Okay, the previous chapters for this can be found <a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5791681/1/bBad_b_bNeighbours_b' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>here</a>. Technically, it's a crossover, but the crossover setting isn't published. I obviously don't own Mass Effect, and the Second Sphere setting is a collaborative work - the only bit I have any real claim over is New Mercia, and they haven't appeared much so far, and may well not in the future!
I have thick skin, so if you think it sucks, feel free to tell me. Just, y'know, also tell me why you think it sucks so I can learn from may mistakes.
Bad Neighbours
Chapter Seven
Mir Planetary Defence Command was an unduly impressive title that brought to mind hollowed out mountains, miles of armoured tunnels and a remote location. General Sheng Ming stepped out of the lift into a complex of rooms that was decidedly less impressive than that. The walls were simple concrete, still with their original Russian stencils, and compared to the sorts of facilities that housed PDCs on other worlds, the complex was small and cramped. Banks of electronics crowded against the walls, lights blinking, and most of the available floorspace was occupied with consoles and their operators. It was fortunate that the steel grates his booted feet crashed down upon were raised above the true floor level, otherwise he would more likely than not have tripped over a tangled nest of cables within meters of the lift doors.
The command centre itself was roughly circular, with a free floating holotank dominating the middle of the floor and concentric banks of consoles forming a trio of semi-circles over one half of the room. On the other side of the holotank, a raised platform, itself packed with smaller holographic and flatscreen displays and a tangle of chairs, provided the command staff of Mir's planetary defence network û such as it was, and what there was of it û with access to and information from units scattered all over the planet. Three evenly spaced steel doors, four including the one he stepped through, studded the walls. Though they were tightly closed, he knew that they led to even more electronic equipment, feeding the displays in the command centre with processed data already assembled into a coherent whole, rather than hundreds of individual snapshots that would have been worse than useless. The whole scene was dimly lit with red overhead lights, and cold enough that he was glad for the fingerless gloves he had pulled on while descending the lift from the surface base.
Sheng was not a tall man, nor was he endowed with much in the way of hair or looks; in a military packed with combat-oriented transgenes of one stripe or another, he stood out, not just as a result of his lack of stature, but because he possessed the distinctive pale skin and white hair of an Omoikane template. The top of his head was completely hairless, but he sported a pale goatee and neat moustache. One amber eye was narrowly missed by the ugly purple scar that threaded it's way down the left side of his face and tugged one corner of his mouth up into a permanent grimace. He was clad in the same tan uniform as the other soldiers in the command centre, eschewing the digital-adaptive fabric of a field uniform in the interests of comfort.
ôAs you were, people. We've got more important things to do than bow and scrape for the benefit of my ego,ö he waved the assembled technicians and officers back into their seats before any of them had a chance to start rising to their feet. ôColonel Song, what's the situation?ö
Song was obviously an Atlas. Sheng often suspected he went out of his way to conform to stereotypes, given that, in addition to being massively built with arms and legs like tree trunks and a head that looked as though it had been hewn from a block of stone by an indifferent sculptor with a fetish for large jaws, he possessed such copious quantities of body hair that strands û or, in several cases, tufts û could be seen poking out from the cuffs and collar of his shirt, and his eyebrows could quite easily have been mistaken for a very large, very furry caterpillar draped across the top of his eyes. As the massive officer descended from the command platform, Sheng fancied that he could see the metal steps sagging under the weight.
ôUnless these fuckers pull more acceleration out of their magic box of tricks, sir, then we'll be ready for them. They're going to have to make turnover soon or they'll miss the planet. At the moment, we're assuming they're going to go for zero relative velocity with the planet at 90,000 kay, given the range of that SBB's main cannon. That's significantly outside the rang of anything Captain Minh has left up there, given that his stations have no leapmissiles. After that... depends on what they want with us.ö
He waved a hand at the plot.
ôIf they're here to kill us all, then they could just sit out there chucking rocks at us or making silly faces or whatever they feel like doing to piss us off, and there's not a fucking thing we could do about it. We're at the bottom of the gravity well, they're up the top, so they can let physics do all the work for them. We'd just better hope they haven't come here to wipe out the squishy humans.ö
ôAssume that they aren't here for genocide, Colonel.ö
As Song had been speaking, he had lead Sheng up to the command platform. He deftly manoeuvred his bulk through the cramped space and settled into a battered chair that creaked alarmingly under the strain placed on it by a combination of Song and 1.5 times Earth normal gravity. A young man in a lieutenant's uniform handed him a plain ceramic cup full of coffee. It looked absurdly tiny in his huge hand.
ôHere you go, sir.ö
ôThank you, Cai,ö he took a sip. ôAaah, excellent as usual.ö
ôThank you sir.ö
Song spun his chair slightly to face Sheng directly, and waved at one of the unoccupied seats..
ôPlease, Sir, sit. Can I offer you a....?ö
ôNo thank you, Colonel. Coffee doesn't agree with me, I'm afraid.ö
ôAh. Well, then we can return to the matter at hand. If they're not going to drop rocks on us from orbit, then we have options. The simplest is surrender...ö
ôAbsolutely not. My mission û our mission û is to defend this planet in any way practicable. I wouldn't consider surrender even if we hadn't spent as much blood pacifying this hell-hole as we have.ö
ôThat's what I thought you'd say, sir. So, me'n my minions up here have been plotting,öSong waved his cup at one of the holodisplays. Sheng leant forward and studied it. The sphere hovering six inches over the projector was nearly a foot across and reproduced Mir in exacting detail. Most of the planet was empty, but here and there, icons representing towns dotted the surface. The five domed settlements that passed for cities on Mir were spread along the coastline of the shallow, salty Alliluyeva Sea. Three of them, Dyurtyuli, Gorodovikovsk and Klintsy were huddled close together at the mouth of the Anbar River, the site of the original colony landing at the western point of the arrowhead shaped Alliluyeva. The industrial metropolis of Baykalsk sprawled out under three domes of it's own at the other end of the sea, and the planetary capital, Lyantor, straddled the estuary of the Shaubnin, just west of one of the barbs of the Alliluyeva. Gossamer thin threads of blue light traced the paths of the railways that linked the five major cities and the nearest towns, threading over the bare rock as if marking the footsteps of a particularly adventurous holographic spider. Clustered around the domed colonies were the upwards pointed blue arrow icons of ground to orbit artillery. More was grouped around the hydroelectric dams that provided the colonies with vital electricity, and a necklace of blue beads hovered over the most heavily populated region of the planet.
ôObviously, we can't protect the whole planet, and most of it's useless anyway û all we'd succeed in doing is allowing them to land their entire army right on top of us while we attempt to defend almost completely uninhabited and lifeless wilderness, populated here and there by religious fanatics that hate us. We've had to change the standard set-up around somewhat, though; this sort of heavy duty point defence is what the Type 19 was made for, but considering the way these arseholes chewed up Admiral Liao's leapmissiles, I doubt that any old-style pure chemical drive or fusion drive missiles we can throw would be at all effective unless we can launch truly huge numbers of them. That's in a ship to ship engagement û starting from the bottom of a gravity well like this, well, we'd probably have more luck putting out Alshain by pissing on it than getting hits on them with missiles.
ôSo, we've pressed our Type 14s into that role instead. They don't really have the range for it, so they're going to be able to land closer than I think any of us would like, but we know particle cannons are effective, so we can stop them from landing on top of any of the domes or from dropping KKVs in a tactical artillery role. If they're willing to just plaster us indiscriminately, then I'm afraid we're fucked. Oh, we'll try the Type 19s anyway, but realistically, there's nothing we can do to stop them. As it is, we've included them in our deployments on the basis that they might at least distract the Little Green Men up there. On top of that, I've been in contact with Captain Minh, and he's transferred control of all his defsats to me, so we can use them to thicken our coverage. If we slave them to ground-based fire control, they won't be putting out active emissions, and we'll get at least one good shot from them before they're killed.
ôUnfortunately, sir, deploying the Type 14s that way means I can't spare anything to cover mobile formations...ö
ôDon't worry about that, Colonel. In this case, I'm more than willing to indulge the Miran tendency towards violence. I wish whoever's in charge up there all the pleasure I've had in dealing with those barbarians over the last six years. Actually getting some use out of them will make for an interesting change of pace.ö
Song snorted and too a gulp of his coffee.
ôThat's one way of putting it, sir. Personally, I wouldn't be too teary eyed if those creepy bastards and the fuckers who killed the Admiral wiped each other out. At least then we could leave this hellhole and get a posting on a habitable world. Anyway, that simplifies things a lot, sir. There's good news in orbit as well; at first it looked like we were still going to have people up there when the enemy came into range of the planet, but they stopped to conduct rescue ops in what's left of Admiral Liao's fleet. That game Captain Minh time to evacuate people onto ships in orbit or docked at a station that he wouldn't have had otherwise. I can't imagine it'll be very pleasant aboard, but they're all FTL capable, so they should be able to escape to Novaya Pripyat before anything gets too close. They couldn't take everybody, but they got all the civilians off, and Minh is sending down everybody he can on the last shuttle flight and in escape pods. Even pushing life support and space restrictions well past safe conditions, there isn't the capacity to get everybody own, so there's still going to be three thousand people left up there. They're all volunteers, though, and Minh apparently shares your opinion on surrender, sir. He's got a plan...ö
* * *
ôSir, we're now at rest relative to the planet.ö
ôTell me, Iulius, what do you think drove them to settle here?öRadik stood in the centre of Palaven's flag bridge, studying a large holographic facsimile of the the planet and it's seemingly fragile necklace of stations. There were dozens of them, far more than he would have expected on what seemed to be a mostly empty world. It was clearly a sizeable colony, despite the harsh conditions on the planet, but the overdeveloped orbital infrastructure and the large number of ships that had been in the system upon their arrival were wildly out of proportion to what such a colony should have demanded.
Commander Iulius, Radik's youthful chief of staff, looked up from his display and cocked his head.
ôSir?ö
ôWe know they need an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, same as us,ö Radik said, nodding at the display. ôThe gravity surface gravity down there is almost 60 percent greater than Palaven Standard, and the gravity on the station we captured was, what, just over 16 percent of what we're going to have to deal with down there? Granted, it was spin gravity, so they were limited by the size of the spin section, but even so, it's a steep step down. They don't display any great resistance to extremes of heat, and that lump of rock has a surface temperature that I would generously describe as 'barely tolerable'. In short, we have a species that appears to need similar planetary conditions to us, living on a world that isn't even barely habitable to them. To make matters even more confusing, the know that there's a garden world that should be prime planetary real estate for them in the nearest system, and not only is it untouched, there's absolutely no evidence that they've ever even been in that system. So, why? Why here? Why would you plant a colony here?ö
ôAh, I haven't really considered it, sir. We have hostile environment colonies as well, and I suppose they might have settled here for the same reason.ö
ôThat's what I thought of at first, but it doesn't make much sense. Most of our hostile environment 'colonies' are mining or resource extraction complexes, or research stations set up somewhere out of the way to make it difficult to snoop on them. They have populations that might have a hundred thousand inhabitants, two hundred thousand at the outside. It's plain as day that there's a lot more people than that down there. The latest estimate I've seen, based on the radio emissions from the surface, is between ten and thirty million. That's not a mining colony or an out of the way research complex that caters to the more unsavoury corporate element. It's a full scale attempt at properly settling the planet, and so far as I can tell, a successful one.ö
ôThey could be xenoforming it. That doesn't make a great deal of sense, with a virgin garden world so close by, unless... perhaps there's something that stops them from settling there?ö
ôIt's a possibility. Our scouts aren't exactly equipped for full scale planetary surveys, and we don't exactly have authoritative information on their biochemistry. Maybe the dust on the garden world gives them all fatal allergic reactions û that sort of thing's not unknown, after all. It still doesn't explain why they'd want to settle here, of all places; the atmosphere would kill them with just as much certainty.ö He shook his head. ôNever mind. We'll find out when we get down there, I suppose. Have there been any communications?ö
ôNo sir. We're getting plenty of radar pings from the stations and from the surface, plus at least three sources well outside planetary orbit that we haven't been able to localise û two of them are behind us by now, in fact. They could be some sort of stealthy reconnaissance platform or more of those picket ships. They definitely know exactly where we are.ö
ôThat much was obvious when they launched those escape pods from the stations, Commander.ö
ôI suppose,öIulius said, after a long moment. ôIt's possible that they've managed to get everybody on their stations on a ship or planetside, sir. There were a lot of those radiation pulses their drive causes in the vicinity of the planet.ö
ôMaybe, maybe. They still haven't so much as asked us who we are, though. I suppose they might have assumed there's no point in talking to us, since we're clearly hostile. Damn that triggerhappy idiot Asturias! He didn't know what they were saying, but at least they were talking to him!ö
He sighed heavily, clasped his hands behind his back and stared at the dirty orange planet floating before him.
ôVery well,ö he said at last. ôIulius, send both messages.ö
ôYes sir.ö
Iulius turned and strode into the operations pit. Radik could see him bent over the console of the duty comm officer, speaking quietly as he relayed the instructions. The messages were simple; a demand for surrender, and the reasons behind it, in Universal Turian. The second was a single English word; surrender.
ôIf you'd asked me, I would have suggested they're here because the place is strategically valuable to them.ö General Miras Vespia said, from his position leant against a handrail at the edge of the operations pit. In contrast to the young Iulius, Miras was older than Radik, and by some considerable time. One side of his head was a mass of scarring, and the same injury had claimed his right eye and mandible. A flat, lifeless prosthetic stared unblinkingly out from the socket, it's black, angular housing a sharp contrast with the brilliant white facial tattoos of Nimines.
ôIt's a thought I had entertained myself, but I would have expected them to have a bigger fleet here if that were the case. It also begs the question of just who it's strategically valuable against; none of the humans we captured at the relay have given any indication that their species has encountered another sentient life form.ö
Miras snorted.
ôYeah. That doesn't fill me with confidence; I've been paying attention to our progress with them. We can barely string together a coherent sentence in this 'English' of theirs, and Daktarian's starting to suspect they might be speaking multiple languages amongst themselves. The old bastard probably thinks they're just doing it to spite him, which wouldn't surprise me. I certainly wouldn't be willing to lavish hugs and kisses on us if I were in their position. So, they could be lying, or acting, or just not understanding our questions, and we could be waltzing into the middle of an interstellar war zone. They need somebody to use all those ships on, after all.ö
ôConsidering the size of the fleet that countered us at the relay, I think it's fair to say that this isn't a 'front line system' in any war they may or may not be in the middle of fighting.ö
ôI can't argue with that,ö Miras pushed himself off of the rail and walked to Radik's side. He studied the unpleasant looking world briefly, then snorted again. ôMaybe they're pirates? I can't think of anybody who'd be more willing to settle somewhere nobody would ever think to look for them.ö
ôPerhaps. But when was the last time you saw a pirate stand and fight in an untenable position when he could have run?ö
ôHmph. Point.ö
ôSir, we're getting a reply from the planet!ö
ôWell?ö Radik leant towards Iulius.
ôI'm afraid it's not good news, sir. It's just one word: No.ö
ôCan't say I'm surprised.ö
ôNor am I, General. Unfortunately, that means more people on both sides are going to have to die. Are your men prepared?ö
ôWe've been ready to go since we arrived. Now that I've had a chance to look at the way they're set up down there, I have some concerns. Unless we're willing to crack their domes, then once we've forced breaches, then we won't have orbital fire support. That could be difficult if they have any great number of troops inside.ö
ôNo, cracking the domes is out of the question. We're here to force a resolution to this whole mess on our terms; if our opening moves are an attack on civilians on the scale that killing all the humans under those domes would be, that's only going to make them more determined to fight and complicate the post-war situation. I'm aware that makes things more difficult for you, General, but I'm afraid in this case, the easy option doesn't achieve our objectives.ö
ôThat's what I was afraid of. Oh, I'm certain we can do it,ö he said, in response to the startled look and half formed question on Radik's lips. ôThat armour of theirs is tough, but not invincible, and we've got most of the army units in an entire sector with us right here, including the 7th Epyrus Heavy and 283rd Armoured Scouts. They're going to hurt us, but there's no way they can have that much combat power concentrated here without knowing we were coming before hand. I'm certain they've got plenty of tricks left to pull out of their magic box, but unless they're already fighting a war down there, then I don't think they can stop us.
ôMy main concern is what they've got to throw at us on the way down.ö
ôWe've got fairly complete photographic coverage of their main colonies, General,ö Iulius said, as he made his way back up the steps from the operations pit. ôThey don't show GARDIAN towers or other fixed planetary defence emplacements.ö
ôMaybe not, Commander. On the other hand, they've clearly managed to miniaturise their power sources enough to create practicable energy weapons; they might not need permanent structures to handle the power requirements, which raises the possibility of much smaller, much less obvious weapon systems. There's enough crap floating around in the atmosphere down there from all the volcanism that I wouldn't put all my faith in those pictures under ideal circumstances, and certainly not with an unknown technical base involved. On top of that, however, we know they've got what looks like a major airstrip at this colony near the southernmost point of the minor northern sea; what sort of air cover are they going to have available? We're going to sacrifice a lot of our acceleration advantage in atmosphere, and from what we've seen so far of their 'fighters', they're formidable machines.
ôI don't want to get ourselves into a situation where we send my people down in drop shuttles and hit heavy a heavy fighter umbrella, but we can't send frigates in to support them due to planetary defence grade GARDIAN equivalents that we can't see from up here. On the other hand, we can't really afford all the problems that are going to come with landing in the middle of nowhere and covering the distance to their colonies on foot; they've got to have serious fleet units out there somewhere, and we know for damn sure that plenty of the ships in this system have gotten away, and the environment down there is going to play havoc on our kit over extended periods of heavy use.ö
ôGiven that the airstrip is outside of the dome, I think we can arrange for it to be made unusable without a great deal of difficulty.ö
ôMusic to my ears, sir. If we can ensure that my shuttles aren't going to be blasted out of the sky, then I plan to land troops at each of their colonies simultaneously. I've got enough transport to shift a division for each target; ten minutes from landing to lift off. Losses are going to cut that down pretty sharply, but if all goes well, we'll be able to put enough people on the ground quickly enough to overwhelm them. If it should transpire that they do not, in fact, have planetary defence equipment in any great quantity, then with your permission, I can supplement that capacity with frigates, which can, of course, double as tactical support platforms. If they do have those defences, then we'll detail fighters to deal with them as the situation requires. If they turn out to have the ability to protect their airbase, then I'm afraid we're going to have to rely on fighters to suppress them and deal with their surface to orbit weapons at the same time. That's clearly not the ideal situation, but it's possible, and the alternative is sitting around up here picking our toes until a human relief fleet arrives.ö
He tapped a command into the hologram's controls, causing the view to zoom in to the settled area of the planet. Green icons representing turian shuttles appeared around the domes, shortly followed by a healthy stain spreading out from the shuttles over the surrounding land. When they reached the domes of the colonies, they stopped, wiggling back and forth.
ôReaching the domes shouldn't be too difficult, if we can call on orbital fire support while outside. The humans are going to have to retreat, surrender or be destroyed. Ideally, we'll be able to seize an open entry point before they can withdraw through it, but if we can't, the first wave will take breaching equipment and temporary airlocks with them. If we don't have orbital support, it will be trickier, but if we can land troops quickly enough, we should have significant superiority in numbers.ö
On the hologram, tiny explosions blossomed along the edges of the domes, and the green of turian control started inching it's way inside.
ôOnce inside, things will get tougher. They're going to be damn hard to kill without completely redesigned rounds, but we know that enough fire will bring them down. In the meantime, we can put more missile launchers into the field to at least partially compensate for our lack of anti-armour weapons. The domes are big enough that we can use gunships inside once we're away from the walls, but for the initial breaches, we're going to have to rely heavily on the 7th and 283rd to deal with strongpoints. However, we almost certainly have the advantage in combat endurance û unless they can make pockets bigger on the inside than on the outside, then they can't carry anywhere near as much ammunition as we can carry heat clips.ö
The angry orange of human controlled territory began shrinking, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed.
ôEventually, it will become obvious that their situation is untenable, and at that point, hopefully, they will surrender. They did so at Relay 314 when it was obvious they'd lost, at least. I've forwarded the details of the operation to your terminals, now that it's been finalised. I would suggest, sir, that you sit in when I brief my senior officers this afternoon.ö
ôThat sounds like an excellent idea, General. I'll clear my timetable.ö
ôThank you sir. The final issue is the orbital stations. I have units standing by in preparation to board if you decide it's necessary.ö
Radik zoomed the hologram out and stared at the stations hanging motionless above the planet for almost a minute. Finally, with a sigh, he turned back to Miras.
ôYes. We can't pass up the intelligence opportunity they represent. If they still have people aboard, and they put up insurmountable resistance, vacate the station and we'll destroy it. If you can convince them to surrender, so much the better.ö
ôOf course, sir. If you'll excuse me, then, I have things to set in motion.ö
ôBy all means, General. Good luck, and be safe.ö
* * *
ôBravo Three Three, Bravo Ten, come back.ö
Sergeant Chen Hwai-Min toggled the transmit switch on his comm.
ôBravo Ten, Bravo Three Three, go ahead.ö
ôBravo Three Three, bad news, I'm afraid. The fish aren't biting today; Mountain King tells me we've got shuttles inbound to the hull; they're ignoring the docking ports completely. Get yourself over to A6 and set up to repel boarders. There's a shuttle headed that way.ö
ôSolid copy, Bravo Ten. We're on our way now. Bravo Three Three out.ö Cutting his transmission, Chen glanced around the cargo transfer bay his squad was set up to defend. The rectangular compartment was almost twenty meters from the deck to the deckhead, and ran to five times that on it's longest axis. It was crowded with cargo handling equipment of all sizes, abandoned shipping crates and the bulky figures of twelve armoured Chinese soldiers and their four drones.
ôAlright, listen up!ö Cheng barked. ôOur friends outside turn out not to be stupid enough to charge out of the hatches straight into our fire. Looks like they're going to try cutting through the hull somewhere near junction A6. Grab your shit and get moving, or we're going to be late for the party.ö
ôThat's extremely inconsiderate of them if you ask me.ö
ôIt might have escaped your notice, Wang, but they've not been particularly fucking polite during their visit to the wonderful resort world of Mir so far.ö Cheng couldn't see the support gunner's face through the helmet of the PA-10 battlesuit the man wore, but he could clearly, and probably accurately, imagine the exaggerated roll of Wang's eyes. ôThere'll be time to bitch at them while we move, so get going, unless you want to wait around for ET to come out of that door and fuck you up the arse?ö He thrust a gauntleted hand towards the sealed blast doors that lead deeper into Orbit One.
ôAh, no Sergeant. That doesn't sound very enjoyable at all.ö
ôGlad to hear it, since, being an alien, his wedding tackle is probably barbed.ö
Preceded by the buzzing of the drone's lift fans, Cheng lead the way to a smaller access hatch in the starboard wall of the compartment. It was a squeeze to fit through, being designed for maintenance technicians and personnel access, not power armoured PLA soldiers. The accessway beyond was larger and had more headroom; Cheng and the eight men in PA-8 suits had no problems, but Wang and his fellow support gunners in their larger PA-10s were brushing the bulkheads on either side and the deckhead above. Nevertheless, they maintained a good pace as Cheng led them through the maze of passages towards the point where the shuttle was expected to attach itself to the outside of the station's hull.
ôBravo Three Three, Bravo Ten, come back.ö
ôBravo Ten, Bravo Three Three.ö
ôThree Three, we've got problems. Your target diverted, and we've now got boarders inside the hull between A8 and A9. They're headed inwards along access nine. Get in front of them and hold them up for,ö there was a pause. ôHold them up for fifteen minutes, give us time to get some support into that area, then withdraw to fallback Charlie.. It looks like there's at least another three boarding parties at large in that area, but I can't give you any specific locations, just that we've got multiple hull breaches and no pressure loss all the way along A access. Keep an eye out for them, and don't get yourself surrounded.ö
ôCopy that, Ten. We are currently near C5. We should be making contact shortly.ö
ôAcknowledged, Three Three. Good luck. Ten out.ö
ôChange of plan,ö Cheng announced, turning to his squad. ôThey're already aboard, and they've got friends. We take C access to starboard until we hit C9, then head for the hull. We should find them coming towards us. Wang, Wu, when we hit C access, you two take point. There are no friendlies in front of us, so anything that moves needs extra ventilation. There are more boarders 'somewhere' in the area, so go to squad tac-comm only. Staggered line once we reach C access.ö
The reached C access without drama. The larger accessway ran parallel to the outer hull, at right angles to the smaller, numbered maintenance access spaces Cheng and his squad had been struggling through. Like the transfer bay they had started in, C access was littered with abandoned cargo crates, but there was no small handling equipment or unused transportation to be seen. The auto-loaders bearing the crates stood patiently in the middle of the metal corridor, yellow and black, four legged titans waiting patiently for their organic masters to return and give their simple automation orders. The Chinese slipped out into the larger space quietly. The drones sped off down the corridor, whilst Wang and Wu, with their heavier armour and weapons, headed each of the two staggered lines or soldiers, picking separate paths among the silent machines.
ôHold up.ö Wu held up a hand and dropped to one knee behind the leg of an auto-loader holding a crate plastered with Shanghai Daijang logos. ôDrones are getting something witchy on passives from up ahead. I'm going to active rada...ö
His announcement was cut off by the wail of a threat warning in Cheng's ear, as somewhere ahead of them, something started radiating active targeting emissions.
ôActive threat!ö Cheng yelled, somewhat unnecessarily, given that the rest of his squad were already scattering behind the available cover and reaching for their wrist consoles. Wu rose from his position behind the flimsy protection of the auto-loader limb and dashed towards another Shanghai Daijang crate sitting alone on the deck. Further up the accessway, there was a thump and a flash of fire, then the howl and glare of a rocket motor as a projectile streaked through the air. The missile caught Wu in the side, erupting into a flash of orange and yellow light and sending the bulky suit tumbling into an awkward twist of armour and limbs. Cheng could clearly see the gaping hole that had been blown through the torso armour, and the ruined meat within. Wu didn't rise.
ôShit. Go to active countermeasures!ö Cheng bellowed over the squad comm net, suiting actions to words as he stabbed a finger onto the smartcloth console at his wrist. ôAnybody have a target? And why the fuck didn't the drones catch them?ö
ôGot a good track on it for the entire flight, boss,öZheng Wei, one of Cheng's three surviving support gunners announced. ôFifty meters further up, there's a pair of shut down auto-loaders parked next to each other. I'm marking the location now. Dunno about the drones, though.ö
Cheng expanded the map of the immediate area his computer projected into the bottom right of his helmet hud. A blinking crimson dot marked the point Zheng had seen the missile launcher. The space between the Chinese unit's current position and the enemy offered sparse concealment, but the enemy position was a confusing mishmash of industrial machinery. Describing anything involved as 'parked' was being generous; it looked more like the operators of the machines involved had managed to get into an accident in their rush to evacuate, and nobody had stayed around to clean up. The power cells of one of the auto loaders were exposed, bathing the entire area in a blanket of infra-red radiation, masking any other sources nearby.
Gunfire sounded further up the accessway, a rippling snarl that was unlike anything Cheng had heard in his life, outside of the antiquated automatic weapons that featured in historical movies. There was a wail of damaged lift fans and a loud crash as one of the drones fell to the deck. More rounds chewed at the edge of Cheng's crate, the durable plastic offering little resistance to the tiny, fast projectiles. They shattered on his armour, with a force that felt like somebody was smacking him in the chest with a lead pipe. He fell onto his rear with a curse, and the next burst missed him, punching all the way through the crate and producing billowing clouds of fine white flour that coated Cheng in a thin film of white dust.
ôFuck this. Deng, take over C drone and go look for the ones on access nine! I'll take A and D! The rest of you, return fire!ö
More threat warnings shrieked as the boarders fired another missile, but, confused by the electronic static the Chinese suits' ECM was blanketing the airwaves with, it twitched off target and slammed directly into the auto loader Cheng's third support gunner, Gao Dong was crouching behind. The machine blossomed into a ball of fire, and spewed fragments of red hot metal across the Chinese position, rattling off of armour. Gao cursed vilely as his scorched armour stumbled out of the fireball, then turned to the enemy position and, heedless of his exposed state, filled the air with a torrent of explosives.
The QLB-86 SAW was bigger and bulkier than the Model-80 combat rifle most of the rest of the squad carried. It was less handy in confined spaces as well, and generally considered a pain to maintain. Importantly, however, its large box magazine provided it with a significantly greater ammunition supply, and Gao's PA-10 could carry enough reloads that he didn't have to make every shot count. 20mm, high explosive armour piercing rounds marched through the attackers' position with metronome precision, smashing through crates and machinery alike before detonating with bone cracking force. They were designed to punch a hole through infantry armour, not as fragmentation rounds, but their impact on the environment in the enemy position sent shards of metal from machines, bulkheads and the deck scything through the air. Enemy gunfire snarled, and Gao staggered as they shattered against his armour, but he didn't lose his footing, merely adjusted his aim slightly and allowed his last two rounds on-board guidance systems to place them onto the point his computer indicated the fire had come from.
Something screamed and thrashed as Gao stepped back into concealment behind Cheng's crate, already thumbing the magazine catch and reaching for a replacement. Zheng leant around the edge of his own cover and began a calmer, more measured barrage. Wang was not far behind, nor were the rest of the squad û although they were considerably more sparing with their rounds. Despite their best efforts, the enemy refused to be completely suppressed; automatic fire continued to chew up crates and the deck, and another missile screamed by the Chinese position, a clean miss.
While they were shooting at the Chinese soldiers, however, they weren't shooting at the drones. Cheng manoeuvred his two robotic minions with the deftness of long practice, weaving them close over the top of the enemy position, the whine of their fans unnoticed amongst the thunder of explosions. Infrared was useless, but optical sensors and radar worked perfectly from this angle, without the confusion of surfaces and angles that provided an enemy a hiding place at ground level.
ôI've got solid targets!ö He yelled. ôDrone A!ö
ôGot it, Boss.ö Zheng muttered.
The Chinese fire slackened as they switched from simply blanketing the area with rounds to single, aimed shots. Guided by Cheng's drone, the smart rounds sliced through the alien position like a giant, explosive scythe. The crates and machinery the boarders crouched behind were no match for the Chinese penetrators, and shields flared and died under the fire. Two of the aliens burst apart in showers of blue gore, and another, his shield down, screamed and clutched at a sizzling fragment of metal embedded in his face. Two of his companions started to drag him behind the more solid cover of an upturned auto loader chassis, but a salvo of rounds from Gao caught one of them in the back, coating the injured alien and his other rescuer in blood and viscera.
Despite the unexpected and devastating increase in casualties, the aliens didn't break. Three of them, toting the bulky mass of missile launchers, sent rockets streaking into the Chinese defenders as the surviving aliens began to withdraw away from the human soldiers. One of them looked up and, seeing the drone, raised his rifle. Cheng's link to the machine dissolved into static.
ôGood job lads, they're falling back. Charlie Team, covering fire. Delta Team, you're with me.ö
The retreating invaders hadn't left much behind in the way of equipment, beyond heat warped wafers of metal and the mangled remains of the armour the dead were wearing. It turned out that alien corpses were as unpleasant to look at as human remains, and a brief search of the bodies revealed nothing of immediate interest.
ôBravo Ten, this is Bravo Three Three, come back.ö
ôBravo Three Three, Bravo Ten. I read you.ö Cheng could hear gunfire over the comm link.
ôTen, we've just run into boarders in platoon strength well advanced of where they should have been. They're in as far as C access. We kicked them out of their positions, but they're still between us and their line of advance. I'm going to keep pressing them, but depending on their supply of anti-armour weapons, I may not be able to reach access nine. I'm down two drones and one KIA already and I can confirm that they aren't human.ö
ôCopy that, Three Three. We've noticed that ourselves,ö there was a pause. ôContinue pressing them for now. If your ammo situation becomes dire or you start taking too many casualties, feel free to fall back. Keep me advised of your situation; at the moment, the fallback point is still Charlie.ö
ôAcknowledged, Ten. Good luck, Three Three out,ö with a sigh, Cheng switched back to the squad channel. ôRight, we've just proved to ET here who the real men on this station are, but the grey skinned bastards apparently think they still have a shot at beating us. We're going to keep pressing them, as far as our ammo allows, then fall back. They're just lucky that we aren't supposed to stop them anyway! Gao, Zheng, it's your turn up front; watch out for those fucking rocket launchers; Deng, take over both drones. Don't worry about conserving power, they probably aren't going to be around long enough for it to matter.ö
As the Chinese squad started to wind it's way forwards again, Cheng grinned.
ôLets entice them to stick their barbed alien dicks a little deeper, shall we, gentlemen?ö
I have thick skin, so if you think it sucks, feel free to tell me. Just, y'know, also tell me why you think it sucks so I can learn from may mistakes.
Bad Neighbours
Chapter Seven
Mir Planetary Defence Command was an unduly impressive title that brought to mind hollowed out mountains, miles of armoured tunnels and a remote location. General Sheng Ming stepped out of the lift into a complex of rooms that was decidedly less impressive than that. The walls were simple concrete, still with their original Russian stencils, and compared to the sorts of facilities that housed PDCs on other worlds, the complex was small and cramped. Banks of electronics crowded against the walls, lights blinking, and most of the available floorspace was occupied with consoles and their operators. It was fortunate that the steel grates his booted feet crashed down upon were raised above the true floor level, otherwise he would more likely than not have tripped over a tangled nest of cables within meters of the lift doors.
The command centre itself was roughly circular, with a free floating holotank dominating the middle of the floor and concentric banks of consoles forming a trio of semi-circles over one half of the room. On the other side of the holotank, a raised platform, itself packed with smaller holographic and flatscreen displays and a tangle of chairs, provided the command staff of Mir's planetary defence network û such as it was, and what there was of it û with access to and information from units scattered all over the planet. Three evenly spaced steel doors, four including the one he stepped through, studded the walls. Though they were tightly closed, he knew that they led to even more electronic equipment, feeding the displays in the command centre with processed data already assembled into a coherent whole, rather than hundreds of individual snapshots that would have been worse than useless. The whole scene was dimly lit with red overhead lights, and cold enough that he was glad for the fingerless gloves he had pulled on while descending the lift from the surface base.
Sheng was not a tall man, nor was he endowed with much in the way of hair or looks; in a military packed with combat-oriented transgenes of one stripe or another, he stood out, not just as a result of his lack of stature, but because he possessed the distinctive pale skin and white hair of an Omoikane template. The top of his head was completely hairless, but he sported a pale goatee and neat moustache. One amber eye was narrowly missed by the ugly purple scar that threaded it's way down the left side of his face and tugged one corner of his mouth up into a permanent grimace. He was clad in the same tan uniform as the other soldiers in the command centre, eschewing the digital-adaptive fabric of a field uniform in the interests of comfort.
ôAs you were, people. We've got more important things to do than bow and scrape for the benefit of my ego,ö he waved the assembled technicians and officers back into their seats before any of them had a chance to start rising to their feet. ôColonel Song, what's the situation?ö
Song was obviously an Atlas. Sheng often suspected he went out of his way to conform to stereotypes, given that, in addition to being massively built with arms and legs like tree trunks and a head that looked as though it had been hewn from a block of stone by an indifferent sculptor with a fetish for large jaws, he possessed such copious quantities of body hair that strands û or, in several cases, tufts û could be seen poking out from the cuffs and collar of his shirt, and his eyebrows could quite easily have been mistaken for a very large, very furry caterpillar draped across the top of his eyes. As the massive officer descended from the command platform, Sheng fancied that he could see the metal steps sagging under the weight.
ôUnless these fuckers pull more acceleration out of their magic box of tricks, sir, then we'll be ready for them. They're going to have to make turnover soon or they'll miss the planet. At the moment, we're assuming they're going to go for zero relative velocity with the planet at 90,000 kay, given the range of that SBB's main cannon. That's significantly outside the rang of anything Captain Minh has left up there, given that his stations have no leapmissiles. After that... depends on what they want with us.ö
He waved a hand at the plot.
ôIf they're here to kill us all, then they could just sit out there chucking rocks at us or making silly faces or whatever they feel like doing to piss us off, and there's not a fucking thing we could do about it. We're at the bottom of the gravity well, they're up the top, so they can let physics do all the work for them. We'd just better hope they haven't come here to wipe out the squishy humans.ö
ôAssume that they aren't here for genocide, Colonel.ö
As Song had been speaking, he had lead Sheng up to the command platform. He deftly manoeuvred his bulk through the cramped space and settled into a battered chair that creaked alarmingly under the strain placed on it by a combination of Song and 1.5 times Earth normal gravity. A young man in a lieutenant's uniform handed him a plain ceramic cup full of coffee. It looked absurdly tiny in his huge hand.
ôHere you go, sir.ö
ôThank you, Cai,ö he took a sip. ôAaah, excellent as usual.ö
ôThank you sir.ö
Song spun his chair slightly to face Sheng directly, and waved at one of the unoccupied seats..
ôPlease, Sir, sit. Can I offer you a....?ö
ôNo thank you, Colonel. Coffee doesn't agree with me, I'm afraid.ö
ôAh. Well, then we can return to the matter at hand. If they're not going to drop rocks on us from orbit, then we have options. The simplest is surrender...ö
ôAbsolutely not. My mission û our mission û is to defend this planet in any way practicable. I wouldn't consider surrender even if we hadn't spent as much blood pacifying this hell-hole as we have.ö
ôThat's what I thought you'd say, sir. So, me'n my minions up here have been plotting,öSong waved his cup at one of the holodisplays. Sheng leant forward and studied it. The sphere hovering six inches over the projector was nearly a foot across and reproduced Mir in exacting detail. Most of the planet was empty, but here and there, icons representing towns dotted the surface. The five domed settlements that passed for cities on Mir were spread along the coastline of the shallow, salty Alliluyeva Sea. Three of them, Dyurtyuli, Gorodovikovsk and Klintsy were huddled close together at the mouth of the Anbar River, the site of the original colony landing at the western point of the arrowhead shaped Alliluyeva. The industrial metropolis of Baykalsk sprawled out under three domes of it's own at the other end of the sea, and the planetary capital, Lyantor, straddled the estuary of the Shaubnin, just west of one of the barbs of the Alliluyeva. Gossamer thin threads of blue light traced the paths of the railways that linked the five major cities and the nearest towns, threading over the bare rock as if marking the footsteps of a particularly adventurous holographic spider. Clustered around the domed colonies were the upwards pointed blue arrow icons of ground to orbit artillery. More was grouped around the hydroelectric dams that provided the colonies with vital electricity, and a necklace of blue beads hovered over the most heavily populated region of the planet.
ôObviously, we can't protect the whole planet, and most of it's useless anyway û all we'd succeed in doing is allowing them to land their entire army right on top of us while we attempt to defend almost completely uninhabited and lifeless wilderness, populated here and there by religious fanatics that hate us. We've had to change the standard set-up around somewhat, though; this sort of heavy duty point defence is what the Type 19 was made for, but considering the way these arseholes chewed up Admiral Liao's leapmissiles, I doubt that any old-style pure chemical drive or fusion drive missiles we can throw would be at all effective unless we can launch truly huge numbers of them. That's in a ship to ship engagement û starting from the bottom of a gravity well like this, well, we'd probably have more luck putting out Alshain by pissing on it than getting hits on them with missiles.
ôSo, we've pressed our Type 14s into that role instead. They don't really have the range for it, so they're going to be able to land closer than I think any of us would like, but we know particle cannons are effective, so we can stop them from landing on top of any of the domes or from dropping KKVs in a tactical artillery role. If they're willing to just plaster us indiscriminately, then I'm afraid we're fucked. Oh, we'll try the Type 19s anyway, but realistically, there's nothing we can do to stop them. As it is, we've included them in our deployments on the basis that they might at least distract the Little Green Men up there. On top of that, I've been in contact with Captain Minh, and he's transferred control of all his defsats to me, so we can use them to thicken our coverage. If we slave them to ground-based fire control, they won't be putting out active emissions, and we'll get at least one good shot from them before they're killed.
ôUnfortunately, sir, deploying the Type 14s that way means I can't spare anything to cover mobile formations...ö
ôDon't worry about that, Colonel. In this case, I'm more than willing to indulge the Miran tendency towards violence. I wish whoever's in charge up there all the pleasure I've had in dealing with those barbarians over the last six years. Actually getting some use out of them will make for an interesting change of pace.ö
Song snorted and too a gulp of his coffee.
ôThat's one way of putting it, sir. Personally, I wouldn't be too teary eyed if those creepy bastards and the fuckers who killed the Admiral wiped each other out. At least then we could leave this hellhole and get a posting on a habitable world. Anyway, that simplifies things a lot, sir. There's good news in orbit as well; at first it looked like we were still going to have people up there when the enemy came into range of the planet, but they stopped to conduct rescue ops in what's left of Admiral Liao's fleet. That game Captain Minh time to evacuate people onto ships in orbit or docked at a station that he wouldn't have had otherwise. I can't imagine it'll be very pleasant aboard, but they're all FTL capable, so they should be able to escape to Novaya Pripyat before anything gets too close. They couldn't take everybody, but they got all the civilians off, and Minh is sending down everybody he can on the last shuttle flight and in escape pods. Even pushing life support and space restrictions well past safe conditions, there isn't the capacity to get everybody own, so there's still going to be three thousand people left up there. They're all volunteers, though, and Minh apparently shares your opinion on surrender, sir. He's got a plan...ö
* * *
ôSir, we're now at rest relative to the planet.ö
ôTell me, Iulius, what do you think drove them to settle here?öRadik stood in the centre of Palaven's flag bridge, studying a large holographic facsimile of the the planet and it's seemingly fragile necklace of stations. There were dozens of them, far more than he would have expected on what seemed to be a mostly empty world. It was clearly a sizeable colony, despite the harsh conditions on the planet, but the overdeveloped orbital infrastructure and the large number of ships that had been in the system upon their arrival were wildly out of proportion to what such a colony should have demanded.
Commander Iulius, Radik's youthful chief of staff, looked up from his display and cocked his head.
ôSir?ö
ôWe know they need an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, same as us,ö Radik said, nodding at the display. ôThe gravity surface gravity down there is almost 60 percent greater than Palaven Standard, and the gravity on the station we captured was, what, just over 16 percent of what we're going to have to deal with down there? Granted, it was spin gravity, so they were limited by the size of the spin section, but even so, it's a steep step down. They don't display any great resistance to extremes of heat, and that lump of rock has a surface temperature that I would generously describe as 'barely tolerable'. In short, we have a species that appears to need similar planetary conditions to us, living on a world that isn't even barely habitable to them. To make matters even more confusing, the know that there's a garden world that should be prime planetary real estate for them in the nearest system, and not only is it untouched, there's absolutely no evidence that they've ever even been in that system. So, why? Why here? Why would you plant a colony here?ö
ôAh, I haven't really considered it, sir. We have hostile environment colonies as well, and I suppose they might have settled here for the same reason.ö
ôThat's what I thought of at first, but it doesn't make much sense. Most of our hostile environment 'colonies' are mining or resource extraction complexes, or research stations set up somewhere out of the way to make it difficult to snoop on them. They have populations that might have a hundred thousand inhabitants, two hundred thousand at the outside. It's plain as day that there's a lot more people than that down there. The latest estimate I've seen, based on the radio emissions from the surface, is between ten and thirty million. That's not a mining colony or an out of the way research complex that caters to the more unsavoury corporate element. It's a full scale attempt at properly settling the planet, and so far as I can tell, a successful one.ö
ôThey could be xenoforming it. That doesn't make a great deal of sense, with a virgin garden world so close by, unless... perhaps there's something that stops them from settling there?ö
ôIt's a possibility. Our scouts aren't exactly equipped for full scale planetary surveys, and we don't exactly have authoritative information on their biochemistry. Maybe the dust on the garden world gives them all fatal allergic reactions û that sort of thing's not unknown, after all. It still doesn't explain why they'd want to settle here, of all places; the atmosphere would kill them with just as much certainty.ö He shook his head. ôNever mind. We'll find out when we get down there, I suppose. Have there been any communications?ö
ôNo sir. We're getting plenty of radar pings from the stations and from the surface, plus at least three sources well outside planetary orbit that we haven't been able to localise û two of them are behind us by now, in fact. They could be some sort of stealthy reconnaissance platform or more of those picket ships. They definitely know exactly where we are.ö
ôThat much was obvious when they launched those escape pods from the stations, Commander.ö
ôI suppose,öIulius said, after a long moment. ôIt's possible that they've managed to get everybody on their stations on a ship or planetside, sir. There were a lot of those radiation pulses their drive causes in the vicinity of the planet.ö
ôMaybe, maybe. They still haven't so much as asked us who we are, though. I suppose they might have assumed there's no point in talking to us, since we're clearly hostile. Damn that triggerhappy idiot Asturias! He didn't know what they were saying, but at least they were talking to him!ö
He sighed heavily, clasped his hands behind his back and stared at the dirty orange planet floating before him.
ôVery well,ö he said at last. ôIulius, send both messages.ö
ôYes sir.ö
Iulius turned and strode into the operations pit. Radik could see him bent over the console of the duty comm officer, speaking quietly as he relayed the instructions. The messages were simple; a demand for surrender, and the reasons behind it, in Universal Turian. The second was a single English word; surrender.
ôIf you'd asked me, I would have suggested they're here because the place is strategically valuable to them.ö General Miras Vespia said, from his position leant against a handrail at the edge of the operations pit. In contrast to the young Iulius, Miras was older than Radik, and by some considerable time. One side of his head was a mass of scarring, and the same injury had claimed his right eye and mandible. A flat, lifeless prosthetic stared unblinkingly out from the socket, it's black, angular housing a sharp contrast with the brilliant white facial tattoos of Nimines.
ôIt's a thought I had entertained myself, but I would have expected them to have a bigger fleet here if that were the case. It also begs the question of just who it's strategically valuable against; none of the humans we captured at the relay have given any indication that their species has encountered another sentient life form.ö
Miras snorted.
ôYeah. That doesn't fill me with confidence; I've been paying attention to our progress with them. We can barely string together a coherent sentence in this 'English' of theirs, and Daktarian's starting to suspect they might be speaking multiple languages amongst themselves. The old bastard probably thinks they're just doing it to spite him, which wouldn't surprise me. I certainly wouldn't be willing to lavish hugs and kisses on us if I were in their position. So, they could be lying, or acting, or just not understanding our questions, and we could be waltzing into the middle of an interstellar war zone. They need somebody to use all those ships on, after all.ö
ôConsidering the size of the fleet that countered us at the relay, I think it's fair to say that this isn't a 'front line system' in any war they may or may not be in the middle of fighting.ö
ôI can't argue with that,ö Miras pushed himself off of the rail and walked to Radik's side. He studied the unpleasant looking world briefly, then snorted again. ôMaybe they're pirates? I can't think of anybody who'd be more willing to settle somewhere nobody would ever think to look for them.ö
ôPerhaps. But when was the last time you saw a pirate stand and fight in an untenable position when he could have run?ö
ôHmph. Point.ö
ôSir, we're getting a reply from the planet!ö
ôWell?ö Radik leant towards Iulius.
ôI'm afraid it's not good news, sir. It's just one word: No.ö
ôCan't say I'm surprised.ö
ôNor am I, General. Unfortunately, that means more people on both sides are going to have to die. Are your men prepared?ö
ôWe've been ready to go since we arrived. Now that I've had a chance to look at the way they're set up down there, I have some concerns. Unless we're willing to crack their domes, then once we've forced breaches, then we won't have orbital fire support. That could be difficult if they have any great number of troops inside.ö
ôNo, cracking the domes is out of the question. We're here to force a resolution to this whole mess on our terms; if our opening moves are an attack on civilians on the scale that killing all the humans under those domes would be, that's only going to make them more determined to fight and complicate the post-war situation. I'm aware that makes things more difficult for you, General, but I'm afraid in this case, the easy option doesn't achieve our objectives.ö
ôThat's what I was afraid of. Oh, I'm certain we can do it,ö he said, in response to the startled look and half formed question on Radik's lips. ôThat armour of theirs is tough, but not invincible, and we've got most of the army units in an entire sector with us right here, including the 7th Epyrus Heavy and 283rd Armoured Scouts. They're going to hurt us, but there's no way they can have that much combat power concentrated here without knowing we were coming before hand. I'm certain they've got plenty of tricks left to pull out of their magic box, but unless they're already fighting a war down there, then I don't think they can stop us.
ôMy main concern is what they've got to throw at us on the way down.ö
ôWe've got fairly complete photographic coverage of their main colonies, General,ö Iulius said, as he made his way back up the steps from the operations pit. ôThey don't show GARDIAN towers or other fixed planetary defence emplacements.ö
ôMaybe not, Commander. On the other hand, they've clearly managed to miniaturise their power sources enough to create practicable energy weapons; they might not need permanent structures to handle the power requirements, which raises the possibility of much smaller, much less obvious weapon systems. There's enough crap floating around in the atmosphere down there from all the volcanism that I wouldn't put all my faith in those pictures under ideal circumstances, and certainly not with an unknown technical base involved. On top of that, however, we know they've got what looks like a major airstrip at this colony near the southernmost point of the minor northern sea; what sort of air cover are they going to have available? We're going to sacrifice a lot of our acceleration advantage in atmosphere, and from what we've seen so far of their 'fighters', they're formidable machines.
ôI don't want to get ourselves into a situation where we send my people down in drop shuttles and hit heavy a heavy fighter umbrella, but we can't send frigates in to support them due to planetary defence grade GARDIAN equivalents that we can't see from up here. On the other hand, we can't really afford all the problems that are going to come with landing in the middle of nowhere and covering the distance to their colonies on foot; they've got to have serious fleet units out there somewhere, and we know for damn sure that plenty of the ships in this system have gotten away, and the environment down there is going to play havoc on our kit over extended periods of heavy use.ö
ôGiven that the airstrip is outside of the dome, I think we can arrange for it to be made unusable without a great deal of difficulty.ö
ôMusic to my ears, sir. If we can ensure that my shuttles aren't going to be blasted out of the sky, then I plan to land troops at each of their colonies simultaneously. I've got enough transport to shift a division for each target; ten minutes from landing to lift off. Losses are going to cut that down pretty sharply, but if all goes well, we'll be able to put enough people on the ground quickly enough to overwhelm them. If it should transpire that they do not, in fact, have planetary defence equipment in any great quantity, then with your permission, I can supplement that capacity with frigates, which can, of course, double as tactical support platforms. If they do have those defences, then we'll detail fighters to deal with them as the situation requires. If they turn out to have the ability to protect their airbase, then I'm afraid we're going to have to rely on fighters to suppress them and deal with their surface to orbit weapons at the same time. That's clearly not the ideal situation, but it's possible, and the alternative is sitting around up here picking our toes until a human relief fleet arrives.ö
He tapped a command into the hologram's controls, causing the view to zoom in to the settled area of the planet. Green icons representing turian shuttles appeared around the domes, shortly followed by a healthy stain spreading out from the shuttles over the surrounding land. When they reached the domes of the colonies, they stopped, wiggling back and forth.
ôReaching the domes shouldn't be too difficult, if we can call on orbital fire support while outside. The humans are going to have to retreat, surrender or be destroyed. Ideally, we'll be able to seize an open entry point before they can withdraw through it, but if we can't, the first wave will take breaching equipment and temporary airlocks with them. If we don't have orbital support, it will be trickier, but if we can land troops quickly enough, we should have significant superiority in numbers.ö
On the hologram, tiny explosions blossomed along the edges of the domes, and the green of turian control started inching it's way inside.
ôOnce inside, things will get tougher. They're going to be damn hard to kill without completely redesigned rounds, but we know that enough fire will bring them down. In the meantime, we can put more missile launchers into the field to at least partially compensate for our lack of anti-armour weapons. The domes are big enough that we can use gunships inside once we're away from the walls, but for the initial breaches, we're going to have to rely heavily on the 7th and 283rd to deal with strongpoints. However, we almost certainly have the advantage in combat endurance û unless they can make pockets bigger on the inside than on the outside, then they can't carry anywhere near as much ammunition as we can carry heat clips.ö
The angry orange of human controlled territory began shrinking, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed.
ôEventually, it will become obvious that their situation is untenable, and at that point, hopefully, they will surrender. They did so at Relay 314 when it was obvious they'd lost, at least. I've forwarded the details of the operation to your terminals, now that it's been finalised. I would suggest, sir, that you sit in when I brief my senior officers this afternoon.ö
ôThat sounds like an excellent idea, General. I'll clear my timetable.ö
ôThank you sir. The final issue is the orbital stations. I have units standing by in preparation to board if you decide it's necessary.ö
Radik zoomed the hologram out and stared at the stations hanging motionless above the planet for almost a minute. Finally, with a sigh, he turned back to Miras.
ôYes. We can't pass up the intelligence opportunity they represent. If they still have people aboard, and they put up insurmountable resistance, vacate the station and we'll destroy it. If you can convince them to surrender, so much the better.ö
ôOf course, sir. If you'll excuse me, then, I have things to set in motion.ö
ôBy all means, General. Good luck, and be safe.ö
* * *
ôBravo Three Three, Bravo Ten, come back.ö
Sergeant Chen Hwai-Min toggled the transmit switch on his comm.
ôBravo Ten, Bravo Three Three, go ahead.ö
ôBravo Three Three, bad news, I'm afraid. The fish aren't biting today; Mountain King tells me we've got shuttles inbound to the hull; they're ignoring the docking ports completely. Get yourself over to A6 and set up to repel boarders. There's a shuttle headed that way.ö
ôSolid copy, Bravo Ten. We're on our way now. Bravo Three Three out.ö Cutting his transmission, Chen glanced around the cargo transfer bay his squad was set up to defend. The rectangular compartment was almost twenty meters from the deck to the deckhead, and ran to five times that on it's longest axis. It was crowded with cargo handling equipment of all sizes, abandoned shipping crates and the bulky figures of twelve armoured Chinese soldiers and their four drones.
ôAlright, listen up!ö Cheng barked. ôOur friends outside turn out not to be stupid enough to charge out of the hatches straight into our fire. Looks like they're going to try cutting through the hull somewhere near junction A6. Grab your shit and get moving, or we're going to be late for the party.ö
ôThat's extremely inconsiderate of them if you ask me.ö
ôIt might have escaped your notice, Wang, but they've not been particularly fucking polite during their visit to the wonderful resort world of Mir so far.ö Cheng couldn't see the support gunner's face through the helmet of the PA-10 battlesuit the man wore, but he could clearly, and probably accurately, imagine the exaggerated roll of Wang's eyes. ôThere'll be time to bitch at them while we move, so get going, unless you want to wait around for ET to come out of that door and fuck you up the arse?ö He thrust a gauntleted hand towards the sealed blast doors that lead deeper into Orbit One.
ôAh, no Sergeant. That doesn't sound very enjoyable at all.ö
ôGlad to hear it, since, being an alien, his wedding tackle is probably barbed.ö
Preceded by the buzzing of the drone's lift fans, Cheng lead the way to a smaller access hatch in the starboard wall of the compartment. It was a squeeze to fit through, being designed for maintenance technicians and personnel access, not power armoured PLA soldiers. The accessway beyond was larger and had more headroom; Cheng and the eight men in PA-8 suits had no problems, but Wang and his fellow support gunners in their larger PA-10s were brushing the bulkheads on either side and the deckhead above. Nevertheless, they maintained a good pace as Cheng led them through the maze of passages towards the point where the shuttle was expected to attach itself to the outside of the station's hull.
ôBravo Three Three, Bravo Ten, come back.ö
ôBravo Ten, Bravo Three Three.ö
ôThree Three, we've got problems. Your target diverted, and we've now got boarders inside the hull between A8 and A9. They're headed inwards along access nine. Get in front of them and hold them up for,ö there was a pause. ôHold them up for fifteen minutes, give us time to get some support into that area, then withdraw to fallback Charlie.. It looks like there's at least another three boarding parties at large in that area, but I can't give you any specific locations, just that we've got multiple hull breaches and no pressure loss all the way along A access. Keep an eye out for them, and don't get yourself surrounded.ö
ôCopy that, Ten. We are currently near C5. We should be making contact shortly.ö
ôAcknowledged, Three Three. Good luck. Ten out.ö
ôChange of plan,ö Cheng announced, turning to his squad. ôThey're already aboard, and they've got friends. We take C access to starboard until we hit C9, then head for the hull. We should find them coming towards us. Wang, Wu, when we hit C access, you two take point. There are no friendlies in front of us, so anything that moves needs extra ventilation. There are more boarders 'somewhere' in the area, so go to squad tac-comm only. Staggered line once we reach C access.ö
The reached C access without drama. The larger accessway ran parallel to the outer hull, at right angles to the smaller, numbered maintenance access spaces Cheng and his squad had been struggling through. Like the transfer bay they had started in, C access was littered with abandoned cargo crates, but there was no small handling equipment or unused transportation to be seen. The auto-loaders bearing the crates stood patiently in the middle of the metal corridor, yellow and black, four legged titans waiting patiently for their organic masters to return and give their simple automation orders. The Chinese slipped out into the larger space quietly. The drones sped off down the corridor, whilst Wang and Wu, with their heavier armour and weapons, headed each of the two staggered lines or soldiers, picking separate paths among the silent machines.
ôHold up.ö Wu held up a hand and dropped to one knee behind the leg of an auto-loader holding a crate plastered with Shanghai Daijang logos. ôDrones are getting something witchy on passives from up ahead. I'm going to active rada...ö
His announcement was cut off by the wail of a threat warning in Cheng's ear, as somewhere ahead of them, something started radiating active targeting emissions.
ôActive threat!ö Cheng yelled, somewhat unnecessarily, given that the rest of his squad were already scattering behind the available cover and reaching for their wrist consoles. Wu rose from his position behind the flimsy protection of the auto-loader limb and dashed towards another Shanghai Daijang crate sitting alone on the deck. Further up the accessway, there was a thump and a flash of fire, then the howl and glare of a rocket motor as a projectile streaked through the air. The missile caught Wu in the side, erupting into a flash of orange and yellow light and sending the bulky suit tumbling into an awkward twist of armour and limbs. Cheng could clearly see the gaping hole that had been blown through the torso armour, and the ruined meat within. Wu didn't rise.
ôShit. Go to active countermeasures!ö Cheng bellowed over the squad comm net, suiting actions to words as he stabbed a finger onto the smartcloth console at his wrist. ôAnybody have a target? And why the fuck didn't the drones catch them?ö
ôGot a good track on it for the entire flight, boss,öZheng Wei, one of Cheng's three surviving support gunners announced. ôFifty meters further up, there's a pair of shut down auto-loaders parked next to each other. I'm marking the location now. Dunno about the drones, though.ö
Cheng expanded the map of the immediate area his computer projected into the bottom right of his helmet hud. A blinking crimson dot marked the point Zheng had seen the missile launcher. The space between the Chinese unit's current position and the enemy offered sparse concealment, but the enemy position was a confusing mishmash of industrial machinery. Describing anything involved as 'parked' was being generous; it looked more like the operators of the machines involved had managed to get into an accident in their rush to evacuate, and nobody had stayed around to clean up. The power cells of one of the auto loaders were exposed, bathing the entire area in a blanket of infra-red radiation, masking any other sources nearby.
Gunfire sounded further up the accessway, a rippling snarl that was unlike anything Cheng had heard in his life, outside of the antiquated automatic weapons that featured in historical movies. There was a wail of damaged lift fans and a loud crash as one of the drones fell to the deck. More rounds chewed at the edge of Cheng's crate, the durable plastic offering little resistance to the tiny, fast projectiles. They shattered on his armour, with a force that felt like somebody was smacking him in the chest with a lead pipe. He fell onto his rear with a curse, and the next burst missed him, punching all the way through the crate and producing billowing clouds of fine white flour that coated Cheng in a thin film of white dust.
ôFuck this. Deng, take over C drone and go look for the ones on access nine! I'll take A and D! The rest of you, return fire!ö
More threat warnings shrieked as the boarders fired another missile, but, confused by the electronic static the Chinese suits' ECM was blanketing the airwaves with, it twitched off target and slammed directly into the auto loader Cheng's third support gunner, Gao Dong was crouching behind. The machine blossomed into a ball of fire, and spewed fragments of red hot metal across the Chinese position, rattling off of armour. Gao cursed vilely as his scorched armour stumbled out of the fireball, then turned to the enemy position and, heedless of his exposed state, filled the air with a torrent of explosives.
The QLB-86 SAW was bigger and bulkier than the Model-80 combat rifle most of the rest of the squad carried. It was less handy in confined spaces as well, and generally considered a pain to maintain. Importantly, however, its large box magazine provided it with a significantly greater ammunition supply, and Gao's PA-10 could carry enough reloads that he didn't have to make every shot count. 20mm, high explosive armour piercing rounds marched through the attackers' position with metronome precision, smashing through crates and machinery alike before detonating with bone cracking force. They were designed to punch a hole through infantry armour, not as fragmentation rounds, but their impact on the environment in the enemy position sent shards of metal from machines, bulkheads and the deck scything through the air. Enemy gunfire snarled, and Gao staggered as they shattered against his armour, but he didn't lose his footing, merely adjusted his aim slightly and allowed his last two rounds on-board guidance systems to place them onto the point his computer indicated the fire had come from.
Something screamed and thrashed as Gao stepped back into concealment behind Cheng's crate, already thumbing the magazine catch and reaching for a replacement. Zheng leant around the edge of his own cover and began a calmer, more measured barrage. Wang was not far behind, nor were the rest of the squad û although they were considerably more sparing with their rounds. Despite their best efforts, the enemy refused to be completely suppressed; automatic fire continued to chew up crates and the deck, and another missile screamed by the Chinese position, a clean miss.
While they were shooting at the Chinese soldiers, however, they weren't shooting at the drones. Cheng manoeuvred his two robotic minions with the deftness of long practice, weaving them close over the top of the enemy position, the whine of their fans unnoticed amongst the thunder of explosions. Infrared was useless, but optical sensors and radar worked perfectly from this angle, without the confusion of surfaces and angles that provided an enemy a hiding place at ground level.
ôI've got solid targets!ö He yelled. ôDrone A!ö
ôGot it, Boss.ö Zheng muttered.
The Chinese fire slackened as they switched from simply blanketing the area with rounds to single, aimed shots. Guided by Cheng's drone, the smart rounds sliced through the alien position like a giant, explosive scythe. The crates and machinery the boarders crouched behind were no match for the Chinese penetrators, and shields flared and died under the fire. Two of the aliens burst apart in showers of blue gore, and another, his shield down, screamed and clutched at a sizzling fragment of metal embedded in his face. Two of his companions started to drag him behind the more solid cover of an upturned auto loader chassis, but a salvo of rounds from Gao caught one of them in the back, coating the injured alien and his other rescuer in blood and viscera.
Despite the unexpected and devastating increase in casualties, the aliens didn't break. Three of them, toting the bulky mass of missile launchers, sent rockets streaking into the Chinese defenders as the surviving aliens began to withdraw away from the human soldiers. One of them looked up and, seeing the drone, raised his rifle. Cheng's link to the machine dissolved into static.
ôGood job lads, they're falling back. Charlie Team, covering fire. Delta Team, you're with me.ö
The retreating invaders hadn't left much behind in the way of equipment, beyond heat warped wafers of metal and the mangled remains of the armour the dead were wearing. It turned out that alien corpses were as unpleasant to look at as human remains, and a brief search of the bodies revealed nothing of immediate interest.
ôBravo Ten, this is Bravo Three Three, come back.ö
ôBravo Three Three, Bravo Ten. I read you.ö Cheng could hear gunfire over the comm link.
ôTen, we've just run into boarders in platoon strength well advanced of where they should have been. They're in as far as C access. We kicked them out of their positions, but they're still between us and their line of advance. I'm going to keep pressing them, but depending on their supply of anti-armour weapons, I may not be able to reach access nine. I'm down two drones and one KIA already and I can confirm that they aren't human.ö
ôCopy that, Three Three. We've noticed that ourselves,ö there was a pause. ôContinue pressing them for now. If your ammo situation becomes dire or you start taking too many casualties, feel free to fall back. Keep me advised of your situation; at the moment, the fallback point is still Charlie.ö
ôAcknowledged, Ten. Good luck, Three Three out,ö with a sigh, Cheng switched back to the squad channel. ôRight, we've just proved to ET here who the real men on this station are, but the grey skinned bastards apparently think they still have a shot at beating us. We're going to keep pressing them, as far as our ammo allows, then fall back. They're just lucky that we aren't supposed to stop them anyway! Gao, Zheng, it's your turn up front; watch out for those fucking rocket launchers; Deng, take over both drones. Don't worry about conserving power, they probably aren't going to be around long enough for it to matter.ö
As the Chinese squad started to wind it's way forwards again, Cheng grinned.
ôLets entice them to stick their barbed alien dicks a little deeper, shall we, gentlemen?ö