ian nodded. "No one does, we've been keeping that information classified for now. We don't want morale to suffer. We'll let it out when the fight is over."

  "What are you going to do about these fanatics?" Jana asked.

  "I don't know yet. We'll have to beg, borrow and steal enough ships to stop them. If we pull a full unit off the line, it'll open the flood gates," Ian replied.

  "That might not be such a bad thing, Admiral," Major Jordan, Ike's replacement suggested. He took over the table and started pulling most of the units currently in the main battle and dropping them around Earth. "We know that Earth is their main target here, if we leave the defending force at Mars, and recall everyone else. We can stage here, which will give our bigger ships time to fully resupply and make some needed repairs. The main body of Imperials will suspect a trap, so they'll advance slowly. The Guards are already here, but you know that crazy Aussie will charge out there and start swinging as soon as he knows the third wave is moving in. That'll probably slow the bigger ships down at least a little bit, while the rest of our people can get here to support them."

  "What happens if the main body heads for Mars first? The remnants of the fleet we have protecting that planet wouldn't last all that long against that many ships," Ian countered.

  "They'd have to go past us to get there, Sir. I'll grant the smaller units could micro-jump out there, but so can ours," the man replied. "I think we can do this. It'll give our people the much needed time to take a breath and reload. It'll consolidate the enemy force so we can focus on them."

  "True, We'll be able to concentrate more fire on the heavier targets, but by pulling them in closer, we risk more damage to the planet. On the other hand, our people do need at least a small break to catch their breath and reload missiles and torpedoes." Ian was thinking out-loud, a sign to how tired he was getting. "I know my judgment might be compromised right now, so what do you think Chloe?"

  "I think the real threat here are those ships Colonel Cromwell warned us about. If just one of them gets close enough to dust the planet, the game's over. Risk or not, I think we need to get our forces back here as quickly as possible," Chloe explained. "I don't see us as having much choice, Sir."

  Ian sighed and nodded., "I'm inclined to agree with you. Begin the withdrawal, but see if we can leave some surprises for our guests. Have them drop missiles and proximity fused demolition charges behind them as they go."

  Chloe smiled. "I think I know what you want, Sir. I'll make it happen."

  Ian opened a channel to engineering and was surprised when he got the chief engineer himself. "Chief Dommer, good to see you. How's our lady?"

  "She's hurt pretty badly, Admiral. We're going to be spending some quality time at Pleiades when this is all over," the gruff engineer replied. "We should be there now, but some asshole ordered his minions to come here and raise hell."

  "I'm certain he is now aware of our displeasure by this point Chief," Ian replied "Are we going to be of any use to the fleet?"

  The man shook his head. "I don't see how Sir; it's actually a miracle we didn't just blow up. So much energy hitting us so quickly overloaded the plasma conduits and back fed the excess into the main reactor. It should have exploded. The safety protocols ejected it before it could blow. What we have right now is a cobbled up network of patches held together by duct tape and baling wire. The secondary reactor is still on standby until we can make sure it wasn't damaged. Currently,
the techs from the Necromancer are helping us replace the major plasma conduits so we can bring the secondary reactor on line when the tests are finished.

  "But even after we get all that done, we'll be able to power the weapons and shields, but if we take even a light hit, the whole mess could just fall apart and kill us all." The man finished. "It looks like you took some damage too."

  "I'll live, but it sounds like the ship got it worse. Please do what you can for her, Chief," Ian asked.

  "One other thing, Sir. When the bow took those hits, the AI core should have been ejected to preserve it's data. Major Star was isolated and on an internal power for almost twenty minutes. When we got power back to her, I asked her if the ejection system took damage and she said no," He looked a little uncomfortable. "I think she prevented her core from being ejected."

  Ian nodded. "I'll speak to her about it once we get our asses out of this mess. Thank you for telling me Chief." Ian sighed. "As for our condition, you might want to let your people know that in about an hour, maybe two, we're going to be in the center of the battlefield again. I'll try to get the Necromancer to move us away, but really, there isn't anywhere for us to go."

  "We can't jump until the tests are finished on the secondary reactor, but after that can't we jump to Centauri? These repairs would go a hell of a lot fast in one of the docks," the Chief asked.

  Ian shook his head. "The Empire hit Centauri too, they're still fighting over there as well. Some of the stations are off-line due to combat damage, and rest already have their hands full keeping their defenders in the fight. No, we're going to have to stay right here and do the best we can with that we can get fixed before the enemy gets here."

  "We'll do the best we can Sir; but try to buy us some time," Dommer replied.

  Ian nodded and ended the call. "Jordan, please see if Commander Richter can move us to Phoenix Base. We can get more help with repairs and we can help protect the base."

  The man nodded in reply to the order, but was busy with something else at the moment.

  "Sir, the fleets are moving back. The Admirals understand what you want and will make it happen. Our Raptors are going to be adding to the surprises for our guests by using this opportunity to create as much havoc and confusion as they can. The largest of the ships are going to be getting demo charges, other ships are going to get everything from blown airlocks to anti-tank mines dropped on shield generators.

  "They have been working to discover which ship is the enemy command vessel, but so far, haven't found it. They do know it is not one of the capitol ships, though," Chloe replied. "Which means it's a shell game as to which light cruiser has the pea in it."

  Ian snorted. "Except there's a couple hundred shells to choose from."

  "Actually… what?" Chloe said looking intently at the holotank display. "Ian, the fleets!"

  Ian saw it almost as soon as Chloe had. "Chloe! Tell Jana to get the hell out of there now! Detonate what charges they have set once their clear!"

  In the holotank, Ian watched as the remaining Alliance forces disobeyed his orders… and as one, micro-jumped to the third wave location.

  "Of all the crazy, stupid… Jordan, monitor solar activity! That much mass jumping this far into the system is going to cause a problem!" Ian ordered.

  "I think that might actually be their plan Sir, they're using the star as a weapon!" Jordan replied, paling."If they can't jump clear in time, their all dead!" He paused. "Oh God! Massive solar activity! Particle emissions are off the scale! Coronal Mass Ejection any fucking second! Jesus! The corona is bulging outward!"

  In the background of that Ian could hear Chloe talking to Jana. "Just get out of there now! Jump clear you don't have any time!"

  Ian watching in morbid fascination as the enemy fleet tried to turn away from the impending solar event, and turned right into the massed Alliance fleet. The Alliance fleet fired thousands of missiles, lasers, particle cannons and mass drivers into the enemy while they made a turn of their own and jumped out again. The exit jump had an immediate and horrify effect; a massive coronal mass ejection was literally torn out of the corona of the star right into the enemy formation incinerating them.

  "Chloe, please tell me all of our ships got clear of that," Ian asked quietly.

  Chloe shook her head. "I don't know Sir. There's so many high-energy particles out there it's impossible to see anything."

  Ian took a deep breath to calm himself. "If any one of our people got hurt in this stunt, I'll space that bastard who ordered it myself! Would someone please try to find out what the long term affects of this are going to be? It would really suck if we saved the place from the empire by destroying it ourselves!"

  It turned out that everyone made it away from the super solar eruption except the most of the enemy fleet. A few of the transports and one of the battleships survived, but all of them were so heavily damaged they might as well have been destroyed.

  The fleet jumped back to roughly their original positions, but immediately started withdrawing back toward Earth as per orders. The sudden jumping around did manage to confuse the enemy forces. The sudden detonation of demolition charges on the remaining dreadnoughts, battleships and a few of the heavy cruisers rattled them. The rash of 'unexplained, strange incidents with shield generators, main airlock doors and other mischief put their entire fleet on edge.

  One of the Raptors actually flew into a hanger on a heavy cruiser, blasted the hell out of the place and left again. When it passed through the 'air-skin' force field covering the opening to the hanger, a close-by light cruiser saw them and opened fire. They missed and raked it's larger sister ship with laser fire. That must have pissed off someone because the large ship blew the smaller one into scrap. That started a small 'feud' in the enemy ranks that shortly had them squaring off against each other. Obviously, the enemy commanders were not happy with how the battle had been going.

  The event served to help the Raptors isolate the enemy command vessel. A light cruiser flew right up to the much larger heavy cruiser and fired it's weapons, point blank, into the bridge area. Not one of the other ships even targeted it; the Raptors had found their target.

  Ian wasn't at all happy that Cindy was taking the Damocles to capture the command ship. "There are currently almost thirty Raptor teams operating in this theater; so why does it have to be you that takes the command ship?"

  "There's actually a few reasons," Cindy replied reasonably. "First, I'm the second in command of the special operations group. I have enough clout to handle something like this if I need to. Second, I'm not so sure any of the other teams would keep the prisoners alive long enough to make it back to base. Finally, we won the lottery; Ty even raised an eyebrow over it, but operations assured him it had been a totally random occurrence."

  'Operations' was the mysterious female voice that the Raptor teams dealt with when they were on a mission. Very few people knew exactly who she was, and because of her job, she had to remain apart and anonymous. So the teams simply referred to her as 'operations'.

  "I still don't like the idea of you assaulting that ship alone," Ian replied.

  Cindy looked at him and smiled. "This is what we do remember? This is what we're trained for, and frankly I think we're damn good at it." She cocked her head to the side. "Ian, we have to do this. How do you think it would look to the rest of our forces if you pulled us off this? I'm okay now, I can do this."

  "It's not that Cindy…" Ian replied. "Dammit! I'm just worried about you! Jenny is in a coma and Talena has a broken arm; I just don't want any of you to get hurt more!"

  "You forgot to mention your own injuries," Cindy replied gently. "Ian, we are all just as committed to this as you are. If we weren't we wouldn't be here. We all have our parts to play and our jobs to do." She paused. "We don't hold you responsible for our injuries, Ian. Things like that happen in war. All we can do is trust in each other and do the best we can to protect and support each other. I love you too, Ian. Now, let me go try to stop this f
ucking battle before more of our people do get hurt."

  Ian snorted. "I should have known better than to try to talk you out of this." He took a deep breath and straightened up. "Good luck and good hunting, Colonel."

  She smiled back at him. "Yeah, you should have; besides, we're already here. Stay safe, Admiral."

  As the channel closed, Ian shook his head. "That girl really is insane."

  Chloe hid her smile by looking down at her terminal. "Fleet is beginning resupply operations from the lunar supply points. The enemy fleets are still holding position. I would imagine their leader is less than impressed with them at this point."

  "I'll be sure to ask him when Cindy gets him back here," Ian replied. He shook his head. "Crazy bitch." He'd said it softly, but both Chloe and Major Jordan still heard him.

  TDF Damocles

  IDF T'Hon Lei

  Vicinity Point Gray

  Sol System

  “Okay kidlings, listen-up! As you know, we are attached to an Imperial light cruiser that think is the Imperial fleet command ship. Our mission is to infiltrate and capture this ship, raid the computer for as much information as we can, bring any high ranking officials back to the Damocles, then blow the cruiser.

  "Shannon, Lissa and I will head for the bridge area. Sam and Carl will head to the engineering section. Incapacitate anyone that looks like they might be important; kill the rest. Look for the engineering access to communications and disable them, then get ready to blow the ship. Take no chances; when in doubt, kill. Sasha will stay here and protect the Raptor." Cindy ordered.

  Sasha got Cindy’s attention; “Excuse me Mishka, but why does Lissa need to enter the ship? Can’t she force her way into the computer system from here?”

  Lissa answered before Cindy could. “In this case, no I can’t. This ship is shielded from external computer attack, if we had known to look for it, we could have isolated this ship hours ago."