Defense of Risuki

by johnnydeath2011

Join in the life of Officer Alexander Bane of the WIJ Corporation, as he survives through a heavy attack against a hostile force known as the Vaktovian Empire.

***************
Red and Blue
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Officer Alexander Bane, or otherwise known as Alex, swept his hair back and placed on his hat, the hat his father had given him as a child, when he was only seven years old. Since then time has passed, and a tired thirty-two year old Alex stepped off the metallic plating of his home's floor, and onto the mushy grass outside. He strode several steps, stepping back onto a shining sidewalk and took a left to his vehicle parked just off the edge of the path.

As Alex jumped into the vehicle, a welcoming voice greeted him and ran through a quick diagnostics test. When finished the Officer pressed a button and scanned his thumbprint, confirming his I.D., and the bundle of metal shot up and hovered exactly 1.35 meters off the ground. The automated voice again spoke, asking for the destination.

"Take me to the WIJ HQ." A scratchy-voiced Alex spoke. Years after years of service in WIJ, fighting against numerous resistance forces, and other groups who called themselves the 'Raiders', aged him fast. He looked to be in his late forties, with a wrinkled forehead, callused hands, but that didn't stop him from going on. He'd fight until his end, and the end may very well be near.

Roughly two hours ago, a mass-message was sent out to all WIJ Officers and High Command alike to report to the HQ for a meeting. The subject was untold, but if the Officers were required it couldn't be good.

Generally when an Officer is called to a meeting, there is need of a large amount of leadership required for the upcoming task, whatever it may be. Seeing as though every Officer was called for, worried Alex greatly.

Alas, the floating vehicle arrived to the HQ, and opened its doors for its operator to step out. Alex paced up a flight of carved stone steps, and arrived to the entrance of the towering structure. A pair of sliding glass doors opened themselves as he stepped closer, and walked right in.

The other Officers and up were already there, waiting, some in corners chatting to one-another, others just standing firmly, awaiting the next event to occur. Alex joined them. The room suddenly grew silent, as WIJ's Chairman, code-named 'SilentSwords', stepped into the building, accompanied by his Marshal, who's name was Owen, and WIJ's Consul General, Orlan.

The Chairman stopped once he reached the end of the line of Officers, Colonels, and two Brigadiers stepped out of the shadows to join him. "Men and Women of the WIJ Corporation Officers and High Command, I have an important announcement, and that is why I have summoned you here." He made a motion, and the Chief of Staff, and leader of the WIJ's elite division known as the Shock Troopers, stepped forward and motioned the Shocks to join him. Alex stepped forward and took his place behind the Brigadier.

"The WIJ Corporation is entering another era of war. The Vaktovian Empire has declared yet another onslaught, and threaten our homeworld. Their infamous Emperor Vaktus will be present as well. I'm calling you all here now, because this is our one chance to finally get a step ahead of him, and make sure our colonized worlds are under complete protection of the Corporation, and to assure that we hold our ground.

"The Vaktovians pose a great threat, and they will not stop until they achieve total dominance. The first planet we send reinforcements to will be Risuki."
The Officers looked among eachother, the last time the Vaktovians invaded WIJ had pushed them back, will they be so lucky again?

***************
D-Day Again
***************

A Corporal next to Alex screamed, and he rose off the ground, aiming his Y14 Phaser Pistol and shooting down two hostile soldiers. The attack began so suddenly, the entire High Command was evacuated from the HQ, and so were several of the Officers. Officer Alexander and one of his old friends, Tommy, both stood their ground against oncoming waves of more and more Vaktovians.

He continued spraying into the cloud of smoke in front of him, hitting few hostiles, but it was the least he could do. The ground shook as another WIJ shuttle smacked into the ground after being smoldered with Vaktovian Anti-Air fire. Alex prayed the High Command weren't aboard.

"Battery's out!" Tommy shouted, threw down his Y14 and grabbed a W17 off a lone WIJ corpse. Flames erupted from the smoke as three Vaktovians in heat-resistant armor walked in, flamethrowers active. Alex continued pressing his Y14's trigger, until he heard a soft CLICK! and threw down the pistol.

He reached behind him, another corpse, this time an Officer, Mike, carried a R87 Railgun. Alex felt terrible for his lost friend, and took the explosive ordnance. He spun back around and shot twice into the horde, sending Vaktovians flying left and right. The cloud of burning red turned quickly to crimson, as limbs flew throughout the structure.

Alex heard a wicked laugh, and the fighting stopped. Tommy stood, using the W17 to lean against, and clutching his right shoulder with his left hand, he had taken a blow. Blood welled from the wound, but the expression on his face showed no sign of pain.

The laugh was again heard, and metal boots clanked, closer and closer, and a silhouette could be seen in the smoke which was finally disappearing. Alex glared, as he began to make out the shape. The Vaktovian's Supreme General, Dologan.

Immediately Alex's eyes filled with anger, but just as he raised his R87 to take a shot, he heard the click of the empty battery. Dologan raised a StA18, and shot Tommy between the eyes. Alex cursed loudly, and charged at the General. The next noise that was heard, was the thump of the StA18 round into his chest. Alex fell backward, holding his chest. He didn't feel it go in, but he could feel it vibrating inside him everytime he moved, and that was excruciatingly painful.

Dologan's body appeared in front of Alex, as he again chuckled. "Foolish attempt, boy. That is the price of war, I suppose." Dologan lowered into a crouch above Alex, his StA18 pressing against Alex's face.

"But you have much more to learn." Alex flinched as he heard the gun fire, and expected it to hurt, a lot. But he didn't feel anything, in-fact, he wasn't even dead. Alex cracked open an eye, to see Dologan's body collapsed to the floor, blood pouring from one side of his head to the other. Alex looked around, saw the bloody body of Tommy, barely leaning forward, with a Vaktovian sniper in his arms, the end smoking. There was a wound on the upper half of his nose, where Dologan's pistol hit his mask, but didn't quite go through all the way.

"I have a lot to thank you for, Tommy." Alex spoke and laughed as he and Tommy stood up to shake hands yet another time.

***************
Rescued
***************

"You have your orders, Alexander! Get those troops out of there!" Colonel Umbra Crowspike shouted to Alex over a secure comms network. A dozen WIJ soldiers were cornered in the city's local library, Vaktovian forces led by General Liam were firing from the outside, occasionally sending in strike teams. Alex pulled out the Shock Troopers' new tactical weapon, the W18 Assault Rifle, modified for a firing mode switch and an attached underbarrel light.

Alex swapped firing modes from Automatic to Semi-Automatic, and took careful aim. He sniped out three Vaktovians before going back into hiding, giving Tommy a signal over the comms. He looked back over, saw smoke grenades burst in front and behind the soldiers, and Tommy appeared from between two structures, opening fire into the cloud.

Alex pulled out his SUF with an attached thermal sight, and sniped out a few Vaktovians. When he saw the area was clear, he signaled Tommy to move in closer. From there he could no longer provide sniper fire, so he climbed down a ladder and jogged ten blocks to the back of the library.

There were only seven Vaktovians covering the back, so Alex used his suppressed W18 to take them out. "Never knew what hit them." He mumbled. He busted down the set of doors, and would have been shot had the leading Sergeant not recognized him.

"Alexander, hah, didn't expect to see you." Sergeant James Anderson, known by many troops as 'The Flintlock', greeted Alex at the door. Tommy rounded the corner just in time.
"Vaktovians will be all over this place in a matter of seconds, we need to get you out of here." Alex announced, then pointed to the back door. "That's our way out, let's go!"

The bunch of soldiers rushed out, single file, Alex in front and Tommy in back, to prevent both leaders being blown apart from one single well placed grenade. Alex peppered a few rounds into a straggler, and shot the skull of another and carried on.

"The L.Z. is beyond that set of buildings." Alex said, and pointed in the direction. "We'll have to take the streets, so watch the rooftops."

Only a few moments later on the streets, were Vaktovian rifles firing down on their position. "AMBUSH!" an Operative shouted, and was quickly shot down by sniper fire. "Take cover!" Alex yelled out and hid behind a deserted hovermobile.

He saw another Corporal go down, too far into injury to be saved. As he watched the soldier slowly die from incineration rounds, two more soldiers collapsed next to him. Alex raised from cover and fired onto the rooftops, successfully killing three hostiles.

Just when he thought it was over, the ground began to rumble, and the air filled quickly with the loud droning sounds of...

"Strikers! We've got air support!" Alex shouted, and the other WIJ troops cheered. The strikers peppered the rooftops with plasma, killing off the Vaktovian forces. The dropship hovered into the streets, and deployed its landing gear.

Marshal Owen was on board, and hurried the squad onto the escort, firing a REX into a crowd of Vaktovians running through the streets. The ramp to the dropship slid up, and shook the aircraft as it slammed shut, and more rumbling as the craft took off.

"Excellent work today, Alex. Now we just have to do this with the rest of the cities..." Marshal Owen exclaimed, and reached a hand out to Alex, and they shook hands.

***************
Downed
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The dropship shook as yet another salvo of Vaktovian rifles pounded the hull. Alex nearly fell, and took hold of a handle on the roof. The five remaining soldiers looked grim, and severely needed a shower. Grime covered their armor, sweat dripped from their oily hair, and a few sustained minor injuries.

There was one Corporal out of the bunch, who's bright, golden hair lay flat between her back and the two seats she attempted to rest on. Her left hand had been quickly bandaged by the team medic, and laid across her chest. She seemed to have been staring at Alex since they got on the craft, and looked with a kind of face that made even the most hardcore of soldiers take a minute and smile.

The tags on her uniform stated her name, 'Zoe Artily'. Before Alex had a chance to go over and talk with her, another trio of rounds hit the dropship, but the ship started shuttering more then it should.

"The engines have been hit! I repeat, the engines have been hit! We're going down, hold on to something!" The pilot screamed over the internal comms, and the craft spiraled towards the ground. Marshal Owen took control of the situation, giving each trooper a parachute and a W17.

"You're going to have to jump. Unless you enjoy dying in a crash.."

"No, sir!" Everyone spoke in unison.

The pilot open the craft's ramp used normally to walk on and off, and the Marshal rushed each WIJ soldier jumped off one by one, hoping to escape the fiery death the ship was about to dive into.

Sergeant James Anderson screamed as his parachute malfunctioned and refused to open, and went silent as his body slammed hard into the streets below. A group of Vaktovians ran in to check the man. "Make that four survivors." Alex spoke to himself, and held on as the Vaktovians continued to fire into the crowd of falling WIJ.

One of their shots hit, and a Trooper died in silence. Such a casualty is always horrid, as the Trooper never had their chance to form a career.

The group of WIJ finally hit the ground, and the Marshal took a fast head count. Two WIJians out of the eight on board, discluding the pilot, had died. That left a squad of only three remaining survivors of the previous city, the two Officers and the Marshal.

Alex grabbed his W17, took position behind Owen, and checked behind him for everyone else. When ready, Owen motioned them all forward, and they snuck through the alleyways of the city. Just at the end of the narrow path, a Vaktovian walked into view, seemingly unaware of the group. Owen grabbed a combat knife, and slowly stepped forward, making no sound.

The next sound was the horrifying gurgle of the enemy trooper, and Owen slid the knife from the soldier's throat and wiped the blood off the blade on his armor.

Some of the WIJians just stood in shock, but wiped the expressions off immediately and continued forward. Alex heard the crackle of a gun behind him, spun around to see a Vaktovian aiming a StA-52 straight at Zoe. Before he had time to warn her, she slammed the butt of her rifle into the hostile's helmet, crushing his skull, and then repeating again twice.

The Vaktovian was dead. Tommy looked at Zoe in shock, not even a Shock could have pulled that. As if it never happened, the group began to move forward again, Tommy kept checking the comms for anyone in reach, but it was as if Risuki had been abandoned entirely.

At last, the group made it out into the 'safe zone', the one place Vaktovians weren't sitting around at, but still controlled.

"This is where we stop. Now everyone, I want you to know now, we've lost some great people, and so far WIJ has been living in luxury until now. It will take years for Risuki to be rid of Vaktovians, and even longer for us to clean up this planet and restore it." Owen started his speech.

"No one's coming out without scars, right now the entire Corporation may be assuming we're dead, K.I.A., eliminated by the Vaktovians. It's just the six of us, but six people can cause a lot more damage then an entire army, if you play the right cards.

"We may never see the end of this war, but we're going to fight until we die. Just remember, we're WIJ!"

The whole group cheered on, and this time it was Alex who looked at Zoe first.

***************
No Man Left Behind
***************

"No, Orlan." Colonel Umbra Crowspike, given the name for his awkward bird-like behavior, said to Colonel Orlan with a type of look in his eyes that said he was serious, but no one could tell when he wore the ominous mask.

"No one survived that crash, and if so they would have called in on their radios."

"There's still a chance, the Vakkies could be using a jammer." Orlan said, then WIJ's Chief of Staff, Brigadier Lucan, entered the briefing room. "I've received confirmation that the Marshal and most of the crew aboard that dropship are alive. We had to launch a new satellite into orbit, because the Vaktovians destroyed the initial ones.

"How they knew where the satellites were is beyond me, I don't think they're alone in this."

"What do you mean, Sir?" Umbra looked worried, but yet no one could tell.

"What I mean is, I think there is someone in WIJ feeding the Vakkies the info they want."

"A leech..." Orlan said.

"Precisely. Orlan, I need you to prep a squad of Shock Troopers and meet me back down at the ship's hangar bay."

"Yes, Sir!" Colonel Orlan saluted smartly, spun around on one heel, and exited the room, leaving both Umbra and the Chief of Staff alone.

"Now, Umbra." Lucan began, "I need you working on finding who this leech is, check any and all comms traffic from this ship, everything, clear?"

"Yes, Sir!" Lucan didn't give time for the Colonel to salute, and left the room quickly.

"Alright, which one of you took my Y14?" Colonel Orlan snarled at the Shock Troopers, they laughed over the joke and one of them kicked the pistol, and it slid across the ground.

"Let's go over this one more time. Rickus, you're taking the rooftops, provide us with some sniper fire. I'll send Jean with you to cover your back. Tony, Steven, and Nat, you three are with me covering the streets. If they're not in WIJ uniform, shoot it. Mathew, take Garrett and Leonardo, you're covering anywhere we haven't. Clear?"

The Shock Troopers nodded in unison. Several collected gear from the supply crates, weapons and the occasional smoke grenade, and any additional attachments.

"Alright, we're leaving in thirty so make sure you're on that dropship in twenty!" Orlan finally finished.

***************
Surrounded
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The dim light of the fire, set up by Corporal Jenkins, was just enough to heat up the group in the cold night. Alex, laid down flat on his back next to Zoe, stared up into the stars.

The entire group immediately shot up, most from taking a nap. A gunshot was heard, and it was close.

"Kill the fire!" the Marshal shouted, and Jenkins bat down the fire with a cloth.

"Everyone stay quiet..." More shots were heard, then an echo raced throughout the city as someone screamed. It rang Alex's ears, but he kept staring, wondering where it came from.

"Sam, investigate!" Owen shouted to the only Operative in the group, he nodded, readied a W17, and slowly stepped towards the sounds in a crouch walk.

"SIR! LOOK!" Sam shouted halfway down the narrow alleyway, and Owen moved forward, dragging everyone along with him. A dead Shock Trooper lie on the ground, another one further on.

"Collect their tags." Owen said. Corporal Jenkins stepped up, kneeled over the fallen Shock Trooper, and collected the tags, then further on to collect the other pair.

As Jenkins handed them over, Owen frowned.

"Sir?" Alex was curious.

"Colonel Orlan and Officer Steven." Owen announced, everyone's face made a grimace.

"So.. Are there more Shocks? Does the Corporation know we're alive? Are we being rescued!?" The Operative started shouting, nearly alerted the whole city had Alex not covered his mouth and told him to be quiet.

"Listen, if we hold here we'll never be found, if we move out, we increase the dangers of being found by Vakkies. Obviously, if there was a lot of gunfire, that means the Vaktovians control this sector." Owen said, and passed everyone's weapons back.

"I say we go out and invite them over for tea, eh?" Alex said, even though a bad joke everyone laughed and cheered on.

"Everyone in? Good. Let's go." Owen said, then strode back through the alleyway, stepping over the dead Shock Troopers.

"Jenkins, you take point. Alex, get in the back, I'll be behind the Corporal, and Tommy will be in the middle." Owen spoke with that tone of voice that assured people it's all okay, but Alex knew otherwise. They were about to step into a battlefield.

As soon as the narrow pass ended, Jenkins took a shot through his neck. He didn't have time to shout before his silent body hit the floor. Another few shots and Operative Samuel took two blows in the chest, the first denting his armor, but the other was armor piercing rounds and flew straight through him.

The Operative didn't die silently.

Suddenly the combat stopped, and Alex looked to the rooftops as he saw the Vaktovian General Liam, holding a WIJ Sergeant over the edge of the building. It was James.

"Remember this one? You left him to die, and now he will share the same fate as all of you." Liam spoke loudly, very loudly.

James wriggled in Liam's grip, but couldn't get free. He kicked the General's chest, hard, and the grip weakened just enough.

James tore the hand from him, and slowly he dropped in a free fall, and Liam pulled out a StA-18 and took aim. James grabbed hold of a lightpost just before hitting the ground, and as Liam shot the bullet streak past his face, clean miss.

Another fire was shot, but not Liam's. Suddenly all of the Vaktovians on the roof fell dead as another salvo of shots were fired, and finally five Shock Troopers appeared over the edge, Alex could see who they were from here.

Rickus, snipers specialist and marksman. Jean, close quarters combat specialist. Garrett and Leonardo, both skilled in the use of the B55 and Y14. Then there was Captain Mathew, who specialized in almost everything.

Sergeant James released his grip from the post, and landed safely on the ground below. He had several cuts and bruises, he had a hard landing but something softened his fall.

One of the Shock Troopers, Garrett, shouted, "Sir! We have Vakkies massing around the entire area! We have to get out now-" his sentence was cut off by a sniper round straight through his chest, and another into his forehead.

***************
Cavalry Has Arrived!
***************

"Saddle up, boys." Staff Sergeant, and a very skilled pilot named Vechi said to the other five pilots in the hangar bay aboard the WSC Moraides.

"Our boys are stuck down on that surface, and we're going in for some air support. And We're doing this Vechi style, you hear?" The group of pilots nodded, laughed, and jumped into their Strikers.

It only took a few moments for the roar of engines to rumble that whole section of the ship, another few for Flight Control to disable the hangar's force field, and the pilots lifted off.

"Setting coordinates, square 1181, over." One of the pilots spoke over the groups comms.

"Coordinates set, inbound." The group of pilots did a weapons check really quick, testing them on debris.

"Entering planet's atmosphere in five." Vechi said, then took a minute to chill.

"I said we're doing this my way, right?" Vechi tuned on 'Ride of the Valkyries' and played it over the comms. There were a few 'HOORAHS' as they entered the atmosphere.

The view of the city was far below, but it was certainly the right one. Even from this distance, Vechi could see the streaks of blue and red as the battle raged on.

"Let's put on a show, shall we?" Vechi heard several shouts of approval. As they dove down, and the city began closer, Vechi could see the little Vaktovian ants below.

"Marking allies, choose your targets and fire on my mark!" Two seconds past, and the Vaktovians were in clear view.

"MARK!" the flock of Strikers made a lightshow as they rained terror onto the hostile soldiers.

Vechi lifted his Striker up flew in one straight direction, followed by the rest, and they made a U-Turn, coming back only to see the Vaktovians retreating.

"FIRE!" Several Vaktovians burned in the heated plasma as they took direct hits, casualties estimated around one hundred and seventy-five.

"Don't let them escape, let them know just what kind of WIJ they're messing with, HOORAH!" One pilot shouted, more Hoorahs followed.

"CHARLIE DON'T SURF!" Vechi shouted, and they all separated, massacring the Vaktovians.

"Now that's one for the books!" Vechi said, then called into the Moraides.

"Sergeant Vechi to the Moraides, you're clear to pick up survivors."

"We hear you, Sergeant. Two dropships are on their way."

***************
End Game
***************

As one of the two dropships touched metal to concrete, Alex helped Zoe into the craft, along with Owen and two of the shock troopers, Rickus and Jean. The rest of the survivors loaded onto the other ship, and at that the twin crafts lifted from the surface and joined in a protective formation with Vechi's Strikers.

The man piloting the craft that Alex was riding set it to follow one of the Strikers,
then hopped out of the seat and into the back section with the rest on board. "Just need to inform the lot of you," he began, and sounded worried, "that I just received a message from Colonel Umbra, a large ship, not one of our's, just entered the atmosphere of the planet, and is en route to the city."

"And?" Alex said.

"And... It's also not Vaktovian. However, IF this ship is hostile, then we need to hurry and get out of the planet's atmosphere and back to the Moraides."

"I thought we were already doing that?" Owen had said.

"There's the problem, we can't. Umbra also said the the Chairman is stuck on the ground, no evac coming for him. He's stranded, and we're the only ones who know." Everyone's face turned pale. The pilot was right, IF the ship was hostile, there may not be time to rescue the Chairman.

"So what do we do?" Corporal Zoe asked the pilot.

"Suppose we have to try, eh? I just had to break the bad news to you all, we may not get off this-" The pilot's voice was cut off by a large amount of rumbling in the ship, everyone looked through the craft's glass window to see the city behind them get burned into ashes, a large ship above it was raining down the chaos.

"What is that thing?" Alex was nearly scared now, that was the largest ship any of them had ever seen. It was at least two times as big as the massive city.

"Hold on!" The pilot hurried back into the cockpit, took the ship out of following the Strikers, and shot straight upward. The ship got very hot as the thrusters nearly burned themselves out, the pilot was being wreckless. Of course, though, it was necessary, for once.

A large gathering of debris and dust was violently blown across the plains below, anything and everything within a thousand miles of that city will be dead, including the Chairman. "This isn't going to be easy.." The pilot muttered as he violently pulled on a throttle.

The dropship suddenly began to rumble violently, and even through this amount of noise the sound of the pilot cursing could be heard.. "What's going on?" Owen shouted.

"The ship's been hit, chunk of debris slammed into her and jammed the left thruster! I can't fix it from here, we're going down!" There was a lot of shouting, a LOT, as the grey ship plundered to the surface, smoke bellowing from its thrusters, more from its left one.

"Brace yourselves for impact!" the pilot shouted. It seemed to take forever for the ship to fall, they were really high up in the air. Alex was the only one not screaming, there were soldiers rushing to get their armor back on, some done, some only half way. Next to Alex, Zoe was holding onto him as tight as she could, and he wrapped his left arm around her. Being completely covered in his Shock Trooper armor, the chance of him dying was small.

A sudden explosion made him open his eyes, he watched as several bodies were thrown out of the ship, and the ship itself cracked open, debris scattered everywhere. He felt himself bleeding, aching horribly. He stood up, examined most of the bodies. Marshal Owen lied on the ground, a large pool of blood surrounding his body. He was dead.

Alex bent over and collected his holotags, shoved them into a compartment on his armor, and took two more from both Rickus and Jean. Other then him, the only survivor was Zoe. She had managed to use Alex keep from being thrown out of the ship as well.

The other dropship could be seen in the distance, still following the pack of Strikers. There was no use waving his arms for help, he wouldn't be seen, and in that crash, even he should have died, should. He found himself actually surprised that he was only bruised, and bleeding in a small amount of areas. Zoe took less damage then him, he'd find out how later.

Alex took another glance at the city, in smoldering ruin, and watched as the massive ship above it finished its job, and exited the atmosphere quickly. He sat down, trying to decide what he could do, there was nothing to do. He was stranded, lost, Risuki is an abandoned planet, and any inhabitants are either lost, or stuck under ground. He wasn't sure who controlled Risuki now, that ship wasn't Vaktovian, but its weapons seemed more advanced.