2976.264
Dadaelus Battlegroup, En route to FS-176 system
A dozen ships continued to tear through slipspace, racing through the wake of the large battlewagon that headed the group. They were minutes from arrival at a location they had little data on, only that the coordinates were otherwise highly classified. That generally meant a precursor site that was being hidden for a good reason.
"All ships, this is the Daedalus. Ten minutes to transit into realspace. All ground teams prepare for drop, aerospace crews prepare for magnum launch. Expected active combat zone. All ships prepare for Kromus reactive force."
The same command echoed across the battle group. Dropships loaded with troops, fighters and escorts fueled and prepared to launch en mass. There was a telltale shimmer as every vessel of the group force began raising defense grids; no one was expecting a quiet entry at all.
Aboard the Daedalus, the primary ground force was loading into every dropship that could be readied. An impressively outfitted Sergeant Houston was checking over last minute weapons prep, especially with the newly assigned fresh privates, and making sure his own commanding officer was ready. "Platoon Nine is locked and loaded, Lieutenant." And as if to punctuate those words, the sergeant finished his own ammo load and chamber action before tucking his weapon onto the mag-plate on the back of his semi-powered assault armor.
"Surprised you aren't using the suit you keep hidden under your bed for this." Lieutenant Halbrook gave a faint smile as she made sure her own M6 was loaded and ready. A helmet found itself slipped on over her short cropped brown hair, and as she tapped the wristcom display on her left arm, she gestured for Houston to keep alongside her as they made way toward their own Pelican transport. "Roland loaded into that bucket of yours, Sergeant?"
"I admit I missed the capacity and utility of a proper ÆSIR suit," came the projected voice from Houston's own computer unit on his armor. "But since we sadly couldn't requisition the sergeant's old mark one armor from the Vault on Reach, this will have to do."
Houston gave a snort as he followed the lieutenant up the loading ramp and into the Pelican's hold while members of their platoon hooked themselves into drop harnesses and loaded their own weapons into the storage clamps aside each harness unit. "Stingy bastards wouldn't even give me a damn magn'm or a pulse rifle before we left. How am I su'pose to put a five inch space between those flam'in six sets without a real ÆSIR weapon?"
The chuckle that escaped Halbrook's lips was enough as she made her way to the cockpit cabin and settled into her seat behind the pilot. The grizzled sergeant pulled the MA5I-11 from his back and set it into a storage clamp beside his seat before hooking himself in, giving his lieutenant and the pilot a thumbs up. "Been waiting eighteen years to settle shit with those Klackers. You dumb brutes all set back there?!"
The enthusiastic cry from the two dozen troops in the hold made Houston grin as Halbrook only shook her head and keyed in her wristcom. "Battlenet reports transit back to realspace in five four, three…"
And the flaring exit gates tore open to release the battle group from slipspace, into an deep system entry vector near the fourth planet orbital of the system. A massive gas giant with several moons, one of which was large enough to be a planet in size alone, and perfect cover for the battle group's reentry.
"Destination is three standard astronomical units distance. Three-one-four is running insertion vectors for jump into geosynchronous orbit around the second planet, designation FS-176-2."
The captain of the Daedalus nodded his confirmation as the holo-table displayed the projected slipspace jump into orbit. "All ships, coordinate with Aurora-314 for micro-jump. All fighters and dropships, standby for final preparations."
The various destroyers, corvettes, frigates, and support craft came about the curve of the massive super Jovian planet, catching sight of the distant yellow star that lay five astronomical units away. The Daedalus accelerated ahead, punching back into slipspace mere moments ahead of the rest of its escort group, crossing the distance to their destination in a matter of seconds before re-emerging into real space, followed by the dozen vessels it outsized.
A yellow-brown planet lay before them. Two moons could be seen in orbit, silently following their path through the void of space. It was a perfect entry and orbit insertion, practically academy textbook in precision and execution.
"Captain Ikari, I'm getting no readings from the planet surface of any active cities or structures. There's bioform readings all over the place, but it looks like native wildlife more than anything."
And that was why something was wrong.
"Helm, maintain standard geosynchronous orbit. All dropships, prepare for insertion."
The platforms extended out, each Pelican or Goshawk taking point ahead of half a dozen square built DR-4 Viking dropships. The lead transports slowly lifted off the drop platforms, while the Vikings simply released from loading supports and fired their maneuvering fusion thrusters to make their course. Dozens of the troop landers would arc through the atmosphere, protected only by the flicking heat shields that kept the intense heat and rage of the flaring plasma cone of entry at bay.
"Daedalus, this is Pelican-221, breaching atmosphere and heading for designated waypoint."
"Roger, two-two-one. Standing orders are perimeter around designated waypoint entry once surface-side has been reached, further action is at squad-com discretion."
The flares of phase shielding holding back the heat and friction of atmospheric entry continued to light around the landing craft as they all continued their brute force descent toward the surface. The Goshawks and Pelicans took lead ahead of the brickish Viking dropships, rapidly approaching the surface before firing retro-thrusters and turning the full power of the shipboard repulsor units into a braking force mere meters from ground. Within moments, they were joined by the Vikings, controlled bursts bringing the troop transports around to make landing.
Landing struts hit the surface, digging into the yellow-brown soil and firing stabilizing pikes into the ground. Heavy ramps swung down to unleash scores of armed and armored troops, hundreds now unleashed and moving in loose combat formation toward the waypoint indicated on their helmet visors. The Pelicans and Goshawks soon after dropped their ramps, the carried troops following suit while command staff prepared themselves before disembarking.
"Daedalus, this is Lieutenant Halbrook," came the opening communication as Halbrook took a chance to look around. Her face was full covered with atmosphere stabilizers and breathing filters, same as everyone else who was making groundside. "Arrival at designated landing confirmed, proceeding to entry waypoint with platoon nine."
"Copy, Platoon Nine. Just received word from Dauntless and Admiral Dane, they're on their way and should be joining us within the next few hours. Proceed to waypoint and make entry to set up defense perimeter, and eliminate any hostiles. Again, further actions at squad-com discretion, but contact with non-hostiles is imperative. Apparently the planet has been under Kromus occupation over a standard month now. We need to verify any survivors."
Halbrook blinked as she failed to understand exactly what was going on. The system was nominally charted as a singularity quarantine zone, meaning there was a black hole central mass. Except when they had arrived, no such stellar object was here. Even at two astronomical units distance, a star with a singularity companion would have revealed such. Instead, there was a single brilliant mid-aged yellow dwarf hanging in the sky, just a bit bigger than Sol itself back home. It finally occurred that something in this system was being covered up. But why?
What the hell was this place?
"Ma'am, switch to private frequency TEAMCOM alpha-sierra three-seven-niner." That was Sergeant Houston. "What I'm about t' tell you is class'fied and considered black coded."
Black Coded. That meant Advanced Warfare. What the hell had they gotten her into? Halbrook nonetheless switched to the advised frequency and muted her external speakers to keep the conversation private. "TEAMCOM channel set. What's the story, sergeant?"
He hesitated, making sure they were the only ones on the private frequency before he continued. "Lieutenant, we're on a planet that the Chozo call 'zay-bus'." It wasn't exactly how the Chozo pronounced it, but it was close enough for him. "We were last here about twenty-three years ago when the Kromus prev'sly tried to invade." Sergeant Houston paused to let it sink in. The wide eyed expression of Lieutenant Halbrook as it hit her didn't take very long to tell what kind of shock this was. "We came ahead of a Kromus invasion team, with a hefty San'hel'i task force as our back up, DAW put a big black out on th' who'e thing and all us there were sworn to secrecy, b'cause it's a Chozo planet with a livin' population on it."
"So this isn't just a drive out job, it's a rescue mission." Pieces fell into place as they and the other squads and platoons approached the designated waypoint. It was carved into the side of the mountain, a wide entry path that ended at a three meter wide door panel. Halbrook glanced to Houston, then nodded just before he took point position and moved forward to approach the door panel and its adjoined keypad.
A few taps at the keypanel, and Sergeant Houston took a step back while sweeping with his MA5I. "Entry interlock is clear," he reported, now going further in and halting at the second entry door. "'kay, Roland. I assume you still have that slicer pro'col loaded?"
"Requisitioned and active before we left Reach, Sergeant." The interface unit on Houston's wristcom lit up as it began scanning the secondary door lock. "Already in. I'm assuming that we are disabling auto cycle protocols as well as containment and decontamination processes?"
"Don't need to get held up five at a time," came the grizzled response. Seconds later, the inner doors hissed and released to open. Houston gave a grin as he looked back at his lieutenant. "See? Maybe this won't be so hard after all." After a moment, he turned back to the inner entry and proceeded to make his way inside the quite city. Behind him followed the troops that had unloaded from the dropships, now moving to sweep the ruined and quiet underground city. It took a few moments as Sergeant Houston looked around, not sure as to why he had a sudden sense that something was wrong. Even as several squads would pass him, Houston just got the innate knowing that something in their situation wasn't right.
"Roland, do a wide spectr'm scan, run motion trackers as far out as they c'n pick up."
Despite the lack of an avatar projection, the facial expression and reactions he would have given were evident in the tone of the AI's voice. "Sergeant, do you suspect a set up?"
Silence. More of the Confederation troops filtered in, sweeping the broken city, but finding only rubble and debris. Besides the filters of their visor functions and the light projectors mounted on weapons and helmets, the only other illumination was what looked to be dim emergency lanterns embedded into the cavern walls. No bodies, which struck Houston as very odd considering that this city was supposed to have a decent sized population. It certainly had so when he had last been there over two decades prior.
"Sergeant, I've run a full scan with what sensory equipment I have, but it's not very reliable. There's too much urthic and chromium dust particles still in the local atmosphere to get an accurate-"
"Chromium?" His snapped reply stop the Macro AI in mid-sentence, and as his head turned back at the entry lock, then back into the city, something seemed to click. "Roland, we never detected chromium anywhere on Zeb's, let alone in in the region around the Chozo Nest city when we were here with Cap'n Aran twenty-three years ago. Where the hell would it have-"
There was a shifting of rock. Most might not have heard or thought much of it considering all the debris, but Armstrong Houston wasn't most humans. He was an ÆSIR. His senses and physical aspects were enhanced, twice as good as a top condition human in comparable physicality. Even without the powered armor that shared the program name, no ÆSIR soldier ever lost that edge, not after only thirty years.
And no one who had fought the Kromus face to face ever forgot the smell, the presence. This wasn't a defense fortification insertion. This was a forced entry operation. The Kromus had already been here. More than that, they were already here. Entrenched in.
Already in control.
"Lieutenant, we need to fall back now."
"We're pushing in, sergeant, we have survivors to search for."
The private frequency be damned as he triggered his full external com speakers on his helmet. Halbrook may have held the officer rank, but he was senior NCO and had been here before. He'd fought the Kromus face to face, seen their burning eyes first hand. Reprimands could come later "Everyone, pull back, now! This isn't an entry, it's a lure!"
And just as one of the forward troops turned to verify, a horrendous crack of energy discharge echoed just split seconds before she was flung through the air and came crashing down, several feet away from where she started, in a lifeless heap. Her armor smoked from where it had been blasted open, melted plates of titanium and padding twisted from impact and the sheer heat of what had struck her.
There was another crack as a second bright yellow beam of roiling energy surged out of the dust and shadows to cut down another of the human soldiers. There was shouting now as efforts to regroup were taken, but chaos would insert itself as the debris would shift and tumble when the blackened shellplates and burning quad-set eyes of a Kromus emerged to reveal itself. Smoke was wafting from within its pincer claws, and as the ends open to reveal the still glowing biological emitter node hidden within, a brilliant glow was all the warning before a third crack and discharge of the bioenergy plasma beam would signal the assault.
Dozens of glowing points now could be seen, singular waning before the energy bursts began to rain down at the humans. Panic began to set in as several squad-commanders were hit, though it was the panic of a furious retaliation and not fear. Small spheres were thrown from a number of the more dexterously limbed Pirates, spheres that seconds later erupted into plumes of hot plasma. Screams filled the air as men and women were burned alive by the inferno set loose, while the various kinetic and energy weapons that the human soldiers were armed with quickly returned fired.
"Daedelus, this is Halbrook, we are under assault and facing heavy opposition! Need extraction ASAP, they already have the whole place fortified!"
Silence. No reply came as Halbrook checked to make sure she had coms. No signal jamming that could be recognized, and the TEAMCOM was still alive with other units shouting orders. From the sounds of things, outside the mountain city was just as bad as inside. Hostile seemingly appearing out of debris and shadows, the entire area already heavily entrenched by the Kromus. They had wasted no time in the month they had been here, and whatever delays had kept the message from reaching ConFleet had cost them all, dearly.
But she still had to try. "This is Field Lieutenant Yasmine Halbrook, calling Daedalus Battle Group! We are under heavy fire, no way to evac!" A crackle now, but no answer. "For god's sake, someone tell me what's going on up there!"
She heard a clank, a series of beeps, and turned just in time to see the small plasma grenade roll within a matter of feet of her, then felt a crushing force hit her.
hr
The situation in orbit was no different as dozens of Kromus ships were now encircling the Confederation battle group. Two of the smaller corvettes had already been reduced to floating fields of debris, while the destroyers and remaining battlewagons were struggling to bring their own firepower to bare. Brilliant blue-white particle beams laced between the confederation ships and their Kromus foes, burning though many of the older pirate ships like they were butter, but the larger newer vessels were plowing through with crackling shields and unleashing their own weapons fury.
It was aboard the Daedalus itself that the chaos reached its peak. The deep buried combat command center was a flurry of action, orders barked while the holographic image of the biomechanical Aurora Unit brain center was wavering with each impact against the ship's struggling defense grids.
"Captain Ikari, we're receiving distress signal from ground side. They're being swarmed sir, half the infantry is trapped in the underground while the other half is being hammered on the surface!"
A growl came from the captain as the ship shuddered from heavy weapons impact. "The damn Kromus set this whole thing as a trap! They used Dane's informant as a lure, but how the hell did they build up their forces so fast and fortify their position in the system so well in only a month?"
Another rumble, and then an alarm as the holographic tactical display showed another of their battle group's corvettes succumb to the Kromus onslaught. The older vessels from the first war were easy enough prey for the Daedalus, quite true. But for four ships already destroyed in the Confederation group, only one of the new Kromus vessels had been taken out in return, and it had taken everything the sixty-eight year old destroyer had in order to do it.
They had been hiding behind the moons. Dozens of them, from the oldest surviving war era frigate type to the unknown new assault ships that had been seen only in the Concordia's flight records. It was a disaster, one that told the Confederation forces that they had been expected. This had all been a trap, and they had fallen right in.
"Signal ground troops that we're under heavy fire ourselves, and they need to find shelter to bunker into. We need to get out of here and signal to Sol that we need reinforcements before they-"
A violent shudder threw Captain Ikari off his feet. It took him a moment to stand again, but as he finally rose up, he was greeted by the tactical projection of what looked like a massive spaceborne blade. Mass estimates were off the charts, sizing numbers larger than anything outside the single centuries old CSO megaship that the Sangheili possessed. And despite being only a rough fifth the size of that monster of a vessel, the image he saw was no less terrifying, if not more so.
Almost seven kilometers in length from engine ports to blade tip. Bristling with point defense and capitol class armaments, while an escort of innumerable fighters formed what looked like a cloud of gnats about it. Fiery red beams laced out from its defense guns, slicing through one of the lighter Confederation destroyers like a razor on paper. A chain of following beams incited a chain reaction that tore the smaller vessel apart, leaving only debris in the destroyer's wake. Moments later, a massive beam erupted from one of six large ports that were clearly the emitters for an array of accelerated particle cannons. The crimson surge of light was almost instantaneous in crossing the vacuum of space, crashing against the shields of one of the heavier destroyers, only for a second such beam to power it's way through and cut the warship in half.
And then the flaring explosion consumed the destroyer, leaving only half a dozen of the Confederation warships still intact. It was turning now toward the Daedalus and what remained of its battle group, unleashing the swarming cloud of fighters even as the other emitter ports of the energy projector array situated around the blade structure of the ship began to glow.
"Four-one-three, relay Cole Protocol jump directives to the remaining fleet and get us out of here!"
"You are not authorized to initiate those commands."
The words from the holographic avatar brought a horrified silence to the combat command center. Captain Ikari looked slowly at his first officer, then back at the projection of the mechanized brain unit. "Four-two-three, relay orders and enact Cole Protocol directives. That is a direct command under Confleet-"
"Your command authority has been rescinded under the directive of Central Unit Three-Zero." The glowing amber projection suddenly deepened in a crimson red as multiple screens displayed a countdown. "Auto-destruct has been authorized and initiated under the directive of Central Unit Three-Zero. Good-bye, Captain Ikari."
The hecto-megatons force explosion that claimed the ship moments later wasn't even felt beyond a brief instant by the crew of the Daedalus. It saved them from the sight that followed of the rest of the battle group being laid to waste by the massive blade-like vessel that was even now recalling its fighters and preparing to blockade the planet.
TO BE CONTINUED IN
ZERO MISSION