"Nuclear Launch Confirmed." The flight controller announced. "Commence Operation Ascendant Storm."
"This is Windrunner 00 to Tower." Captain Michael Black said, speaking through his audio/visual communication system from the cockpit of his F-22A Raptor Tactical Surface Fighter. "Permission for takeoff?"
"Tower Actual to Windrunner 00, permission granted." The flight controller said. "Good hunting out there."
"Windrunner 00 to Windrunner Squadron." Michael said, opening a line to this squad. "Begin combat launch."
"Roger that!" Second Lieutenant Melissa Black responded. "Standing by."
Michael pushed the control yokes of his TSF forward, flaring the engines and jump units. His humanoid fighting machine took one step forward, then another, and then his lift drive reached full power and the weight of his machine lifted off its feet.
Increasing engine power further, Michael was pushed back into his seat by acceleration forces as his TSF raced toward the end of the runway. A few hundred feet before the end of the pavement, his machine began to lift off into the air.
"Clear for launch!" Melissa said, as her own YF-23 Black Widow II began to take off, the twenty-meter-tall grey humanoid weapon shooting forward on jets of blue flame.
"I'm taking off." Lieutenant Miharu Kuroda said quietly, as her Shiranui Second began accelerating down the runway.
"Well, here I go." Lily Knight said, her F-15E Strike Eagle rocketing forward.
As all eight members of Radiant Squadron took to the air and entered formation, Michael took a deep breath and opened a general address channel to the Squadron.
"Alright, people." Michael said. "Intel has decided that the BETA are massing for something in Normandy. A few hundred thousand of them, at least. Given that we are the only operation in this part of the world, Command figures London's next on the menu. We're here to change that."
Michael opened a map of the area as the ground transited to water beneath the squadron. "We've launched a wave of nuclear-tipped tomahawks mixed in with some decoys to annihilate the largest concentrations of BETA forces. We're to follow on the heels of the missiles, relatively speaking, and as soon as the shock waves clear, move through the affected areas and strike the BETA rear ranks."
"What about the radiation?" Miharu asked. "Won't that be dangerous?"
"We're using an airburst, which will minimize the lingering contamination." Natasha Markov, the Russian pilot said. "And our Tactical Surface Fighters provide immense radiation shielding. We will be fine."
"Well said." Michael said. "In any case, Heavy Laser-Class BETA have been spotted in the operational area, so keep your heads down. However, if we can neutralize them, HQ said we might be able to get some naval rifle or ballistic missile support. Just remember that you you absolutely must get your money's worth with atomic weapons, so we can't screw this up. Remember your jobs, and don't get cocky. That's all from me."
"Intel also reports a high density of regular Laser-class." Lieutenant Keter Maxwell, the Israeli Laserjagd, or Laser Class Hunter, pilot said. "They're fragile, so the nuke should give us some breathing room, but stay low and don't take safety for granted."
"My drones will map the area and find the laser blighters." Cynthia Elswood said confidently, her British accent giving the statement an odd charm. "Then we can dig them out and start exterminating."
"Spend your drones wisely." Sigrid Von Essen, the German combat engineering specialist, said. "Failure is unacceptable."
"Don't get killed, though." Michael said. "We're running short on everything as is."
"Of course." Melissa said. "We'll kill every single one of the alien bastards and live to tell the story. I'm sure of it."
"Don't get too cocky, mate." Lily said, as the far shore came into view in the distance.
"Drop to wavetop flying." Michael ordered, lowering the head of his Raptor and dropping down to just a few feet above the whitecaps, the rest of Windrunner Squadron following suit.
There was a small chance that the BETA had deployed Laser-class along the coast, but that would be atypical. However, it cost nothing to be careful here.
Michael glanced at his readout. The missile Windrunner Squadron was tailing had crossed over onto land and was approaching the detonation point. As the bluffs lining the coast began to become clearer in the distance, Michael began to decelerate, his squadmates doing the same an instant later.
They needed to arrive promptly, but it never paid to be too close to a nuclear explosion. He watched his timer count down as the missile drew closer to the detonation point.
The beach drew nearer quickly now, and Michael could clearly make out the details of the cliffs on his monitors. As he passed over the breaking point of the waves, the jump units on the legs of his TSF swung forward, helping him kill his forward momentum.
Coming to a stop halfway up the beach, Michael lowered the engine output of his TSF and descended, then cut power a few feet off the ground and landed. On either side of him, the rest of Windrunner Squadron did likewise.
"Advance to the bluffs and take cover facing the Ocean, just like they told us in the briefing." Michael said, walking forward toward the cliffs.
"You know," Melissa said slowly, "We're right in the middle of Omaha Beach. The bloodiest landing sector of the whole operation."
"A lot of good men died storming this patch of sand." Cynthia said, as the squad took up positions at the base of the cliff, the edifice of stone rising more than a hundred feet into the air, far more than enough to shield their TSFs. "And not a word out of you, Sigrid."
Sigrid frowned slightly but said nothing.
"Um, the missile is almost at the detonation point." Miharu said quietly.
[x]
The Block V Tomahawk cruise missile dodged and jinked wildly as it shot across the landscape of Northern France. It was toward the rear of the salvo of ten missiles, and the only one carrying a deadly thermonuclear warhead. The other missiles served as decoys, and relayed status information to the main missile.
The missile lanced between the hulking forms of two inactive Destroyer-Class BETA, their massive green frontal carapaces of organic armor facing the ocean. It was past them an instant later, and a few seconds after that, its moment had come.
Redlining its engine, the missile dropped its tail and swung its nose upward as it ignited its auxiliary rocket booster, rising away from the ground on a plume of superheated gas.
Almost immediately, the massive bulbous eyes of the dozens of Laser-Class BETA within line of sight of the rising missile snapped toward it. Another instant passed, and the otherworldly reaction that allowed the creatures to produce their devastating beam began in every one of the monsters.
It was too late. The Tomahawk reached its target altitude, just over a mile above the surface. Electrical impulses flowed through the device. An egg of high explosives detonated.
There was light.
And the world turned to fire.
[x]
A flash of light filled the sky, reflecting off the ocean and giving it, for a brief second, the appearance of a vast expanse of molten gold.
"Detonation confirmed." Cynthia said as the light faded. "Blast wave ETA is forty seconds."
"Do you think it worked?" Natasha asked, grinning.
"It had better." Melissa said. "That was a W108 at maximum fusion boosting. Thirteen hundred and fifty kilotons. Effective kill radius of over ten miles for exposed human targets. I think we at least took a bite out of them."
"Yeah." Miharu said. "I hope so."
"I don't know." Lily said. "I think you guys worry too much. We've all got plenty of ammo, and they're sending in the whole damn Seventh Army behind us. I think we'll be fine."
"That's no excuse to relax." Keter said. "We are the spearpoint of this operation. Victory today could hinge on our actions."
"Brace for blast wave." Cynthia said calmly.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the pressure front blasted over the heads of Windrunner Squadron and out to sea, louder than the takeoff of a cargo jet. There was a moment of peace, then, with a sound like the world inhaling, air began to rush back towards the distant source of the blast, drawn in by the vacuum created as the explosion pushed air away.
Windrunner Squadron weathered the storm in their pocket of calm, their massive machines more than a match for the relatively minor forces exerted on them.
As the air stilled, Michael glanced down at his clock and saw that only ten seconds had passed since the arrival of the blast. He checked the status of his unit; everyone was reporting green.
"One hundred seconds to mission start." Michael said. "Command wants us to take some time for the dust to settle and for SpaceCom to get a decent picture of what's on the ground. You know the mission, and you know the stakes. Over."
Michael killed his comms unit and took his hands off his control yokes, closing his eyes. It was actually happening. He wasn't simply going into battle, he was leading others into the inferno. He was no longer simply putting his own life on the line.
He breathed slowly and evenly, fighting to keep panic from gaining a foothold. He needed to be at his best. Nothing else would suffice. He had only known the other members of Windrunner Squadron for a few weeks, but in that short time he had come to know that, beyond a shadow of doubt, they deserved a far better commander than he could ever be.
But you're what they have. Something whispered to him. And there is little enough else to go around. But if you give in and abandon your duty, they won't even have that. The choice is obvious.
Michael opened his eyes and, with herculean effort, began pushing his anxiety and fear back into its box. He didn't know how long he could fight it, but he would not lose today.
As the countdown approached zero, Michael looked at each member of his squad in turn. How many of them would survive the coming battle? How many of them would even be there, were the circumstances even slightly less desperate?
Michael took a deep breath as he re-opened his comms, and then the timer hit zero.
"Commence Operation!" He declared, false confidence suffusing his voice. "Good luck and good hunting."
"Acknowledged." Keter said. "Lifting off."
Engines roared to full power and jump units flared as the eight massive machines of Windrunner Squadron lifted off from Omaha Beach and into a world of desolation.
"Commencing drone operations." Cynthia said, as two small devices detached from the shoulders of her TSF and zipped away.
"Advance!" Michael ordered.
His jump units swung upwards, and he began to move inland, the rest of the squad following in an arrowhead pattern, with Lily on the inside and above the rest of the group.
Rising into the sky ahead of the squad was a near-perfect textbook example of a mushroom cloud, its cap reaching miles into the atmosphere and spreading outwards in all directions.
Michael angled upwards, and the squad began to gain altitude. The cloud would obscure them from Laser-class, and a higher altitude would mean picking up less radioactive contamination.
As he leveled out at cruising altitude, Michael took advantage of the opportunity to survey the ground spread below him. The area had been empty of human inhabitants for some time, but that was impossible to see now. The blast had left nothing untouched, obviating the details needed to make such fine judgements.
However, the signs of BETA presence were pervasive and overwhelming. The corpses of thousands of Destroyer-class BETA, gathered in ex-herds scattered liberally across the landscape, were the most obvious. There forms were slumped and blackened, their massive frontal carapaces pointing towards the ocean, having provided their bodies with no protection from the bomb.
The slain Grappler-Class were far more dispersed, rarely in groups larger than five or so. Their wide bodies left them with more area to absorb radiation and pressure from the blast, a fact evident in the hideous damage covering each of the creatures.
In the distance, a pair of colossal Fort-Class lay on their sides, dead or dying. Of the small strains, there were no signs.
Windrunner Squadron continued to fly, pilots silent, making only minor adjustments to account for the immense thermal updrafts created by the fields of fire below.
They skirted around the epicenter of the blast, but as they drew closer to the site of the detonation, the ash and smoke in the air began to kill visibility, plunging the squad into a sort of strange twilight.
Michael flew more by his instruments than his monitors. The only assurance he had that his squad still existed somewhere in the haze that surrounded him were the seven steady green dots on his Heads Up Display that kept an even pace with him as he tracked inland.
They passed within a mile of the epicenter of the blast, and the dust began to clear as they continued.
"Cynthia, what are you getting from your drones?" Michael asked, glancing at his readings on the dust cloud. "Anything?"
"You can understand the mess outside makes my job somewhat difficult." Cynthia responded. "But I don't see anything."
"Great." Michael muttered. "We should be starting to see survivors soon, though. If anyone sees anything-"
He was cut off as a blaring alarm filled his cockpit.
"LASER ALARM!" He shouted, entering an emergency dive. "GET DOWN!"
As Michael opened his mouth, Keter was already in motion. Her jump units flared as she redlined her engine, and three small canisters shot away from her TSF as she rocketed ahead of the formation.
The canisters detonated, releasing clouds of anti-laser smoke as the squad, sans Keter, hit the deck. She rocketed her Strike Eagle to the side, stabilizing as a massive beam of brilliant light split the heavens a few dozen meters away from her.
Keter raised her Assault Cannon as the beam faded, aimed for a fraction of a second, then fired her 120mm cannon twice in quick succession.
A pair of fin-stabilized semi-active base bleed tissue-piercing high explosive shells vanished into the haze down the path of the beam.
As soon as she finished firing, Keter launched into a fast vertical climb, then spun to the east as she jetted in the opposite direction, killing her climb as she aimed her Assault Cannon and fired twice more.
Beginning to fall, Keter reversed her rotation, bringing her rifle around and discharging the last two rounds in the magazine.
Keter turned her fall into a controlled dive as she ejected the 120mm magazine from her gun and loaded a fresh one. Pulling out of her dive at the last second, she rejoined the rest of the formation in nape-of-the-earth flying.
"Reporting three Heavy Laser-Class targets destroyed, sir." Keter said. "Also, BETA combat forms are approaching in Regiment strength, about ten minutes from our current position."
"Good work." Michael said, reviewing the data that Keter had sent him. "Everyone, prepare to engage. We're going to try a flanking attack; I'm broadcasting the flight path now."
A moment passed as the rest of the squad looked over the battle plan.
"Wow." Melissa said, sounding surprised. "This is actually really good!"
"What do you mean?" Michael asked, narrowing his eyes.
"It just seems so... great. I'm so proud that you've mastered that strategery stuff!"
"That isn't a word." Sigrid muttered.
"Shutup, Nazi." Melissa said. "Anyway, it looks like a good plan. I don't have any problems with it."
"So, Keter and I go deep and eliminate the laser class and stragglers while the rest of you hit the main force on all sides, and we all meet in the middle, right?" Lily asked, switching out one of her Assault Cannons for a heavier 88mm rapid fire battle rifle.
"Correct." Michael said. "In the main group, Cynthia is with Natasha on the frontal attack, Miharu is with Melissa on the east flank, and Sigrid is with me on the west. Now, let's roll out."
"Yessir." Windrunner Squadron chorused, engines flaring as they lifted off.
Lily and Keter shot away to the south at close to the maximum safe speed for the area. The rest of the squad split into elements as they followed at a more sedate pace, Natasha and Cynthia dropping back to behind the other two elements.
The distance between the human an alien forces closed quickly. They didn't have eyes-on observation of the BETA, but given their observed behavior, a projected position was probably more than enough.
Michael came out from behind a hill, and before him was a swarm of BETA.
Wireframe shells briefly appeared over each of the BETA as the Raptor's Automated Threat Assessment counted the targets and analyzed their disposition. Of the BETA Michael could see, most were Grappler-Cass and Tank-Class, all facing northward.
Michael smiled slightly as his grip tightened on his controls. "Contact." He said calmly. "Targets have merged. Engaging."
Turning to face the BETA herd and skewing his Jump Units to carry him parallel to their course, Michael began painting, designating, and prioritizing targets as his Mount Pylons unfolded into forward firing position and the arms of his TSF raised their weapons.
Then the storm broke. Four 36mm chainguns began spewing twenty-one ounce shells at rate of more than six hundred rounds per minute. Each. The less mobile guns on the extended Mount Pylons targeted the larger Grappler-Class, while the more precise arm guns engaged the Tank-Class.
The four-gun technique was a difficult one, that required a cutting-edge TSF, high natural ability, and insane amounts of practice. It had taken Michael a long time to master the technique, but the results were more than worthwhile.
He had wanted to get one of the Foil Mythic Rare YF-23 limited production units so he could go to six guns at once, but being assigned to one of the Black Widow II TSFs required a level of CQC ability that Michael 'demonstrated a complete and enduring lack' of.
When that failed, Michael had begun campaigning to have the base mechanics add a couple/few/dozen 20mm chainguns on the body and shoulder blocks of his TSF to give him some extra stopping power against Laser and Tank-Class BETA. Any desire to break the world record for multi-wielding firearms was completely irrelevant.
Unfortunately, unlicensed major modifications to multi-million dollar war machines were... 'Frowned Upon'.
Michael slaughtered Grapplers by the dozens and Tanks by the Bushel as he strafed down the unprepared alien formation, carefully backing away as the BETA began to react to his presence and turn to attack him.
Just as the ammo counters for all his weapons dropped below seven hundred rounds, the first of the enemy Grapplers broke into a charge.
Michael fell back into a full tactical retrograde, his arcs of fire widening as the enemy sought to surround him. He prioritized his fire on the Grapplers as he accelerated above the maximum speed of a Tank-Class BETA.
Firing in precise, controlled, five-round bursts, mindful of ammunition consumption, Michael continued to drop BETA.
He was doing pretty well, until he ran out of ammo.
As his guns went silent, the BETA began to close in on Michael.
He smiled slightly. "Whirlwind." He muttered.
The form of a Tactical Surface Fighter shot out from behind a partially collapsed nearby building, quickly resolving itself as Sigrid's steel-grey EF-2000 Typhoon. It carried a massive BWS-8 Flugelberte battle axe in each hand, and both its Mount Pylons were unfolded, pointing Assault Cannons forward as she charged, guns blazing.
Sigrid closed to melee range shockingly quickly. A Grappler-Class sprang forward, raising both its pick-like armored forearms to crush her machine.
Shifting to the side, Sigrid evaded the attack and continued forward, swinging her axe as she passed. She hit the Grappler between two sets of legs, the massive head of her axe smashing nearly all the way through the creature, killing it instantly.
"Whirlwind acknowledged, Captain." Sigrid said, voice cool.
Strafing to the side again, Sigrid swung her other axe down between the claws of a Grappler, crushing its skull and destroying its brain. She fired a long burst from her Assault Cannons as she shifted backwards, spinning to face a pair of Grapplers that had been moving to attack her flank.
Jump units flaring, Sigrid sprang into the air, cresting above the claws to the Grapplers. She swung her axes downward as she fell, shattering the spines of both BETA.
Michael sprang into action as Sigrid touched down. He sprang into the air, raising his Assault Cannons as his field of view expanded. Though he had expended all his 36mm rounds, he still had full magazines of 120mm cannon shells, all fully loaded with airburst canister shot.
This was the Whirlwind Doctrine. It was a recent refinement of the Hi-Low Active Defense Doctrine designed to make the most of the increasing abilities of human TSFs and the skills of veteran or prodigy pilots.
Just as a storm existed only in the motion of its winds, the Whirlwind Doctrine emphasized leveraging movement to maximize both lethality and survivability. However, it required that a pilot not only possess high technical skill, but also the situational awareness and tactical ability to avoid being overwhelmed, and to protect comrades from the same.
As Michael reached the peak of his jump, he began analyzing the dense swarm of Tank-Class following the Grapplers into battle. Picking out the thickest clusters of BETA, he began to fire his 120mm cannons. Each round flew through the air the air as a single unit, until it reached a point several hundred yards from its target. There, a bursting charge detonated, blasting the twelve hundred tungsten balls in the shell into and expanding cone of death.
Each cone intersected the ground in a long ellipse. Projectiles fell in a hideous and wonderful parody of rain, shredding flesh and smashing stone with equal impunity. In the seven seconds it took to complete the volley, hundreds of Tank-Class BETA were reduced to a range of conditions not suitable for continued kinetic action.
Instants later, Michael touched down and began reassessing the situation. Sigrid had slain several more Grappler-Class during his brief fire mission, but fresh creatures continued to approach the duo, moving to surround and overwhelm them.
Michael lowered his guns.
Even before the weapons came to rest, sub-arms retrieving full magazines helpfully ejected from his TSF's ammunition compartments and locking them into place on the weapons. Within seconds, he was back in action.
Springing forward in a long, low boosted jump, Michael fired a burst into a Grappler that was closing on Sigrid from behind, dropping it, then spun to engage another.
Sigrid and Michael continued to advance into the BETA swarm in a curving pattern, cutting down the monsters as they moved. Michael conserved ammo, letting Sigrid make most of the kills with her axes. He kept expecting Destroyer-Class BETA to appear, which would complicate their strategy, but they never came.
Instead, a Grappler exploded, splattering Michael with bits of... something. Its body tumbled, forward, revealing a gore-basted Su-37 Terminator with its fist held in a punch position, blade motor out. A considerably cleaner EF-2000 Typhoon holding an Assault Cannon in firing position with its right arm and a dripping Flugelberte battle axe with its other.
"Reporting objective completion, Captain." Cynthia said, shooting a Grappler in the face. "Enemy Destroyer battle line broken, with insufficient surviving hostiles for significant recovery."
"Good work." Michael said, continuing to fire in support of Sigrid.
"You should have been there, Comrade." Natasha said. "It was glorious. The Destroyers had their backs to us, and we went through them like KGB through countercultural scum."
"Awesome." Michael said, picking out a target from among the dwindling swarm of BETA and eliminating it. "Any word on-"
Chaingun fire filled the air, and four TSFs landed from boosted jumps a short distance away from Michael, his HUD tagging them as the remaining members of the squad.
"I think that's the last of them." Lily said, her jump units folding back into their normal position. "We took out the Laser-Class no problem, so we linked up with those two and helped them clear their sector."
"So, what now, Captain?" Melissa asked. "You've always been the smart one. Do we continue inland, or should we hold this position and wait for the main force?"
"Um... Commander?" Miharu said, voice wavering. "I'm picking up some odd vibration readings. I don't know exactly what they are, but..."
"Wait." Cynthia said, raising her foot and stomping the ground in front of her, deploying a field-expedient seismic sensor spike. "Miharu, send me those readings."
She did, and there was silence for a moment as Cynthia poured over the information. Michael nervously tapped his fingers on the control yoke of his TSF, looking at the strategic information downlink.
"It's faint, and there's a lot of interference, but I think I've got it." Cynthia said. "It sounds like a couple of low-depth tunneling signatures, although they're pretty echoey, like there's a lot of open space down there. Nothing to worry about."
"It- What?" Michael shouted. "How many signatures? Where?"
"Not sure. I think it might be three for four-"
Michael exhaled. That wasn't as bad as it could have been.
"-dozen." Cynthia finished. "We're nowhere near the main defense lines, let alone the civilian or industrial areas. What is the problem?"
Michael didn't respond. He was already flipping open an innocuous button cover on the side of his control station. Jabbing the button with his finger, he cleared his throat.
"Windrunner Actual to Seventh Army Actual." Michael said, feeling the Sword of Damocles rising over his head. "Priority Flash. Priority Flash. Priority Flash."
He waited in silence for confirmation. If Cynthia was wrong, he was done. He could easily face a court martial for disrupting command during a major operation. If he was ignored, and unable to deliver the message, he could face the same fate, though he would likely be too dead to care.
There was a long beep.
"Son, I am in the middle of launching sixteen divisions from eight counties into the largest amphibious operation since Overlord. You have thirty seconds."
"Call off the landings, sir." Michael. "The BETA have an extensive underground network in this area, with active digging operations. In addition, they may have hollowed out chambers along these tunnels to conceal forces in the area. With the lowest numbers from past BETA tunneling operations, there could be more than half a million combat forms in the tunnels, above and beyond the surface formations we've seen."
As Michael began transmitting the collected data to the General, he felt a slight tremor run through the ground, accompanied by a massive crashing sound partially dampened by his cockpit systems. Looking up, he spotted several plumes of dust on the horizon, and one massive one just under a kilometer away from him.
"WE'VE GOT COMPANY!" Melissa shouted, reaching down to the skirt armor of her TSF and withdrawing an S-11 Explosive Device, something that she had most certainly not been officially issued. As she armed the device and began to charge toward the hole, the General spoke again.
"Son, I am so very sorry." He said. "May we meet again in the place where warriors take their rest."
The line went dead. A moment later, Melissa threw the S-11 into the open tunnel like a hand grenade, the reversed course and jetted back towards the group. With a roar, the device detonated, blasting a column of dust out of the mouth of the tunnel.
Melissa reached the squad's line as the rest of them assumed defensive positions.
"What's the plan now, bro?" Melissa said, assuming a position in the line next to Michael.
"I'm not sure." Michael said, ignoring the violation of battlefield decorum. "We don't have retreat orders, but we can't hold here."
He shook his head. "But I'm worried that if we try to-"
He was interrupted by a chime as his HUD highlighted a pair of friendly units coming in from the south-west at high speed.
Michael could just begin to distinguish their shape when one of them seemed to twinkle, then begin to drop. A moment later, the other friendly exploded.
"Laser fire." Cynthia said. "I'm reading the heat signatures of dozens of laser batteries all over-"
She froze. "My God."
"What is it?" Melissa asked.
"They launched a G-Bomb."
"Where?" Melissa asked.
"Here!" Cynthia shouted. "The target point is practically on top of us!"
A Gravity Bomb. The most powerful weapon in humanity had against the BETA, the arcane devices created an immense blast eclipsing even the power of an atomic device. Rumor whispered that even the scientists who created the weapon had only a vague notion of its underlying principles, but everything that they did know was at the very highest levels.
Michael overlayed the blast pattern from Operation Lucifer on his map. At the best speeds they could make without being lasered, they would never make it out of the kill zone in time. There was no need to say anything; it was plain to see.
"Why would they do that?" Miharu whispered.
"Because it is the correct strategic decision." Sigrid said, looking down. "We killed over a hundred thousand BETA in the initial nuclear attack, and now we have revealed far more than half a million further enemy units concentrated in a small area, and we are posed to wipe them out at a stroke. Combined with the fact that every BETA reserve formation within eighty kilometers has likely come close enough to be caught in the effective radius of the gravatic device, a million enemy combatants could be neutralized in the course of a morning, without the main landing force firing a shot."
"The Lyons Hive Defensive Swarm is estimated at around 1.2 million combat forms, and we know they moved much of that north." Natasha said, barely suppressed emotion clear on her face. "And Lyons in the linchpin of the BETA presence in Western Europe. Neutralizing it on the heels of a victory like this could let us roll all the way to the Vistula River."
She laughed. "Not that we'd be there to see it."
"One brigade is a small price to pay for that." Keter said, not looking at the visual communicator.
"Impact in thirty seconds." Cynthia said with a stark, forlorn voice. "I have made peace with my God and die with no regrets. Rule Britannia, and glory to mankind."
Her line went dead, and communications icon on her status feed went black.
Michael watched the timer tick down. Above him, lances of coherent light stabbed at the sky, trying in vain to intercept a falling star. Even when a beam came close, its path bent off course as the air twisted around it, scattering it into a halo that flashed like lightning around the weapon.
Melissa opened a secure private connection to Michael. He looked up, seeing her eyes glisten on the video display.
"Michael, before we go... I need to say something."
"Yes?" Michael said.
Ten seconds.
"I love you." She said, voice wavering. "I always have, and I want you to be able to die knowing that."
"Of course." Michael said, shaking his head. "I love you too. You're my sister."
As Melissa began to form the first syllable of her response, the G-Bomb detonated a kilometer above and away from her. The world seemed to be shaken to its very foundations as the blast horizon of the bomb expanded at incomprehensible speed. Windrunner Squadron, eight of the most advanced tactical suits that mankind could create, was simply unmade by the blast and vanished like an idle daydream.
Then all was dust on the wind.
[x]
Seventh Army, I Corps, UN Joint Experimental Division, 1st Brigade Combat Team, Designated B "Windrunner" Squadron - Operation Ascendant Storm, Official Report
STATUS:
Captain Michael Black - Killed In Action, With Honors
Lieutenant Cynthia Elswood - Killed In Action, With Honors
Lieutenant Sigrid von Essen - Killed In Action, With Honors
Lieutenant Keter Maxwell - Killed In Action, With Honors
Lieutenant Miharu Kuroda - Killed In Action, With Honors
2nd Lieutenant Melissa Black - Killed In Action, With Honors
2nd Lieutenant Natasha Markov - Killed In Action, With Honors
2nd Lieutenant Lily Knight - Killed In Action, With Honors
NOTES: Despite their relatively short time in contact with the enemy, the contributions of Windrunner Squadron to the victory at the Second Battle of Normandy, and therefore to the subsequent Purging of Lyons, Iberian Reconquista, and Drive on the Rhine, cannot be overstated.
Combat telemetry, while incomplete, lends credence to the theory that it was the action of Vanguard Squads, very likely Windrunner Squad, that provoked the BETA into moving early, saving the Seventh Army and dooming the BETA. Human forces reached the Mediterranean Coast within two weeks of the landing, just after Lyons Hive was disabled by a combination cruise missile and ballistic missile strike.
The fighting continued for some eight weeks thereafter but, with the exception of the fighting surrounding the Subjugation of Budapest Hive, the BETA were never able to mount a resistance as effective as during the opening days of the campaign.
The lines eventually stabilized in eastern Europe, with the crusading human armies eventually calling a halt along a front stretching from Kaliningrad to Odessa to consolidate their supply lines, rest the troops, and begin repairing and replacing equipment worn out from the campaign. Extensive fortifications were constructed along the front which, due to the numerous BETA offensives that were violently repelled, became known as the Stormwall.
However, even as this story, or perhaps these ten million stories, drew to a close, another tale had only just begun. Another story, in a world on an unimaginable scale and of incredible darkness. A story that would sweep up more people than even this one.
And in this case, the subject is science. And relationships. And warfare.
And things that are just ginormously huge and hard to grasp because space is like that.
Fiat Incipio.
-L. F. D.