by Ivan Kal
Other platoons had assembled there as well. Those that were infantry were already in their TTVs (tactical transport vehicle). There were a few squads of people wearing powered armor suits who were just boarding their TTVs. She waited for everyone to send a ready signal, then turned her comms on the command channel and started giving out orders.
“Alright, all platoons move out!” she ordered, and slowly they started towards their target.
Tanks took the lead, followed by the mechs, and finally the TTVs. Collectively, they moved at the fastest pace they were able, which was the max speed of the mechs, as they were the slowest. Thankfully, the southern continent of Guxaxac was mostly rocks, and the terrain was good enough that there were no hindrances. The tanks used grav generators to hover above the ground, while the TTVs used caterpillar tracks.
Their mission was to engage and eliminate the Sowir force in their main base, and to capture it as intact as possible, as they needed information about the Sowir troop movements belowground, as well info on their other bases.
***
Forty-five minutes later, when they had almost reached the visual range of the area where the Sowir were, Mira started to wonder why they hadn’t yet seen any enemy presence. They’d had enough time to wake some of their soldiers at least, and there were many places where they could have attempted an ambush, although it would have done them no good; the Sowir didn’t have anything that could threaten her force, barring overwhelming numbers, which were at their underground bases. She glanced around to the many rises and rocks surrounding the downhill slope her force was on. The slope led directly to the edge of a vast canyon, and was the most direct path to the area where the Sowir base was. They hadn’t had time to send forces to the other side of the canyon to surround the base that was located on the edge and adjacent to a natural bridge across the canyon. But at least they had a good idea of the terrain, as they had detailed maps from the Guxcacul.
She turned her sights to the left to look at one of the rock formations when laser fire pierced the space between her force and the outcropping to their right. Lasers impacted the front of the formation, striking her tanks in short bursts and doing no damage to the tanks, who had their fields engaged. Immediately, the entire formation shifted; the TTVs slowed and stopped while three mechs moved back to cover them. Her mechs spread out, with two of her lighter units jumping ten meters to the cover on the left.
Mira gave the order to her people to return fire. The lead tank’s turret swiveled and targeted the outcropping; with no regard for the Sowir lasers, it fired.
The explosive shell hit the outcropping and blew it apart, debris exploding in all directions. Mira signaled two of her mechs to go and make sure that there were no enemy survivors. She doubted that there would be.
Two of her LAV-02 Tiger mechs moved quickly to the outcropping and disappeared in the dust, while the rest of her forces kept watch for the enemy. A minute later, her comm chirped.
“No survivors, CL. I count fifteen tool-soldiers with back-mounted laser turrets. No sign of Sowir,” the mech pilot reported.
“Good, get back here,” she said, and then switched to the command line. “Get back in formation and move. This was just a distraction.”
The mounted lasers were the most common weapons that the Sowir outfitted their tool-soldiers with. There was still a bit of confusion as to how exactly they controlled them remotely, but the most widely accepted theory was that it was similar to early human drones, only the Sowir used technology to gain sensory information via their tools, and then used their telepathy-boosting devices to actually give out orders. But the fact that they had sent only this small force to meet her meant that they were stalling for time.
They started moving again down the shallow slope, and soon they reached a cliff. Further away in the distance, Mira could see the beginnings of the Sowir base. It stretched along the canyon edge and outwards and was the size of a smaller city, with an area of just under one hundred square kilometers, arranged in four rings. It was surrounded by short walls, with turrets mounted on them.
Following the Force Commander’s plan, she sent out the orders for four of the tanks to set up in artillery mode while the rest of them continued towards the base. As they exited the relative cover of the cliff and its outcroppings and moved into the open, the Sowir opened fire. Defensive turrets fired energy-based weapons that did no damage to her mechs, tanks, or TTVs.
Then the artillery fire from the four tanks started raining down on the walls of the base, blowing pieces in the air. Mira ordered her force to one of the holes in the wall, while the tanks shifted their fire so as to not endanger them. Her mech was the first to enter, followed by the rest of the mechs, and then tanks. The Sowir had already placed barricades in the wide streets, and energy fire came from the tool-soldiers, but it only succeeded in revealing their positions. She targeted them with her turrets and fired.
Hundreds of bullets—both from her own mech and those around her—ripped through the barrier and shredded both the troops and their pathetic fortifications. In a matter of seconds, the enemy fire stopped. Mira looked behind and saw TTVs already inside the walls, with troops in the process of exiting the transports.
“Alright, everyone keep a clear head,” Mira said over the comms. “There are Sowir here, at any sign of telepathic interference, open comms and inform those in your area. Remember, they can’t control your mind, but they can distract you. Always move in pairs. Proceed as planned.”
After the troops that had left the TTVs started moving as squads among the Sowir buildings, Mira checked to see if her mech’s FTL comm was still transmitting operational data to the base, and then opened a channel to base.
“Company Leader, report,” the Force Commander said.
“There has been no sign of the Sowir, only their soldiers as of yet. But that isn’t unusual for their practices. They shouldn’t have had the time to wake up all of their soldiers, so I doubt that we will see a lot of resistance initially, but the deeper we move inside, the harder it will get. The Sowir must be in the center where they feel safest; once we reach their area of influence, their soldiers will get much more dangerous,” Mira said.
The Sowir soldiers fought much better when there were Sowir around to control them directly; that meant smaller groups, but also deadlier.
“I agree. Field Commander Okoro has agreed to send you some more troops from the fleet if you manage to take down the anti-orbitals,” Force Commander Mao said, and Mira shifted her sights to the large turrets in the distance.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Mira said. “Johannes out.”
Mira turned back to her troops, who had already cleared their immediate surroundings and had started placing defensive turrets. Her tanks were still bombarding the wall, as well as the buildings close to it, some distance from her force’s entry point. Most of the buildings in the base were barracks, or at least something similar. The buildings’ purpose was to house the Sowir tools, so most of them contained foodstuffs and stasis units. And the sheer number of them indicated just how much troops Sowir had on the ground; at one point, most of their troops had been housed here. Now they were spread out underground in bases built on the bones of Guxcacul cities.
Mira opened the channel to her troops and started issuing orders.
Chapter Nine
Dstrat moved inside one of the Sowir buildings in the second ring of the Sowir base, his powered armor’s sensors sweeping the room and coming back clear.
“All clear,” he said over the comms. The rest of his squad, all of whom were wearing battle suits, entered behind him. They took positions around Dstrat’s hulking form and then started examining the building.
“Another foodstuffs storage,” said his Squad Leader, Nathaniel Jürgen. “Exia, place a marker on the battle map and let’s move on.”
A moment later, Dstrat’s battle map updated with a blue marker at his location, meaning that the building had been checked, was clear, and was of no i
mportance. They had yet to encounter the enemy—the tool-soldiers—in this ring of the base. And none of the Empire’s troops had yet encountered the real Sowir, although the Empire’s troops still had to clear the second ring of the base.
Dstrat moved first, turning in his battle armor, and with slow, hulking movements exited the building. His squad took cover behind him and followed as they moved down the street. They moved slowly, but Dstrat was glad to trade the speed and maneuverability of the battle suits for a battle armor; it made him feel unstoppable, and he could only imagine what it would feel like to pilot one of the Empire’s mechs.
The battle armor was one of the newer technologies developed, being only two years old. Its main and only weapons were the two plasma turrets mounted on the arms. And it had a big ten-centimeter-thick layer of armor that completely encased the wearer. It was operated similarly to the mechs, only without full immersion; he had the access point on his neck, but he still needed to move his limbs. The armor read his intent and his movements to assist in executing an action. It was, of course, powered; it used two newly developed batteries that allowed it to operate for five days, or five hours of intense nonstop combat. His version—as he was a Nel—had an added component to accommodate for his tail.
As they moved and cleared one more building, Dstrat couldn’t help but think about what he was doing. Forty years ago, he had been a farmer on Nuva, only waiting for the day when the Sowir finally turned to his world. Waiting for the day that he and his family died, followed by the rest of his race. Now he was hunting those same nightmares. It made him feel ecstatic. A part of him that was Nel relished in the opportunity to kill his enemy, the nightmare that had all but ended the Consortium and his civilization. But the other, more recent part of him that came from the teachings of the Empire whispered caution, restraint. He was not like his nightmare; he was here to help liberate the Guxcacul.
His squad moved to yet another building, and Dstrat used his implant to establish a connection with the door and open them. None of the buildings they had encountered used any kind of encryption; the door computers were simple, and based on those of the Consortium.
As the door opened, Dstrat moved one foot forward to step inside and then stopped. For a moment, he just stared at the opening.
“Dstrat? Do you see something?” SL Jürgen asked.
Immediately, as if a fog was lifted of his mind, he realized what had happened. He turned and shouted, “Move! It’s the Sow—” He didn’t have the chance to finish as an earth-shattering explosion threw him in the air and into the building across the street in a wave of fire and debris.
He smashed through the wall of the building, with the force of the explosion still following him in the form of red flames, and kept going, the force pushing him through the second wall as well. He slammed into the floor and landed on some crates that shattered under his weight with a force that shook him to the bones even with the layer of armor he was wearing, making him lose his vision for a moment.
After he shook himself off, he looked at the left side of his HUD and saw red indications on his armor’s systems. His communications were damaged, he no longer had power in his left leg, and he had lost a big chunk of his shoulder plate.
Slowly, he struggled to stand up, and barely managed it. He looked at the icons that represented his squadmates, and saw that he couldn’t read their suits’ telemetry any longer. He turned towards the hole that he’d made in the wall and started towards the flames, intent on finding out if any of his squadmates still lived, when something slammed into him, throwing him back to the floor.
Then something started firing point blank into his head, obscuring his visual sensors. Dstrat struggled to throw his attacker off, but it had already wrapped its limbs around him and held tightly. He raised his left arm, angled it above his chest, and fired. The first plasma bolt missed but the second hit, and he felt the hold on him weaken. With another shot, the firing on his head stopped and he rolled over his opponent. As his visual sensors recovered, he saw the body of one of the Sowir tool-soldiers, wearing a kind of battle suit he was not familiar with. Again, he struggled to get to his feet, when another of the enemy soldiers slammed into him from behind, pushing Dstrat’s head through the wall.
With his head stuck, he couldn’t see anything behind him, but his armor’s sensors told him that the enemy was firing into his back. The weapons fire did little damage, but Dstrat knew that his battle armor—weakened from the explosion—wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer. He raised both of his arms and slammed the turrets there into the wall, breaking it and freeing his head. He turned and was met with another form flying towards his head. Instinctively, he pointed his plasma turret and fired, blowing a hole in the main body of the creature. Then he tried to shake off the one on his back, but because of the constraints of his armor, he couldn’t do anything.
As the tool-soldier kept firing its energy weapon into his back, Dstrat could see his armor’s integrity falling, the nanites furiously trying to repair the damage and failing as it accumulated. More shapes started entering the room from the hole he’d made in the wall when he’d crashed through. Not seeing any way out, he slammed his back into the wall, hoping to at least pin the enemy on his back and prevent it from firing. Then he pointed his turrets at the incoming enemies and started firing. Plasma bolts burned through them whenever they hit, just as the enemies fired their own energy weapons from the turrets mounted on their backs.
Eventually, the enemy on his back managed to free two of its seven limbs and wrap them around his right-hand turret. With ungodly strength, it pulled his damaged arm and moved his turret off his targets. Dstrat kept firing with his left, but it wasn’t enough to halt the tide that was crashing on him. Two new tool-soldiers entered the room, moving incredibly fast and wearing heavier suits than the rest. They came straight at him, evading his plasma bolts and slamming into him with such force that he could feel his armor crush and kill the tool-soldier on his back. They gripped and immobilized him with the metallic claw-like attachments on four of their limbs. Then one of them raised two of its limbs, and the sharpened spike endings on them started glowing red.
Dstrat barely had the chance to notice the sensors on his HUD register the increase of heat from them as they came down on his chest, biting into the armor. Completely disarmed and at their mercy, Dstrat could only watch in horror as the enemy started ripping his armor open.
As they reached his flesh, he could feel the heat on his body. But the enemy had stopped his attack. Dstrat watched in confusion, wondering what was happening, when he noticed another shape entering the room. It was tall, and walked/slithered on three tentacle-like legs. It had three arms, with the two placed similarly as those of humans or Nel, but the third one hung above its elongated head that was encased in a helmet. Immediately, Dstrat recognized the shape of his true enemy, the ones who had been moving through the shadows for centuries—the Sowir. It was wearing a suit, so he couldn’t see its eyes, but he felt it studying him.
The Sowir looked at him for a moment, and then it turned around and left. Then he felt the scorching heat and pain as the limb plunged downwards through the hole it had made in the layers of his armor and pierced through his heart, then nothing.
***
Mira raised her left turret and fired even as her mech staggered under the massive explosion from the building on her right. A hail of bullets shredded through the approaching enemy troops. Her mech smashed with its side into the roof of the building on her left, but Mira managed to right herself and regain balance. She targeted the enemy with her shoulder-mounted laser and unleashed a devastating storm of heat and light, burning scores of the enemy troops in seconds.
The enemy was firing with their energy weapons, choosing to focus on the front of her formation. Their energy beams hit her tanks, with varying degrees of success, as a few of the tanks had had their field integrity compromised by the debris from the building that had exploded. But quickly they recov
ered, and the enemy fire became ineffective again.
Her tanks returned fire with their turrets, destroying buildings and the enemy positions with ease. Seeing that their attack had failed, the enemy quickly retreated, a clear indication that there was a Sowir present. Quickly, Mira issued orders for her force’s lighter units—battle armors and heavy infantry—to follow, find, and eliminate the Sowir that was guiding this force.
Then her comms and battle map started flashing, with reports of a Sowir counterattack. They had lost contact with three squads, and seven others were reporting casualties and injured. The reports were indicating massive Sowir tool-soldiers numbers that threatened to overwhelm her troops. Mira glanced to her battle map and the location of the Sowir anti-orbital weapons. She ordered the majority of her troops to find defensible positions and to hunker down, and then ordered her small force forward towards the anti-orbitals.
Her tanks and mechs moved quickly through the streets, ignoring any attempt by the Sowir to ambush them and draw them into a fight. Her tanks cleared barricades placed in front of them and fired in passing on any Sowir troop positions in their way. As they drew near their target, the number of Sowir troops increased, but still they didn’t have anything that could seriously threaten Mira’s force. The Sowir, like all of the other races of the Consortium, had never really had a land war where they fought against someone that was their equal. They’d never had the need to develop technology and weapons for anything more than police force. And the Sowir had defeated the other races in the Consortium by using overwhelming numbers and treachery.
Mira targeted the Sowir tool-soldiers between her force and the anti-orbital facilities, firing her laser into their barricades, melting the defenses and killing the enemy. Her other mechs pushed forward and destroyed the gates of the facilities allowing her tanks inside. Seven anti-orbital turrets were placed at the corners of the large wall-enclosed facility. She ordered her force to proceed and destroy them, just as she settled her mech and targeted one closest to her. Bolts slammed from her mech’s legs into the ground anchoring her as the Gauss cannon from her back rose and settled over her shoulder. As it powered up, she targeted the base of the turret, and then fired. The night turned to day as a white streak of fire and metal erupted out of the electromagnetic coils of her mech’s turret. The projectile hit its target and blew a hole through it.
