by Ryan Krauter
Azul scanned the buildings with his long range scanners and gave a frustrated sigh. His gear could detect some of the signatures that must be the Confed soldiers, but there were obviously a lot more in that city than he could see. Since their Assault Ship had been destroyed, he couldn't conduct a head count. He knew the ships could carry around 5000 troops, but he had no idea how many were on the surface. At least they didn't have a lot of technology to draw on.
"Send in the scouts," he said to the officer next to him. Maybe the Confeds would just let him have the minerals in the hopes that he'd leave them alone afterwards. False hope, yes, but it would make his life so much easier if they were wishful thinkers.
A pair of scout fighters rose from the grassy plain behind him. They were atmospheric craft, streamlined and swoopy, with powerful lift thrusters so they could hover in place or land vertically. They flashed overhead, racing to the mine entrance and the storage buildings close by.
The pair circled the mine opposite each other, getting lower and lower each time they completed a circuit. Finally, they both settled into a hover just above the tops of the warehouses as they scanned for their quarry. They were sitting ducks to the hidden soldiers who popped out of windows and vehicles and opened fire with the majority of the functioning weapons that were on hand. One of Orjon's people had even found a surface-to-air missile among the working weaponry and let it fly from the tube on his shoulder.
The missile struck one of the scouts and it exploded right there, raining parts and flaming debris down in the parking lot. The other one peeled off as ribbons of holes were stitched in the sides by armor piercing rounds from a mass of HMR-12 assault rifles. It disappeared over the edge of town, trailing smoke and flames.
"Excellent work," Mithus said to Orjon as the wounded Priman ship flew overhead.
"They are really not going to like that," was all Orjon could say softly.
Azul was irate. These Confederation types were supposed to be such fierce warriors, and they were hiding in the city striking at his people from the shadows? It was time to end their pathetic little game.
"Southern Force, Northern Force, attack," he barked into his comm unit. Though not technically southern or northern since their direction of attack was from the east, one unit was attacking from the southeast and the other from the northeast. Both would advance until contact was achieved. Wherever the Confeds offered battle first, that unit would dig in and try to fix the Confeds in position with heavy fire. Meanwhile, the other unit would pivot and move through the city, attempting to approach the enemy's flank. Either way, the defenders would have to deal with Azul's forces attacking through two different axes through the city. Wherever one unit bogged down, the other unit would try to advance, and eventually the Confeds would have to choose one spot to defend. Then they'd either have to withdraw or get caught in a pincer; the mineral ore would be his and the enemy would be eliminated.
"Well," started Mithus neutrally, "they seem to have the basics of urban assault. Now we'll see if they're familiar with the finer points."
Captain Orjon smiled as he nodded at a soldier next to him. She dashed from the building to the strongpoints, alerting them to proceed according to the plan. "I just heard from the mine detachment. They need another fifteen minutes to dump the ore down the tunnels and rig the charges."
"Remember: lots of booby traps," Mithus reminded Orjon.
"Oh yes; they're having a lot of fun with those. And they're going old school. No electronic sensors, pressure pads, that sort of thing. If the Primans can disable electronics and detect damn near anything, we need to use simple things that a scan won't see. My people are rigging tripwires, mines, all kinds of great things."
The Primans advanced slowly to the edge of the city and both elements reached the first major streets at the same time. Their hovertanks were smaller than Confed's, which made them more agile but also less armored. Dismounted infantry accompanied them, marching along and scanning the buildings, ready to react.
Suddenly, the side of a building detonated, the explosion ripping into the enemy vehicles and troops. The Primans dispersed and started firing into the building that had exploded as well as the one on each side. The tank traversed its turret and started firing heavy blasts through the torn up wall as well.
"First unit has made contact; they're already on the way out," Orjon replied.
Mithus nodded his approval. He hated having to fight this way, darting in the shadows, but if the Primans had to slow down and clear the blocks the old fashioned way, it would take hours to get through town. And the Confed forces didn't need to occupy every building; just enough to keep the Primans from putting together a pattern and adapting to the tactic.
As if in response, Mithus and Orjon both heard a noise above at the same time. It was another round of sonic booms, and they both looked down at their weapons in time to see their displays flicker and die out.
"Well damn," Orjon said in disgust. "Now what?"
Mithus dropped the useless Hammer rifle and pulled a knife with a blade as long as his forearm from a sheath on his back. "We do this the old fashioned way. I'll take a squad and start hitting their flanks. You get started with your end run to the southwest and head behind the mountains. I'll catch up."
Azul fumed. His offensive had bogged down. The Confeds were obviously not strong in number, since their ambushes were scattered randomly and infrequently. Still, it was slow going. Unwilling to commit all of his thousands of troops until he knew more about what to expect, he'd been forced to wait and see what the Confeds had in mind as far as their tactics went. Both of his forces were working their way through the city now, though most of his tanks were disabled, smoking wrecks left abandoned in the streets, and his reserves were on the edge of town just waiting to be committed to whichever force gained momentum. But his enemy had accomplished their goal. He'd heard a massive, muffled series of explosions; felt them through the deck plates of his command tank at the edge of the city. Then he saw the dust cloud rising over the mine and knew what this had all been about. The Confederation troops weren't trying to fight him to the death, just stall long enough to try and destroy the ore he'd come for.
In addition, they'd apparently decided to set the entire city on fire. He assumed it was to cover their withdrawal to the mines as well, since he hadn't heard any reports of fighting since the explosions. Still, the choking smoke completely obscured his view past the center of town, and the combination of smoke, flames and charred cinders were fouling even his advanced sensors. He knew they'd been moving to the mines, but as of now everything on the west side of the city was one large, distorted sensor blob.
He'd considered just ordering a charge to the mines, because even if they'd destroyed the entrance, given enough time his people would clear the tunnels and resume production. Then they'd have the reward of hunting down the Confed troops inside the dark caves they'd apparently chosen as their tombs. The problem was that he'd lost an entire squad to what appeared to be a single man. A survivor, uniform in tatters and smeared with blood, stumbled back to Azul's position with reports of a Confed leader with a gigantic knife hacking his way through Priman troops.
So Azul had regrouped and gone back to the doctrine: building by building, street by street. Approach, fire, grenade, clear, move on. It would take the rest of the day to make their way to the mines at this rate, but in the end he admitted that since the damage to the mines was already done, he didn't need to lose any more soldiers because he was rushing. Besides, once this chaos all died down, the ships in orbit would start the search, and then these enemy soldiers would be his.
"They are fierce fighters," Captain Vol allowed as he and Representative Ravine stood in his cabin while they prepared to send off a briefing to the Council and the Commander. They'd obviously fallen short of their immediate goal of total destruction of the Confed force and retrieval of the ore, but in time they'd dig the ore out and flush the Confeds from wherever they were hiding.
"If only they weren't such an unruly lot," commented Ravine, "they might be worthy of being called our children. They inherited our fighting spirit, at the very least."
"Yes, apparently so much so that they've even declared war on each other," replied Vol with a grim smirk. "Why they'd let themselves fracture apart and attempt to wage a civil war on each other is beyond reason."
"It's working wonderfully for us though, wouldn't you say?"
Senator Zek Dennix, head of the Governing Committee and for all intents and purposes in control of the Confederation of Systems, didn't hear a word his aide was saying. They were sitting in the Senator's spacious office alone, all of their staff having been sent home for the night.
His chief aide, Enric Shae, was recounting something or other that had gone according to plan. Or maybe not according to plan; Dennix just didn't care at that moment. The last month had been a disaster. He'd never expected so many planets to secede from the Confederation, especially considering all the threats he'd made about what would happen to them.
The split had been fairly uniform; the core of the Confederation had stayed loyal to Dennix and his government, while the systems further out- closer to the galactic core, contested Talaran/Priman/Enkarran space, the border areas where the fighting was heaviest- had banded together in a new alliance. And the worst part was that a quarter of his military units had defected with them. It had been a fairly uncontentious event; senior officers had turned over command and left ships filled with loyalists, captains had given crew safe passage off vessels where the loyalties were the other way around. Sure, there had been a few skirmishes, soldiers arrested, but he didn't know if the civility was good or bad for his cause.
At the direction (more like demand) of the Primans, as relayed through Enric Shae, he'd even ordered actions designed to initiate hostilities. He'd sent a task force to retake a planet that had revolted, and that force had been met with an even larger force of defected Confederation ships. There had been a standoff, and, against standing orders, his loyalist forces had withdrawn, citing overwhelming enemy presence.
And so nothing happened. He'd relieved admirals and generals, put in people he'd thought were more pliable, but there seemed to be a systemic problem in the military in which they didn't want to fight, at least not against each other.
In fact, the only party seemingly happy with events was the Primans. Naturally.
And that led to this dismal turn of events. It was obvious to him by now that they'd gotten to Shae when he'd been in Priman space 'negotiating' the treaty he'd been forced to sign. Shae had come back with lots of positive things to say about how the Primans were going to make the galaxy right again, and that he and Zek would be a part of it. But they'd also made Shae his handler. With Tana Starr dead, they'd needed a new person to ride herd on the Senator and feed him orders. And now that it was open knowledge that Primans were capable of masquerading as Humans, Drisk, and others, they'd never get one of their own by his side again. That wouldn't be a problem, apparently, because Shae was cheerfully regurgitating every order he was given through the various clandestine sources he'd been shown. He'd picked Shae as his right hand because the man was ambitious enough to turn on his former Confederation colleagues, but at this point he was also sure that Shae wanted his job as well. He'd have to do something about that.
"Also," Shae continued as Dennix tried to catch up with the conversation, "the trap you approved on the Galactic Ore Company’s facility went off well for the Primans." Shae shuffled a stack of secure data pads, trying to piece together the story from different sources.
"I didn't approve a trap," Dennix said gruffly. "Don't play with the semantics of what I was forced to do. They gave you a list, you gave it to me, I gave it to the military."
Shae just looked up over the top of the data pad he was reading and continued. "Of course. In any case, it went well for them, bad for us. We sent a Prowler in-system last night and it didn't see a single Confed ship, just a task force of about two dozen Priman cruisers circling the planet. We can assume they'll have the ore soon."
Dennix just brooded, and then fixed Shae with a glare. "A month of this truce as they call it, and we've lost almost as many ships as if we were openly fighting. Except now, they're hardly losing anything at all because the navy is walking into Priman traps."
"I think we both knew what their agenda was," Shae said softly. "We pull back, they pick apart our fringe worlds and wear down the navy. Eventually we've pulled back far enough that we're not a threat to them and then we're back on our own."
"Under their thumb, of course," Dennix spat. "And until they decide to alter the deal again."
"We were aware that was how this would ultimately end," said Shae reasonably. "And this civil war angle works perfectly, to be honest. The planets that are the biggest threat to them are the ones in revolt against the core systems. So, we don't have to defend them against the Primans. They take one of the rebel planets, we don't have to take the blame. It looks even better for you. And the loyal military has orders to stay close and not get in the way out there. With any luck, this will be over before we know it."
Dennix pondered Shae's logic for a few seconds. He had no doubts that Shae had the ear of the Primans directly, and that if he thought Dennix was getting cold feet there might be unpleasant changes for the Senator in the works. If the Confederation was going to be absorbed by the Primans anyway, it might as well be with him in charge; it was time to move forward. "Ok then," Dennix started fresh. "In that case, we need to decide who we're backing in the mid-term elections." He grabbed a data pad and called up a list of names. "We help our friends stay in office, they back an extension of my Committee's term in charge."
Shae nodded happily and they got to work. The Senator was right about one thing in particular; the Primans would keep altering the arrangement until they were happy with the results, and it was more likely than not that the Senator was no longer part of their long term plans.
Commander First Rank Loren Stone was trying hard, and actually managing, to relax just a bit. Call it a 7% reduction, down off the 100% stress level he tended to keep himself at. The location deserved the most credit for the accomplishment, he had to admit.
He was sitting in a portable survival chair taken from the equipment locker of the Freedom class transport sitting on the hard sand close to the tree line. As for Loren, he and his chair were sitting in much softer sand, right at the water line where the gentle tide came hissing smoothly up towards him and his friends. Despite the sun and clear blue skies, the temperature was quite comfortable; he wasn't even sweating in his standard shipboard jumpsuit and boots thanks to the light salty breeze that brought in enough cool air to keep at bay the heat that was building farther inland.
He was surrounded by his friends and comrades from aboard Avenger; Captain Second Rank Corinne Sosus, CAG of all Avenger's fighters and skipper of the twelve-strong Intruder attack wing. There were Commanders Merritt Elder and Web Exeter, Merritt being in command of the twelve ship Viper squadron flying the venerable Talon fighter. That bunch all had their boots off, bare feet in the cool sand to be found just under the top layer. Loren had issues with cleaning sand off of his feet, socks, boots, duffels, chair, etc, and wouldn't be joining them in that past-time, but he was happy they were enjoying themselves.
Others had come and gone from their circle over the past twenty months, and all would return again sooner or later, Loren was sure. But this group was their core, the people that made up the bunch he trusted his life with and who would help him end this war with the Primans. All that was missing was the small detail of exactly how they'd do it, but he knew it would happen. He had faith in them.
"So nice of the admiral to arrange a meet someplace civilized," Cory said lazily, enjoying the breeze from behind dark sunglasses and a wide brimmed sun hat.
"Of course," countered Web, ever the one to see the shifty side of things, "I find it very interesting he wouldn't give us the catalog number or c
oordinates of the place. Just asked us if we remembered the tranquil planet we staged over while looking for the Priman DNA virus a while back. Didn't even want Avenger in orbit."
Loren nodded knowingly. And that was exactly how Admiral Nodam Bak, secretly in charge of the most covert aspects of the war with the invading Primans, had wanted it. It made Loren think this was another of the man's off-the-books assignments, though these days he had just as much reason to keep information from his own government as the enemy.
Since the dubious truce that the Senator had announced was made policy, Confed's military had been on the defensive both at home and afar. The Primans were still chopping away at their numbers through ambushes and skirmishes, but the Confed navy was prohibited from seeking engagement or even probing disputed territory. Officially, it was so they didn't jeopardize their fragile truce by antagonizing the Primans. Unofficially, Loren and a handful of others suspected Senator Dennix had been compromised by the enemy and was somehow doing their bidding. His chief advisor had been a Priman agent, and under the influence of powerful truth drugs had described the procedure of how they gave orders for him to carry out; he belonged to the enemy. Proving it was going to be tough, though, especially since the entire government was infested with yes-men whom the senator had put in place in the weeks and months after his rise to power following the Primans' opening move of the war when the enemy had kidnapped the entire Confederation government.
