Robotech: The Enforcers' War

by GVincent

Sequel to- "Robotech: The Ashes of Empire" & "Robotech: The Smoldering Earth" The renegade Te'Dak Tohl Zentraedi forces of Supreme General Krymina launch their campaign to seize Zor's Battle Fortress and The Invid Flower of Life on an Earth in internal turmoil in their revolt against The Robotech Masters. Earth forces struggle to unite and to repel this new Zentraedi threat.

12. Sandcastles Before the Tide

Chapter Eleven

Sandcastles Before the Tide

"-And then comes a moment when the character of the War becomes crystal clear…"

"So it's to be that way… A War not between armies, but civilizations- wherever the two may meet and by any means necessary. It will be as without reservations on both sides as it is without mercy."

"History will hate me- but I can fight that War…"

General Marcus Merrill Leonard

Yellowstone City

"-The doctors said you were getting fidgety ma'am, and that either you needed a distraction or they were going to have to up your morphine drip. –I guess distraction is easier on the medical supplies-."

Weitzel had with some difficulty raised herself into a seated position for the purpose of being distracted- and oh, how the Marines had delivered...

Major Pultz, whom she had met the day before by way of Pultz taking roll of the known surviving military for purposes of establishing an improvised chain of command, had been all too happy to accept a request that could be performed as he and his Marines reconnoitered the sagging shambles of the capital city. Now the first fruits of that effort were in Weitzel's hands courtesy of the Marines and a computer tablet loaned temporarily to her by the field hospital's nursing staff.

"Sorry if we didn't get their good sides- I don't think dittos have one.", Pultz mused, "But we did get a good sampling of the recent guests to our fair city-."

All the while Pultz was speaking, Weitzel was swiping through digital photo after digital photo of Zentraedi mecha and to a lesser extent, dismounted Zentraedi- some even higher in the enemy's chain than the standard rank-and-file. Perhaps one image in twenty was of any real interest and warranting more than a quick glance- but as Weitzel knew, in intelligence all of the puzzle pieces had to be examined before one could even begin to determine what had a place in the final picture.

"This is a start, Major.", Weitzel said, noticing the throb beginning to grow in her leg stump as the blood began to pool nearer to the amputation site. Her energy was showing the first signs of fading also- preserved some by the cathartic qualities of meaningful activity.

"Glad to hear it.", the balding Marine officer replied, "Because truth be known, we're logistics- not intel. We could'a been taking pictures of the local, ditto glee club for all we knew. –I guess maybe I should've paid a little more attention in those basic Zentraedi language courses. –Hell, I can't even remember how many characters there are in their damn alphabet!"

Weitzel understood the major's meaning. A large number of the photos taken by junior Marines at their superior's orders contained captures of Zentraedi glyphs stenciled on the hulls of mecha or warriors' body armor. The Marines were astute enough to understand that individuals' faces meant little at this point- but an understanding of unit affiliations was of some value.

These were the puzzle pieces that Weitzel had to work with – for now.

"Thirty-one.", Weitzel said, responding initially to Pultz's admission of academic sloth in the area of xenolinguisitcs, "-There are thirty-one characters in the Tirolian phonetic alphabet, not including tense and punctuation symbols. –That of course doesn't include the thousands of symbolic glyphs also used in the pure Tirolian language and Zentraedi dialect- sort of like Chinese or Japanese..."

A glance up told Weitzel that her tangent was not only asserting itself into the main topic, but threatening to lose its audience.

" –But no shame, Major- language isn't my thing either. What about comms gear and computers to start cataloging and collating information we're bringing in?"

Pultz shifted his weight uneasily, "Well, comms gear of the field variety is a little hard to come by at military HQ, believe it or not. Computers, we've found plenty of them- but finding one that's not damaged in one way or another is a taller order…"

"..Robotech Defense Forces Headquarters with a staff of twenty-three thousand a stone's throw away, and you can't find a single military technician or contractor who can crack open a computer to repair it?.."

"-Well", Pultz said hesitantly, "that would invalidate the warrantee on Government equipment, Commander.."

Weitzel wasn't certain whether she actually felt her jaw fall into her lap, but she was certain it had.

Pultz's Marine-stoic expression cracked and he had to stifle a laugh, "Sorry, ma'am-. Yes, we're scrounging parts for systems that aren't functioning and affecting repairs. –A few of my Marines knew some of the IT support staff socially, and they knew people-… In short, we have our own team of geek commandos at work and should have more than enough processing power and a LAN for it to ride on to do anything you want."

"Very admirable of them to kick in…", Weitzel said drolly.

"We're paying in rations and protection, ma'am- once a contractor, always a contractor.", Pultz corrected, and then added, "–Electrical power is going to be a challenge though. This field hospital doesn't have much spare capacity, ma'am."

"-All problems, Major…", Weitzel admitted with a note of sympathy as she reached the end of the looping series of photographs and began to go through a second time.

A symbol- not a glyph, but an emblem of some sort that she was unfamiliar with stood out as she began the second cycle through the series of photos. She had noticed it going through the first time just before the halfway mark of the accumulated images. Now having seen it and it having snagged her attention, she found it in every image- on mecha and on body armor-. It was unremarkable in and of itself, a standard Zentraedi Chevron with an eye of all blue crossing the center and staring outward with a penetrating gaze that somehow carried a chilling effect on the nerves.

It was a piece that Weitzel's intuition said was part of the greater, signficant puzzle, and one to be filed in the front of the mental file cabinet's top drawer.

"-Fortunately for me", Weitzel continued in her remark to Pultz, having been in silent contemplation of the emblem for how long she knew not, "I have Marines to get it done. Word has it that real-world problem solving is your bread and butter."

"Hoorah, ma'am.", Pultz affirmed with the traditional, all-meaning, Marine utterance.

The throbbing in Weitzel's leg stump was no to the point of becoming a distraction, and a concern to the commander with no medical expertise that she might somehow re-open the surgical wound. She eased herself back onto the cot in a fully reclined position, setting the tablet on the bedside with the intent of returning to it as soon as the prominent ache of her leg no longer clouded her thinking.

"We're going to need a base of operations – we're going to outstay our welcome here but double-quick if we go and turn it into a bastard situation room. We're going to need an inconspicuous place to set up with room for IT and comms equipment, an independent power supply, and personnel- and it's going to have to operate right under the Zentraedi's noses without them taking notice- assuming they're going to stick around for a while… -Is that enough to keep you busy, Major?"

"-Idle hands, ma'am…", Pultz replied by way of allusion to the old proverb, "We'll get it done."

Weitzel felt her energy deserting her like mercenaries from a losing battle, but this was okay. Gains had been made here.

"-Two more things, Major."

"Ma'am?"

"First- I want your Marines out of uniform when they're on the scrounge. If we're looking at the dittos, you can be damn sure that there are a few bright bulbs on their string looking at us. I want zero evidence of organized military activity for them to zero-in on, comprendé?"

"Aye-aye, ma'am.", Pultz replied with a hint of hesitance at abandoning the uniform, but clearly understanding the mandate.

"-And second", Weitzel continued, finding the best image of the emblem she had noticed on the tablet and in showing it to Pultz, said, "-This-. I don't need more photos, but I want eyeballs taking tally. How common is this emblem on enemy mecha and gear? -Like a mesa-shaped heap of mashed potatoes, this means something."

"Hoorah, ma'am."

U.E.S.S. Bristol

Attack from out of the sun.

It was arguably the most venerable and enduring tactics in air, or in this case space combat. It had probably been conceived during one of the earliest aerial shooting match fought from wood and canvas bi-planes and using pistols like gentlemen of old: the notion of placing the sun behind one's self and in doing so concealing one's presence or actions from one's enemy.

The modification of defensive tactics, advent of radar and then later multi-spectral sensor systems had of course had an impact on attacking from the sun- but the core concept itself had lived on in various evolutions and incarnations. A true classic, it would continue to be adapted and would almost certainly live on to be used by the knights and warlords of air and space for generations to come.

Right now, it was Commodore Vu Tran's tactic, and as sure as gravity it was working reliably.

"Doolittle Two" built around Tran's four corvette carriers and the twelve frigates attached to them had arrived by spacefold to a position just within Venus's orbital path, but with enough of Sol's mass between them and Earth to mask the distinctive subspace displacement ripples caused by de-fold from enemy sensors. A calculated and measured burst of thrust from the ships of the task force element leveraged against the gravitational pull of the sun had carried them around the yellow star and released them intentionally adrift on a path directly toward home.

Afloat in the energy-charged current of Sol's solar wind and emitting minimal EM signatures and no subspace displacement signatures associated with their main propulsion systems, Doolittle Two was nearly invisible to all but the keenest sensor technician's eye intently analyzing the highly interpretable output on an output screen- if such eyes were monitoring.

Doolittle Two's attack plan in execution was as stealthy as tactics and technology would allow.

"Forty-five seconds from corvette separation point, Commodore.", Captain Holt, the Bristol's commanding officer advised.

It was more than a point on a running operational clock that Holt was noting, but a heightened moment of potential danger. When stowed for transport, each of the Bristol Class carrier's twelve Garfish Class attack corvettes was contained in a docking niche along the carrier's flanks and ventral hull, and concealed behind doors. Besides providing protection to the carrier's complement of corvettes, the concealment reduced the energy-reflective surface area and in turn reduced the carrier's overall sensor cross-section, or "footprint".

Launching the corvettes meant the required violation of so much carefully designed sensor-thwarting engineering as the storage niches had to be opened for the smaller attack ships to be "swung out".

So was the nature of the hunt. Even the most powerful predator always exposed itself to moments of peril from its intended prey.

"Forty-five seconds.", Tran repeated, "A brief eternity…"

"It feels that way, doesn't it, sir?", Holt agreed.

Tran gave a grunt of concurrence as both officers pored over the evolving image of the operational area on the CDC's main tactical display.

With Venus's orbital path falling well astern now and Earth growing ever nearer, Bristol and the other vessels of Doolittle Two were still a victim of the same EM interference from Sol that was providing them cover to move by from the enemy's passive sensors.

Well trained sensormen using the latest passive receiver technology and filtering algorithm software available were able to see well enough through the sun's energy veil to determine rough numbers and positions of enemy vessels at varying orbital levels around Earth. –And even now, a week into the war and with the intelligence reports of large numbers of enemy vessels moving out of the system- the numbers were still daunting at a glance to the commanding officer of the task force.

Tran felt like a flea determined to bring down the hound and had to remind himself that his mission was only to bite.

-And of course to leave certain strategically critical mementos of the visit home behind…

"Flag, Comms", called out the communications officer within the CDC's crowded space, "Subspace UHF signal from Doolittle One, Commodore. SDF-3 has engaged her objective."

"Understood, Sparks.", Tran replied.

Gazing through the hologram-rendered space of the tactical display between them, Captain Holt shook his head with grim expectation and said to his superior, "The calm around here is going to thaw quickly."

Tran knew this to be true, expected it to be true, and from a position of desiring tactical superiority in the fight about to ensue- wanted it to be true. Whether it was true calm or the forced calm felt in knowing that the calm could not last, the Zentraedi fleet in layered orbit around Earth appeared within the tactical display's limitations to display it to be at rest.

"The enemy's chaos is our friend.", Tran observed, then resolved, "Let it come."

Lieutenant Commander Myles Kenner had always wanted to be a fighter pilot, and with a little imagination it could be argued that he was.

His "fighter", the Eager Beaver, was a Garfish Class attack corvette weighing just above a thousand metric tons though and was crewed by twelve officers and NCOs. Within the split-level command center, Kenner, the commander, his co-pilot Lieutenant Boyle, the navigator, three sensormen, and three WSOs were seated much like fighter jocks in their cockpits surrounded by their instruments and controls – but the sense of one-on-one combat against the enemy was understandably elusive.

Between the nine personnel required to fully crew "the cockpit" of the ship and the three flight engineers situated in their own engine and systems control center just below and aft of the cramped bunkroom, mess, and lavatory that enabled the corvette to operate autonomously of its mothership for up to a week at a time if needed – the Eager Beaver was more unlike a fighter in that she depended on seamless cooperation between her crew and less on aggressive, independent action.

Still, with imagination Eager Beaver could feel like a fighter in some respects.

She, like the others of her class, were sleek and spearhead-like in general appearance with her racing lines and beauty diminished only by the necessity of her sensor proboscis that gave her forerunners a similar look to the fish for which the first of the class was named. She was faster than any other element of the Fleet and able to leave even the fastest destroyers or capital ships easily in her wake- so long as the measurement of "speed" was restricted to conventional, subspace propulsion. For the great leaps of cosmic distance, she was wholly dependent upon her mothership and lacked the endurance to independently venture far beyond the boundaries of a star system.

Eager Beaver's "short legs" (speaking in warship terms) not withstanding, she was comparable to a fighter in the critical aspect that she was armed to the very sharp teeth for her intended prey.

The original Garfish corvette design had featured a ventral hull-mounted, rudimentary fighter hangar consisting of six independent bays in two stacked rows that had allowed launch forward along the hull centerline and recovery aft. When adapted to the role of an attack ship, the corvette had no longer required the ability to carry fighters for scouting and limited offensive/defensive actions but had retained the hangar structure that was reconfigured as a static tube launcher for 40 Pegasus Mk-4C ASMs forward, and with mine-deploying gear aft. –This gave Eager Beaver offensive "reach" comparable to any capital ship in the Fleet.

With internally housed, bow rotary launchers and static dorsal and flank launch tubes for the shorter-ranged Ballista ASM, the attack corvettes rounded out their offensive capabilities having even retained the Mk-19 laser cannon tri-gun turret mounted beneath her Pegasus missile launcher- a fixture of the original Garfish. Intimidating as the gun's brutish appearance was, its utility was limited to actions against only the smallest of enemy vessels as no sane corvette crewman sought a gun duel with the enemy's "heavies".

Still, the Garfish Attack Corvette's anti-warship arsenal coupled with its impressive sub-light speed made Eager Beaver ideally suited to close on larger targets in greater numbers, strike, and then break contact on her terms.

Perhaps the vessel was not the fighter that Kenner had always wanted, but certainly it was something akin to an interceptor.

-Or so said the concept.

Now it was time to test that concept.

"Wolf Pack, Alpha Wolf- thirty seconds to deployment. Initiating separation sequence.", came the advisory from Bristol's TAO in her Combat Direction Center, "Good hunting, safe return, and bring us some scalps."

LCDR Kenner did not feel the lateral motion of Eager Beaver as Bristol extended her mooring gantry outboard of her docking niche into the corvette's "launch" position. The transition from the grey metal confines of the niche was visible of course through the viewing monitor central to the commander's station console, but final pre-flight checks were more pressing in their importance than looking up the ass end of the corvette being swung-out ahead.

"Internal power, primary and auxiliary is on the top line.", LT Boyle said, continuing through his checklist, "Life support is green. InfoLink connection is established- comms, sensor, navigational, and tactical- all green. Weapons diagnostics and test-arm, all green. Pinpoint defense system is green and on stand-by. Final checklist completed, all green. We're ready to fly, Commander."

"Preflight completed, all green- aye.", Kenner affirmed, awaiting Bristol's blessing to sortie. Then, musefully and in hopes of keeping nerves settled and minds limber, Kenner said with an applied Western drawl through Eager Beaver's intercom system to his crew who would understand the reference, "Well boys, I reckon this is it-. Nuclear combat toe-to-toe with the Ruskies…"

There were nervous but grateful chuckles- mostly- with the only exception being from Eager Beaver's Senior WSO, LT Gorsky.

"Отправляйся в ад, Commander.."

He got the reference – Gorsky's sense of humor was a fickle beast however.

"Wolf Four, Alpha Wolf-. Confirm ready to push."

"Alpha Wolf, Wolf Four-.", Kenner replied to the CDC, "-Ready to push."

U.E.S.S. Gordon P. Samuels

"Conn, Sensor-. Subspace displacement at one-two-seven mark one-one-zero. –Distant – out well past Earth. Definite fold ripple- multiple vessels. –And there are BEE spikes and compression signatures rising through space proximal to Earth. –Looks like their fleet's waking up, Skipper."

"Conn, aye.", CDR Devereaux replied via intercom to the senior sensorman, LT Phelps, who could have as easily heard her from the sensor shack just off the main CIC compartment had the CO simply doubled the volume of her voice, "-Any indications they see us yet, Sensor?"

"Conn, Sensor-. Negative, ma'am. We're still in thick ambient EM clutter and there's no rise in active sensor pulses from enemy sentries. They're not onto us yet."

LCDR Petersen, standing beside the CO at the tactical display station watched as contact icons within the three-dimensional holographic field began to shift in their positions around Earth as the sudden rise in their energy emissions allowed a firming of their supposed locations. The plots were still far too inaccurate to produce viable firing solutions on what were known to be enemy vessels had they been within range of Gordon P. Samuels' farthest reaching weapons- which they were not. For now, the value of all of the technology that the frigate brought to bear was to tell the officers that the enemy juggernaut was awake and stirring as a result of Doolittle One's attack in progress, some ten light-minutes away.

As the senior sensorman had reported, indications were that the enemy was unaware of Doolittle Two. –But this would be short-lived.

"Sensor, Conn- aye.", Devereaux responded, acknowledging the last of what the sensorman had to offer on the matter. Then, to Petersen she said, "The Admiral must be giving them a good shellacking,…"

"-Must be.", agreed Petersen, then as XO and chief advisor to the captain, dutifully pointed out, "-When the initial shock passes though…"

Devereaux, well aware of the direction in thought to which her first officer was leading her made her concurrence clear, "Yeah- it won't last long."

The confusion and disorientation of surprise attack on any sentient being, had inevitable windfalls of response within their own measurable and predictable timeframes. This applied as true to Zentraedi as any.

While there were doubtlessly astute, individual commanders who from the first word of attack on their supply elements were quick to understand the strong possibility of attack on their main force encircling Earth- their command structure bound them to relative inactivity until orders were issued from above.

Even if the commanders of battle groups were immediately inclined to suspect impending attack, they too were not at liberty to simply detach from the greater Fleet based on intuition. The uncoordinated actions of a unit of hundreds of vessels had the potential to cause as significant a threat to the whole through accidents as an enemy assault.

Changes to a fleet's defensive posture by necessity had to come as orders from the upper echelons of command and be translated into appropriate, coordinated actions at each level below.

All of this even in the direst of situations required time to execute.

In the meantime, an attacker was operating by its own, less restrictive timetable and almost limitless freedom to maneuver.

"We're on.", Devereaux noted, having kept an eye at all times on the operational clock whose report at points carried with it specific actions, "Helm, maintain course and accelerate to flank- all."

"Helm, aye-. Steady as she goes, all ahead flank.", came the quartermaster's response through the intercom from the captain's bridge a deck above in the conning tower, "Engine indicators answering ahead flank."

There was a perceivable movement to the deck beneath the feet of all in CIC and those standing swayed slightly aft as Gordon P. Samuels' engines powered up in an acceleration curve for which her inertial dampeners could not fully compensate. It was a negligible effect being felt when taking into account that when the Gordon P. Samuels' engines were producing their maximum recommended output, that the ship was able to achieve 32% the speed of light. Great distances, such as this case of traveling the distance of a position just outside of Venus's orbital path to Earth that by conventional propulsion would have taken months were to be traversed in minutes.

"Conn, Sensor-. Ambient clutter is thinning, Captain. Enemy sensors will be registering our compression wave and EM signature in about two minutes."

"Conn, aye.", Devereaux replied, "Keep your eyes peeled for picket ships and patrols. No sense in tipping our them off before we have to."

"Sensor, aye."

LCDR Petersen listened to the exchange between the CO and Sensorman Phelps while monitoring the ever-developing plots in the tactical display in much the same way that naval officers of old had kept their eyes scanning the horizon for signs of threats. Phelps's warning that Sol's EM hash was becoming a les substantial screen to Gordon P. Samuels' emissions with every second notwithstanding, it was of value to the senior officers to know that the subspace ripple created by the frigate's compression engines would likely be detected by the enemy regardless of the sun's interference. Now certainly alert to the potential of REF activity, Zentraedi sensor technicians were no doubt attending to their comparatively crude systems with a renewed devotion.

Gordon P. Samuels along with the ten other frigates of Doolittle Two's twelve that were now on the charge would still have the advantage over the enemy in all orbital planes around Earth even if their energy signatures reached the Zentraedi before the REF ships were within weapons' range. The sudden realization of the threat by the enemy would panic them temporarily and give the frigates limited control of the engagement.

The frigates' influence was limited to a nearly moot point only because they were not the REF stars of the fight. They were support primarily for the attack corvettes, the real killers- and for that matter support from the rear. Zealousness was a key quality for any commander, but in this circumstance also one to be kept in check. –To press too close to the enemy was to be Icarus flying too close to the sun.

"Quarterbacks on the move!..", Petersen called out with a little more enthusiasm than he was happy to hear from himself at the assurance of tangling with mortal danger.

The 48 Garfish Class Attack Corvettes whose precise positions in the sun's EM hash had been known to the frigates since their separation from their motherships now twinkled to sensor eyes with brilliant EM glory as their powerful sub-light engines carried them forward at nearly the speed of the Pegasus missiles they carried.

It was mere seconds before the attack corvettes overtook the frigates that had been provided an ample head-start, and only seconds more before Gordon P. Samuels and her sisters of general class were easily outpaced.

This was not a race of course, LCDR Petersen was quick to remind himself as the range between his frigate and the trailing corvettes opened quickly. The corvettes had waited a measured time before initiating their charge on the still-unaware enemy in the same way that the detachment of the frigates from the corvette carriers and their charge had been calculated.

The attack corvettes' swiftness meant that there would be a gap of only seconds between when enemy units sensed the first subspace compression waves of the frigate element and when the corvettes would be within launching range of their Pegasus missiles.

For all practical purposes, the corvettes would be striking at a blind enemy.

"Sensor and Weps-.", CDR Devereaux instructed earnestly and clearly, "-Block and tackle. Prioritize fire on proximal threats to us first, and then to the corvettes. Today, we're running defense-. Leave the heavy work to the corvettes- unless you can bag me a flagship-. A girl has her limits of obedience."

LCDR Petersen was fighting a grin as he shook his head through the Sensor and Fire Control divisions' affirmation of the CO's orders.

Devereaux was not oblivious to her second's efforts, saying without apology, "Don't judge. -Like you wouldn't mind hanging that trophy over your mantle…"

"Didn't say a word, ma'am.", Petersen replied.

"Damn right, Pete. You gotta take the opportunities when they present themselves."

"All weapon flight profiles are auto-updating from InfoLink. All birds in the coop are green.", Weapons Systems Officer, LT Gorsky reported, "Seventy-five seconds to initiating firing sequence."

"Seventy-five seconds, aye.", LCDR Kenner replied from the commander's station, "Sensor, how's our projected flight corridor looking?"

"Building traffic, sir. –And we're starting to get broad, enemy sensor pulses. They're looking for us now.", the senior sensor technician advised as Eager Beaver's more limited sensor systems were augmented in their report through InfoLink by the combined sensing powers of all of the networked ships of Doolittle Two. "-But still navigable. All buoy deployment zones are still open, sir- it'll be a ride, but we can run the gauntlet."

"I'm holding you to that.", Kenner replied, "Set all ECMs to maximum and call out any direct sensor pulse hits. I wanna know whose sights I'm in."

"Aye, sir."

LT Boyle, primarily engaged in his redundant functions as second in command and ship's flight operations took his eyes off of the multiple displays encompassing him at his station to trade a brief look of concern with Kenner.

"I thought we were supposed to have the drop on `em-?.."

Kenner shrugged , impotent in control of unfolding events, "I guess the dittos didn't get that memo. –A sentry ship holding the outer line, maybe?"

"Doesn't matter now, really.", Boyle observed, stating the obvious.

60 seconds now.

Ship's systems and flight oriented information was fed to the corvette commander through a series of interactive LCD screens that consumed much of the forward hemisphere of space in the consoles before him, however all relevant flight and operational data was also fused into a miniaturized version of the tactical display central to most larger warships' combat information or direction centers. The "Mini-Tac", as someone had dubbed it from a longer, more complicated and less engaging official nomenclature provided the same three-dimensional situational awareness as its larger forerunner but in a compact version at 20% the dimensions of the original.

Still, even if it had served no more practical purpose than an element of psychological comfort in providing a sense of their surroundings to the crew of the fastest class of ship in the Fleet- LCDR Kenner was grateful to have it suspended above the physical instruments and displays of his station.

Each officer's station in the cockpit had the display, showing a slightly different take on the same environment depending on the information consumer's duties and how they had chosen to customize its display layers and filters.

Kenner chose to drink from the firehose, enabling most of the Mini-Tac's layers and functionality. It was an onslaught of information in reduced size that had taken some self-training and discipline to grow accustomed to. Seeing only the elements that he needed to see for command purposes was still at its best a mental feat, but one that Kenner found shaved critical seconds off of locating customized feature combinations off of a menu of favorites and enabling them.

-And when traveling into combat at just under 40% the speed of light, seconds counted.

Right now, the Mini-Tac was showing exactly what his sensor and weapons officers had reported to him.

Icons representing enemy vessels blinked and shifted abruptly within relatively small spheres of space, showing that an exact position for each contact had not been determined- but in their shell game the inexact plots were showing indications of movement as their positions continued to firm up.

Some vessels in low orbit were moving to higher planes while others exceeded the physical definition of true orbit by accelerating in an attempt to place Earth between themselves and the threat of Doolittle Two that they were now becoming aware of. Others, yet undefined in class by technical analytical methods, but clearly destroyers based on their behavior were leaving their orbits and sentry stations on developing intercept courses.

As the first returns from the destroyers' active sensor pulses reached them coupled with the less distinct EM emissions from Doolittle Two, keenly engaged fire control teams aboard the alien vessels had their first, rough firing solutions on the inbound raiders. Hardly developed well enough to hope for anything but the off-chance of a lucky hit, a firing solution was still a firing solution and Kenner was certain that the aliens had an approximation of what he had heard an REF space gunnery instructor say once: an energy bolt costs nothing.

-There was no reason for "wapons-hold".

The Mini-Tac was instantaneously alive with the track of passing particle beam bolts fired in a wide arc and no clearly discernible pattern.

Panic fire.

-But panic fire could kill as easily as a soundly aimed salvo and the Zentraedi were now taking pot-shots at the entire universe.

"Engage pinpoint defense system.", Kenner ordered for LT Boyle's action, "Angle all points forward."

"Pinpoint barrier coming up, aye.", Boyle replied, "All points oriented for maximum lee forward."

While no longer the bodies of formable subspace distortion that SDF-1 had happened upon discovering with the loss of her hyperspace fold system after its one and only use years before- the DBS-1 "pinpoint barrier" system now generated three discs of cohesive cold plasma each 75m in diameter that could be oriented to all points of an invisible sphere around the generating craft for the purpose of intercepting energy, kinetic, or guided ordinance fire.

The attack corvettes like Eager Beaver lacked the ample power generation systems that allowed her larger cousins in The Fleet to employ the DBS-2 spherical barrier system that defended all points simultaneously- but for a craft whose trade was "hit-and-run", the DBS-1 was deemed sufficient and truly the best additional defense that could be offered.

Damn if it didn't feel flimsy and insubstantial at moments like this though….

"-Heads-up", advised the senior sensorman, "Pegasus missiles coming up from astern-. Transitioning to pass in tracks on all points. That would be our back-up…"

It was not difficult for LCDR Kenner to pick out on his Mini-Tac the "friendly" weapons of which his sensorman spoke. Traveling along arrow-straight tracks the weapons fired from supporting frigates far astern were now passing Eager Beaver's corvette squadron on all sides as they accelerated on to the Zentraedi warships coming up out of medium and high orbits to threaten them.

"Let them do their job, people- and let's concentrate on ours.", Kenner said to all around him.

Thirty seconds now separated Eager Beaver from the end of her approach and the beginning of her actual attack run. LT Gorsky, working with his junior weapons systems officers, was continuing to refine the details of the corvette's attack profile that was projected as it evolved in LCDR Kenner's display.

The ship's projected course was punctuated with waypoints where the corvette's missiles would be released on enemy target clusters. Once locked in and authorized by the commander, the attack and all of its intricate action variables would be carried out by computer- the options to abort any or all of the specific profile elements remaining an option to either senior flight officer or the WSO crew up through the firing of the last missile salvo.

–But a full or partial abort was rare as attack profiles normally played out in a span of under ten seconds.

Kenner had no intent to blunt the edge of the sword his command swung unless it was a matter of his crew's safety or the operational safety of the other corvettes- so far as the term safe could be applied in combat. An "abort" prompted by "friendly" factors was unlikely though with the automated coordination between all of the engaging corvettes allowed by InfoLink.

Kenner's concern- his primary concern as the pre-flight briefing had made clear- even surpassing inflicting damage upon the Zentraedi units was the deployment of the sensor and communications buoys that Eager Beaver carried in dedicated tubes normally occupied by mines. It had been made clear to him and a handful of other commanders that while the value of the psychological blow that the raid would inflict upon the enemy was important, it was far outweighed by the need to re-establish situational awareness of the developing situation on Earth and communications with the RDF and ASC forces left behind.

The task lacked the "flash" of immediate glory, but carried the satisfaction of a greater purpose being served- and Kenner understood this clearly.

Nothing said that Eager Beaver couldn't tally up a few capital ship kills along the way though.

"Command, Weapons Control- enemy sensor jamming is diminishing our targeting systems.", the senior weapons control officer advised his superior, Commander Darst, "Firing solution are not developing above forty-percent, Lord."

Darst, from his chair within the command bubble protruding from the aft bulkhead above the command center had been witnessing the evidence of what his subordinate was reporting. Broad patterns of particle beams fired at lower intensity but at the guns' highest rate of rapid fire for the purpose of fixing on enemy targets were proving ineffective as the bolts found empty space where micronian vessels should have been. Active sensor returns that should have provided a momentary but exact glimpse of the enemy positions were curiously ineffective as well as the sensors seemed to report far more vessels on the attack than what the commander found credible.

What Darst's hunter/killer unit of six destroyers charged with the explicit task of defending the greater battle group of which it was an element from attack was now experiencing did however corroborate panicked communications traffic from the 7th Grand Army's distant supply reserve force that was under similar attack.

Supreme General Krymina had made the rare tactical decision of responding personally to that attack, folding her Flagship, Artoc, and its dedicated escort of elite destroyers away to join in the battle. Darst wondered briefly if the supreme general might have had a greater effect by meeting the second element of what was now clearly a dual-pronged attack that had revealed itself scarcely more than a minute after she had departed to chase the distant fight.

From Darst's position, the wisdom of the 7th Grand Army's commanding and executive officers detaching to directly join battle away from the central focus and effort of the campaign that Krymina herself had initiated what seemed so long ago with a forbidden expedition to Tirol and a blatantly treasonous assault on the seat of The Robotech Masters power was….

-Was Supreme General Krymina's prerogative.

Such decisions were her discretion, and wisely not questioned- even when evidence was showing them to be flawed.

"Reconfigure your fire to sweeping patterns.", Darst ordered, silently concurring with his weapons officer's assessment that some form of sensor jamming was in play. These micronians were not as conveniently brash as Invid or some norghil that they would attack boldly and directly in the hopes that surprise alone would keep the initiative in their favor. Their tactical savvy was layered- and apparently deeply so.

As Darst studied the tactical display projected out over the command deck, reduced for the moment to guessing where the actual micronian vessels might be in relation to where his sensors reported them to be- a cluster of proximal contacts deviated from their established course in conjunction with an automated warning that the destroyer was being scanned intensely and directly.

Missiles. Likely the same type that had savaged the leading, sacrificial norghil elements that had assaulted the micronian homeworld days before.

Only now, Darst found himself and his command to be their target.

"Helm, MAXIMUM POWER, FULL RUDDER LEFT!.."

A narrow spread of four Pegasus Mk-4C anti-ship missiles closed the final thousands of kilometers to the same target at maximum speed and under their own, independent integrated active/passive homing systems. All assigned to the same "master" contact by the platform that had fired them, they easily adjusted for the destroyer's sudden turn into and below their track that had been intended to defeat their intercept.

Possessing information on the target vessel's class and coordinating as a spread against a shared target, the Pegasus missiles continued to coordinate the final details of their attack only microseconds from connecting with the destroyer.

Two weapons collaborated in attacking the ship's port engine nacelle, sheering away everything aft of the intercooler assembly in a glittering burst of energy-charged debris.

The ship had not yet reacted to the force of the first strike or the sudden imbalance in the subspace compression wave propelling it when the remaining two missiles of the spread divided themselves between the hangar and magazine spaces of the upper decks. The dorsal hull above the first deck's hanger broke away, mostly intact, riding the explosion of the weapon that had penetrated the internal space- carrying with it the destroyer's distinctive, passive sensor antenna array.

Secondary explosions ruptured areas of the second through fourth decks forward as a magazine was compromised.

A cascade of multiple system failures followed as the destroyer began an uncontrolled tumble and drift.

The other destroyers of the same unit were only generally aware of the damage inflicted upon their sister as they too were receiving a cruel thrashing brought on by the comparatively insignificant-sized Pegasus missiles.

Splitting ways, trailing debris and dissipating smoke in a manner farther to the "clumsy" end of the sliding scale than the "graceful", the destroyers that had retained the ability to navigate under their own power gained maneuvering room just as the missile attack subsided. The dispersed formation however did afford a fortunate measure of survivability to the ships at the center of the battle line as the destroyer that had been at the extreme right end succumbed in a catastrophic flash to damage sustained deep within. Shattered ship's modules, structural members, and hull elements unidentifiable in their mangled state opened like the petals of a great, fiery blossom in all directions, serving as a testimonial display of vengeance that swept molten debris over the destroyer that had held the obliterated vessel's left.

U.E.S.S. Gordon P. Samuels

The broadband analysis waterfall display pulsed with a twin energy surge blot that filled the breadth of the cascading output and signified nothing less than a cataclysmic explosion some hundreds of thousands of kilometers distant in space. A smaller third surge, not quite along the center line of the first two pulsed briefly and then collapsed in proportions like the shrinking of a deflating balloon- suggesting the destruction of a second vessel brought on by the explosion of the first.

"Now that's pizza and a case of beer courtesy of the CO to the missile room crew who shot those birds-.", CDR Devereaux promised distantly to no one in particular as she was transfixed by the Sensor Shack's replay of the missile attack's windfall.

No less impressed, LCDR Petersen nodded toward the CIC's tactical display that showed the continuing growth of a defensive onslaught from the ample ranks of Zentraedi warships, unfazed by the same occurrence.

"-Hope you have a substantial pizza and beer budget, Skipper- because we've got plenty of trade."

Devereaux was immediately back to business having never left in the truest sense as the temporary delight of destruction was set aside. In under twenty seconds the corvettes would be into their attack runs and the shooting portion of Doolittle Two's coordinated attack would be entering the wind-down.

First though-.

Neatly formed Zentraedi battle groups and attack squadrons whose affiliates had been relatively easy to pick out by their station keeping in medium and high orbits were now in the process of scattering and reforming into more aggressive postures. Space around Earth was becoming choked as the alien units spread like a drop of light machine oil onto the surface of still water.

Had the attack corvettes of Doolittle Two been operating alone, CDR Devereaux imagined how it would have been necessary for them to shoot their way into the enemy before the difficult task of cutting their way out. –But they had support provided for just this likelihood, courtesy of Vice Admiral Hayes-Hunter.

"Fire Control, designate Masters 404, 425, 461, and 501 as targets- four bird, narrow spreads to be fired upon hot tubes."

LCDR Petersen easily followed his CO's thinking as InfoLink informed them that Bianca Stowe, a sister of Gordon P. Samuels in the Stratford Class was selecting targets on the right flank of the common attack corridor to be used by the corvettes through the enemy's mass. Devereaux's selection broadened the opening to that corridor to the depth to which her weapons could reach.

Other frigates of the escort and support element were similarly at work, attempting to keep the intended path of the corvettes unobstructed while Doolittle Two's senior commander, Commodore Tran was undoubtedly in supervisory mode. He had not elected to "slave" the fire control systems of any of the frigates via CCDS to personally direct the action- at least not yet- and Devereaux had the sense that Tran would not. His focus was primarily on the operational performance of his attack corvettes.

Given the depth of questioning Tran had subjected Devereaux to in Hayes-Hunter's company prior to final selection for Operation Doolittle, and the knowledge he displayed of her operational record- Devereaux was satisfied that he would allow his linemen's aggression do its part. -And Devereaux had no concerns about disappointing him.

"Skipper", Petersen interjected, pointing to three contacts of the original six that Gordon P. Samuels had opened action against and that were now limping slowly toward the Earth's terminator and cover of the planet's night side, "Masters 242, 247, and 233 are still twitching."

Devereaux nodded her awareness of the situation, "I saw `em, Pete. –Plot, give me a course to keep us on mission but get me within Ballista range on those three contacts."

"Not willing to add three hash marks to the damaged column, eh Skipper?", Petersen asked noting a total lack of outgoing fire coming from the three lame and retreating destroyers.

"Were you expecting me to?", Devereaux asked more rhetorically than in genuine solicitation for a response, "They sat at the high-roller table like the rest of us. –Time to fold and cash out. –Fire Control- Weps, start building your solution on 242, 247 and 233! Split and assign dorsal and ventral batteries and commence rapid-fire barrage as soon as you've got a solution. We'll soften `em up on the close and finish `em at range with Ballistas."

"Aye, Skipper!", replied the Fire Control TAO.

Petersen shook his head with mild sympathy for an enemy that was probably at this moment contemplating their fortune at escaping the ill fate suffered by three destroyer crews' count of their comrades only a minute or so earlier.

"-Somebody had their Wheaties this morning…"

"Damn right.", Devereaux said without hesitation, "And I'm already hungry again."

"Conn, Sensor. –The corvettes are initiating their attack runs. Enemy fire volume is escalating."

"Conn, aye.", Devereaux replied, then alternating to a totally different division, "Helm, enough of this dueling-. Get me into knife-fighting range and stay nimble. I want to be a distraction, not a casualty."

"Helm, aye."

LCDR Petersen watched the tactical display as the representation of the Sensor Shack's report began to play out before him. Friendly, "Blue Force" icons representing the Garfish Class Attack Corvettes were moving at a steady pace through a collapsing channel of open space, surrounded on all sides by enemy scout and destroyer class vessels. Sensor's report of escalating fire volume was something of an understatement as the channel was shown to be criss-crossed from all points by enemy particle beam fire that varied from the wild and panicky to deliberate and carefully aimed. ECM efforts from the corvette carriers and the attack corvettes were clearly having an effect on the enemy's fire control, but the quantity of fire being poured through the constricted path that the enemy knew the attack corvettes to be running still held a promise of high danger.

Something of the enemy's fury at the affront of being attacked at rest in space that they no doubt presumed to command was evident in the collateral damage the Zentraedi were doing to themselves. Particle beam bolts fired by Zentraedi gun batteries had no loyalty once loosed. Salvos fire or bolts released in rapid-fire fashion had no sense of responsibility and would either travel their course until eventually and at great range they dissipated harmlessly into space, or they would contact physical matter with the intended result. Physical matter up to this moment had not been anything of REF design or manufacture, but an enveloping crossfire carried with it danger to the force creating that crossfire.

Evidence of gunnery hits on Zentraedi vessels by energy bolts not fired from REF guns were periodic enough to draw notice from those around the tactical display of Gordon P. Samuels' CIC, and were increasing adequately to be categorized as "frequent". There was no sign that any "friendly fire" damage received by enemy ships was immediately fatal to the ships being damaged, but the risk of fratricide was being realized by the enemy and treated as a secondary concern to engaging a raiding force of a fractional size.

LCDR Petersen could not fathom the rationality in the Zentraedi's action, but could feel distinctly their rage.

Suddenly, the urge to finish the immediate mission at hand was stronger and moving to the forefront of his thoughts.

Destroyer 2913

Observation and analysis.

Above all other disciplines, Action Commander Iyos had come to recognize early in conduct of her command that observation and analysis were the most critical in combat whether it was small unit or grand scale action.

Others could dispute her position and argue effectively other vital skills or qualities they felt were superior, but for Iyos it was observation and analysis.

One could champion the quality of boldness either in the attack, or as fortitude in defense when initiative belonged to the enemy. It could swing the direction of battle in one's favor- true. Iyos had seen this in her time, and in a good many cases, the assertion of boldness as a commander's key attribute was a difficult one to contest.

The balance between planning and improvisation was touted by others and for reasons that Iyos recognized readily and accepted. Who could deny that the edge provided by the most powerful warships or bravest and most seasoned warriors was dulled if forethought was not applied to how they would be used in battle? –And as Action Commander Trefna who Iyos had succeeded as commander of the 5121st Destroyer Squadron had proved in adhering rigidly to his plan of attack on assigned objectives in the initial assault on the micronian homeworld- failure to adapt a plan during execution could prove to be as fatal an error as having no plan at all.

Action Commander Iyos maintained confidence that it was observation and analysis first that enabled any of the other command qualities argued by others to be truly effective.

It was a principle she would not debate vigorously as sometimes in the hierarchal system that was the command structure of The 7th Grand Army of The Te'Dak Tohl there were advantages to allowing others, to include superiors, to operate under flawed pretenses.

Iyos's elevation to squadron commander was proof.

What Iyos's observation and analysis of the notably small micronian attack now in progress and scarcely two minutes old told her was that nearly every other Te'Dak Tohl commander on station in orbit of the alien world was playing directly into what she expected was the enemy's plan.

As though they were deploying to meet a massive, fleet action counterattack, or an Invid onslaught- Iyos's own superiors were actually providing the enemy with targets of opportunity piled deeply in their path. The aliens hadn't the unit weight or density for a prolonged fight, so theirs was clearly a hit-and-run battle plan- and how grateful their commanding officer must have been to see so many Te'Dak Tohl commanders volunteering themselves to make that plan the most effective it could be.

What Iyos knew would hobble the hit-and-run tactic of her enemy was to bind her adversary to battle and make him start thinking defensively. –It was just the question of finding the sensitive area to which to apply pressure.

Iyos was sure of how- but for Destroyer 2913 and for the eleven remaining destroyers of her reduced squadron awaiting reconstitution it meant a moment of truth that the Te'Dak Tohl officers and sub-officers had maneuvered around gingerly.

Iyos's plan meant reliance on the abilities of a now largely "improved" norghil crew in what would be intense and rapidly evolving action, and in a way that they had not experienced already in this campaign. –But thus far, their proficiency and conduct had been acceptable. Whether this performance would endure was a test now at hand.

Iyos had observed and analyzed, had quickly developed her plan of attack that she was confident she and her subordinate commanders could adapt quickly as needed-.

Now came the variable of battle with which Iyos was least comfortable- Fate's favor.

"Glankira", Iyos said to her executive officer who had up to this time stood dutifully and in silence at her commander's side in the ship's command bubble awaiting instructions, "Order the squadron to divide by attack element. Commander Walho will direct the actions of Elements Two, Three, and Four and take them at maximum speed on a parabolic course to where the star's electromagnetic interference thickens just outside of the orbital path of the system's second planet. He will conduct a sweep there employing active sensors and flush out the alien commander-."

Glankira considered the expansive area to which her commander was referring and without disobedience asked, "-You suspect the commanding officer of this attack to be there?"

Iyos replied with certainty, "He's there. Walho should back-track along the engaged enemy's mean course and sweep broadly. He will find him."

Glankira nodded her agreement to her commander's confidence in her own plan if not the logic of it and asked the clear, remaining question, "And what of the element lingering with us, Liege?"

Iyos studied the tactical display suspended in hologram over the command deck before her, wondering where precisely in the EM clutter her adversary might be hiding.

"Have them stand by for a short-range fold-jump and ready to fight."

"Yes, Liege- though it's my duty to point out that a short-range jump in such proximity to the star's mass is inherently dangerous."

"So noted.", Iyos replied without offense- it was Glankira obligation to voice such concerns. "If my gamble is unsound, I'll be among the first to realize it."

"Auto-firing sequence initiated-.", LT Gorsky reported from his seat at the lead WSO's station, "Package One, missiles away!"

LCDR Kenner alternated his attention through a number of concurrent activities that were intertwined in play as the largely pre-programmed flight profile of Eager Beaver and the firing of her missiles progressed. Missile tracks stretched rapidly away from the corvette within the virtual and sanitized world of the commander's tactical display, leaving the attack ship in the proverbial dust as the weapons sought out their targets. The connection of anti-ship missiles and targets, not all Eager Beaver's, was kept clinically sterile in its representation offering no suggestion of the great loss of life that occurred each time a missile struck home, registering only as a flicker and flare of a "hostile" contact icon.

Full understanding and the associated, "mixed feelings" were sure to follow at some point, sooner or later. –But this was why chaplains and counseling specialists were maintained as Military Occupational Specialties by the Robotech Defense Forces.

Sentient beings both human and alien alike within the besieged world's circle of solar illumination and along its equatorial and tropical latitudes who might have been looking skyward were witness to a bizarre show of violent eruptions in the normally uniform blue canopy of the daytime heavens. Vivid bursts of nuclear and Protoculture-fueled fire blotched briefly the sky at seemingly random points while a fainter strobe and streak of heavy energy gunfire crisscrossed the sky from orbiting warships who themselves remained invisible to occupants of the world below. Deep booms rolled in heavy waves as numerous energy bolts intended for swift targets missed and penetrated atmosphere, superheating the air to create the thunderclap effect and generating genuine explosions where particle beam met sea or earth.

Zentraedi battle groups that had broken formation hastily with the natural startle attributable to attack were reforming as quickly as the intricate dance of maneuvering would allow into a more defense-oriented posture.

Sensors acquired targets far smaller than what Zentraedi crews had expected to be capable of generating the steady issuance of punishment that their rousing Fleet was receiving, and moving at speeds that defied initial belief. Gun batteries designed to engage capital ships and planetary targets swiveled and arced to track in on the swift-footed aggressors but struggled to maintain the required lead to ensure accuracy of fire.

Volume over precision of fire quickly became the default method of engaging in counterattack and saw more Zentraedi particle beam bolts find Zentraedi vessels than REF ones.

"Package Two, away! Missiles running true and steady.", Gorsky continued to report as his subordinates communicated with one another from their stations around him, "Initiating sensor buoy deployment sequence-."

From his station to the right of Kenner's, LT Boyle monitored all of Eager Beaver's operational activities as well and advised on a point that had caught Kenner's attention a moment before.

"The flight corridor's starting to get a little tight around the egress point, boss-. We may need to go manual on the out."

"How are we looking through the buoy deployment run?", Kenner asked.

"Package Three, missiles running! Buoys One through Four, away!", Gorsky interjected.

"That leg's still good- for now.", Boyle replied, making his judgment call by the movement of enemy units into the area of the attack corvette's flight path.

That "leg" of the flight path Kenner knew had roughly four seconds of life left to it at the speed that Eager Beaver was traveling. Even as the sensor buoys were being deployed almost simultaneously, the brief gaps between each being released and automatically firing their braking thrusters translated to intervals of thousands of kilometers. The buoys of the satellite constellation would begin communicating between themselves shortly and would adjust to form a stable configuration. –But this was not Kenner's concern.

"Keep your eye on the exit, but we're gonna have to run the gauntlet while we deploy-."

"Packages Four and Five, away!", Gorsky announced, a hint of relief coming through his substantial accent, "We're Pegasus-empty. Ballistas down to thirty-seven percent capacity and still in auto-fire mode. –Buoys Five through Nine in deployment, now!.."

The menace of enemy fire continued to rage from all points as the corridor of passage through the Te'Dak Tohl's low and medium orbital rings around Earth's middle latitudes continued to shrink with the counter-offensive intents of the aliens. Particle beam bolts passed Eager Beaver at all angles both ridiculously far and off-target, and closer than the crew would have been comfortable with knowing.

Most of the uncoordinated enemy barrage passed aft of the relatively small and incredibly swift craft, but the seemingly random fire grew gradually but steadily more accurate with every passing moment that Zentraedi weapons officers had to assess their shortcomings in fire control and adapt. Eager Beaver being just ahead of the "middle" in order of the assault corvette force's attack wave had the inevitable misfortune of seeing the refinements in the enemy's gunnery. The risk, the crew knew well however was no different than that run by any Service-member putting themselves in harm's way-. Death for an assault corvette crew was only exceptional in that it came at nearly half the speed of light.

The assault corvette crew benefitted though from the fact that their engagement time was so brief- under twenty seconds on target in this case- and the required duties so consuming, that close brushes with death were mostly realizations after the fact.

Eager Beaver like her sisters in the class of vessel did not suffer apprehensions before battle, nor was she shaken by "close calls" in the course of the fight, or afflicted by "the shakes" coming down after. Automatic systems designed specifically to act and react proportionately with the corvette's superior speed identified, acquired, and designated targets for the admirable arsenal of anti-ship weapons she carried. With timing and precision that humans were incapable of, computers calculated the release points for multiple Ballista missiles simultaneously and directed their release from launchers at points on the dorsal, ventral, and both side hulls using the corvette's velocity at launch point to "sling" the missiles as much as the weapons' own propulsion to carry them to target. Te'Dak Tohl warships lulled into false security by the lack of energy weapons' fire from the corvettes and with the exhaustion of Pegasus missile fire that they as a fleet had learned to fear in their time in the Sol system were surprised unpleasantly as those within the sling-augmented range of Ballistas were mauled by the smaller ASMs.

Many a destroyer acting on the offensive was pummeled by multiple Ballista hits, revealing with the severe wounding a second threat in human missile technology as worthy of fearing as the Pegasus.

Salan Class scout ships, seeming by more comparable size to be the best option to close upon and engage the Garfish Assault Corvettes fell victim to the same misperceptions as their larger, destroyer relatives. The mistake for the Salan scouts, unfortunately, was more often fatal than for the significantly more robust destroyers who were treated to small spreads of Ballistas. The lighter, thinly armored Salans lacked the ruggedness to sustain multiple hits by the powerful Ballista, ProtEx warheads. In almost equal numbers, the scouts were either destroyed outright- fragmenting like shattering glass- or disabled and left tumbling helplessly adrift.

Savage as the punishment received by Te'Dak Tohl warships from Ballista missiles was, it was punishment received by a minute number in comparison to the fleet now fully awakened- and no worse than death by Invid swarms, that many unit commanders had witnessed first-hand. Individual vessel commanders and particularly unit commanders all feeling the advantage of odds in their numbers were little effected by the demise of so few comrades if there was much notice at all, and uniformly the counterattack was pressed with the fervor of those unafraid.

"-I think that was Big Cordelia-.", reported Eager Beaver's senior sensorman, LT Fields- providing somber but quick exposition to what all in the corvette's cockpit/bridge had witnessed on their "Mini-Tac". A "friendly" icon in the churning field of sensor-relayed activity had flared with a detected high-energy surge, and then without any of the indications of destruction common to first-hand observation, was gone.

No contact was registered by Eager Beaver's own sensors with her sister that had been trailing some 5,000Km astern- a "short" interval at the speed they were travelling- and Big Cordelia's connections into InfoLink were now showing red to LCDR Kenner.

-And even in the unlikely case that all indications of the other corvette's destruction were wrong and that she was only damaged and her crew still alive, there was nothing that Eager Beaver or any of the other corvettes could do to assist.

Like fighter pilots witnessing the downing of a fellow airman, they could only be witness and at most mark the location for search and rescue. Also like fighter pilots the attack corvette crew understood that without clear evidence of a downed comrade's survival, marking a spot for SAR was little more than a well-intentioned obligation- especially deep within space held firmly by an enemy where SAR could not hope to operate.

It was a real possibility that every corvette crew understood- being disabled beyond the reasonable reach of assistance. –And like fighter pilots, the appropriate MO was just not to speak of it.

LCDR Kenner knew the officers of Big Cordelia well, and the crew some though and had seen their direly enthusiastic faces in a briefing less than two hours before. The thought of not seeing any of those faces again was one that he dismissed with ease he found troubling, though the competing demands on his attention were a genuinely good cause.

"Do your jobs and we'll deal with it later.", Kenner said, not sure if the perceived eternity between the sister corvette's loss and his words would make his direction to officers and crew puzzling in meaning.

Focus on matters more pressing to Eager Beaver and her crew reasserted itself violently.

A sledgehammer blow that shook the vessel at every seam and threatened to liquefy both craft and crew in its intensity rolled over all accompanied by a flutter of internal lighting and systems.

Before the squeal and groan of stressed metal and the strobe of lights, instruments, and displays had subsided a shrill voice that did not sound as though it could have belonged to any of the grown men of the crew exclaimed, "WE'RE HIT!.."

As the audible protest of the vessel subsided and the means of making such a determination returned, LCDR Kenner and LT Boyle were already in a frenzied exchange regarding condition of the craft. The engineering team aft and below added to the collision words, throwing their own checks and reports into the mix.

"-Hull integrity warning, dorsal starboard! Frames 91 to 103!..", LT Boyle called as the damage control system revealed as much to him, "Did we get hit?.."

Kenner initially preoccupied with verification that the ship was still navigable and soundly under computer control in the last seconds of the attack portion of its flight profile now glanced over the MFD he had designated to monitor ship's systems status. With the receipt of damage, it had defaulted to a structural and hull status mode that corroborated what Boyle had reported.

Outer hull plates were compromised in a localized area with some significant structural damage beneath the outer skin. There was additional minor buckling to the pressure hull well within Eager Beaver's outer skin, but only the most modest of pressure leaks at three identified points.

"No-.", Kenner replied, realizing that the vibration he felt still in his throat was the racing of his own heart, "-If we'd taken a hit from a ditto heavy, we'd be at orientation with St. Pete already-. I'm guessing a debris strike softened by the deflection field."

"Soft my ass…", Boyle laughed as Eager Beaver transitioned into the egress portion of the flight profile and marking the end of her first attack run.

"Keep flying, or it could be all of our asses-.", Kenner said, extending the order to all the crew and their duties by his tone, "-The dittos may want to give chase until we outrun `em and the reach of their guns! Keep frosty. –Navs, recalculate egress route to rendezvous to minimize our time in proximity to the target area. I don't want to risk an actual gun hit…"

"Aye sir, trimming the fat now-."

"And Boyle, keep the barrier points angled smartly-.", Kenner said, realizing that he was panting slightly.

It was okay though, through his the headphones in his helmet he could hear it was a common reaction to recent events being experienced by all.

"You got it, boss."

"Good- I'm just gonna fly this beast and work on swallowing my heart again."

U.E.S.S. Bristol

Attack out of the sun.

-Clearly, humankind had not been the only species to have learned and embraced the advantages of that tactic. –And clearly humans, even ones well trained in military operation, could still fall victim to it.

Sixty seconds before the TAOs and technicians of Bristol's Combat Direction Center had been busy closing out the "hit-and-run" strike by Doolittle Two's attack corvettes on the enemy- accounting for the four corvette carriers' attack ships of which three were known to have been lost and another eight damaged, confirming the operation's primary recovery point, and conducting a quick battle damage assessment on the enemy fleet.

-And then, out of the sun and at an incredibly short range of under 90,000 kilometers- the enemy had appeared through the thick of the same EM has that Doolittle Two had used to make their stealthy approach.

A single Zentraedi destroyer had been detected passively by the sole frigate, Jun Chau, that had remained with the carriers for defense. Navigating shrewdly with her engines idle in a "sprint and drift", and emerging from deeper in the hash than Doolittle Two, it had been equal parts the skill of one of the frigate's sensormen and sheer luck that the enemy vessel had not drawn closer.

Clearly it had not been a chance encounter though-.

Even as Jun Chau was reacting, the destroyer had pierced the EM clutter with a series of active sensor pulses that had firmly established the positions of the four corvette carriers and the frigate as well.

The shooting was already a heavy trade as the single destroyer became three- the other two of what was quickly evident to be a unit showed themselves with the employment of their own active sensor systems and moments later their primary gun batteries.

Jun Chau had replied smartly with spreads of Pegasus missiles fired "from the hip" on rough solutions at the already formidable threat turned from three into six destroyers on approach.

Six became nine as the EM-hobbled Pegasus missiles fired by Jun Chau scored only a single hit in the blinding clutter and the Te'Dak Tohl response reached full intensity.

Commodore Tran had been ordering an emergency fold-jump for Doolittle Two- the only viable means of escape under the circumstances- and awash in the initial swell of panic in his flagship's CDC as the vengeful reciprocity of the aliens extended to his corvette carriers. Barrier systems down with the need to apply all power to their spacefold systems, the lightly armored carriers staggered under the rapid-fire barrage of Te'Dak Tohl guns whose aim was only aided by each subsequent strike of particle beam bolt on target.

-And at that moment, the situation worsened.

A surge of subspace displacement announced the arrival of what was quickly identified by Bristol's own sensors to be an additional three Thuverl Salan Class destroyers, materializing from fold at under 20,000 kilometers range and completing a crude ring of attackers that suddenly encircled Doolittle Two.

Sensors were lost in the next few moments and their ability to be of any use nulled as an energy bolt penetrated deeply Bristol's hull somewhere in the region below and aft of the CDC causing a buckling of deck plates and bulkheads and the eruption of electrical fires at many stations around the compartment.

This was the condition of Commodore Tran's CDC around him now, the muted cries of the burned and injured still heard with ghastly clarity through the wail of the ship's alarms and the hiss of space sucking at the ship's air. Crew at stations that promised at least the possibility of functional recovery worked feverishly to re-establish it, while those whose areas were clearly wrecked beyond salvage became impromptu litter-bearers moving the wounded who could be moved out of the compartment for first aid.

The air was aglow in red emergency lighting and thick with smoke and the non-conducting chemicals of fire extinguishers that were being used all around as Tran got his feet beneath him again.

Captain Holt was supporting himself on the edge of the now-useless tactical display station, intercom phone pressed to the side of his bloodied and burned face as he communicated with damage control. Seeing Tran upright again despite the regular impact of energy salvos that continued to quake the deck, the vessel's commanding officer reported clinically,

"-I can't raise the bridge, Commodore. –And even if I could, the Reflex furnace is off-line. All gun batteries are in auto-fire mode, but drawing from auxiliary power- not much of a threat to those destroyers… Subspace Comms are down, but we can have UHF radio in a few minutes, I think."

Tran placed his hands on the dark surface of the tactical display that had shown him combat proof of his carrier-based attack corvette concept only minutes before. Everything Bristol was suffering now was reciprocity for what could still only be considered a qualified success. Martial achievement was rarely without some cost.

"No need.", Tran told the ship's CO, "Anyone able to has already jumped away."

Holt was no longer listening to the phone still pressed to his ear, but rather realizing the few options left to him in his command's worsening condition.

"Well then-?"

Tran was solemn, "You and I have critical knowledge of REF operations, Holt. For the crew- the Zentraedi are not known to take prisoners, and if they should- I would not envy the captured."

Holt's expression spoke of understanding, as he asked for advice, "-And what do I tell them?"

Unable to summon anything better, Tran replied, "They're consumed in duty, Holt – let them have the comfort of that distraction."

Destroyer 2913

"Order all units to cease fire.", Action Commander Iyos instructed as the flash of spacefold subsided from the second micronian vessel to jump away in desperate escape.

Sub-Commander Glankira was hastily relaying the order to subordinate commanders with urgency that she knew the order to carry. Had Iyos's intent been to utterly destroy the enemy that Commander Walho had successfully fixed upon, it would have been an order explicitly conveyed- or at least the order to halt the attack would not have been given.

Certainly the enemy that had just folded away had only had moments remaining in a condition where escape was a viable option. Continued attack from all sides to which they had found themselves subject to would have quickly left them in the condition of those vessels remaining.

Of the three, the smallest had put up the most defiant of resistance oddly enough- exhibiting a greater arsenal of weapons at its disposal despite its fractional size to the others located by Walho.

It had put up the most spirited fight, and in the rush and frenzy of battle it had simply been overwhelmed – succumbing to internal explosions and breaking into multiple pieces as Destroyer 2913 had arrived to the battle via short-range jump.

The other two micronian vessels, ungainly, unwarship-like, and at a glance clearly of the same class had quickly fallen victim to the dual misfortunes of being the targets most immediately accessible to Walho's attack, and not being as solidly constructed as their bulk suggested. Before it had seemed plausible, both vessels had been tattered through a tepid effort at counter-fire – one breaking nearly in two and set tumbling joined at the center mass only by twisted and flexing structural members, and the other only modestly defensible and navigable under reduced power.

It was the latter in which Iyos had interest, though the particulars of achieving her sudden goal of capture were still a work in progress.

Clearly, the alien vessel would neither leap away through hyperspace as its companions had, nor would it outrun any of Iyos's squadron. Escape was not within the enemy's reach or grasp.

As Fate would have it in its sense of balancing fortune for all, Iyos knew that she could not hope to either board or seize the sole, disabled micronian vessel that appeared to still be sustaining life. The sheer physical size of her Warriors precluded it.

Micronization was the clear option to allow physical access to the micronian ship, but this too presented challenges that a standardly equipped ship of the Fleet was not equipped to handle. –Once micronized, Iyos's Warriors were without usable weaponry- without basic uniform even, to say nothing of environmental gear to survive the vacuum that the enemy ship had been opened up to in the process of accessing areas of the ship that were still pressurized.

Iyos resigned herself to the fact that she was within reach of a prize of great value, only to not be within reach at the same time.

Fate sometimes frustrated even the most capable of Warriors.

"Approach to within range and launch fighters and mecha to establish a perimeter.", Iyos ordered her executive officer, "Experience has shown that they likely may have escape vehicles-. If so, they are to be taken intact with as little damage as possible. –And contact battle group command to inform Action General-."

The main viewscreen above the command deck flashed a piercing strobe of brilliance and was instantly filled with a softer glow of green-tinged blue that subsided to reveal the scatter of molten, manufactured metal and synthetic form spreading in all directions. The broken vessel that had been adrift while not consumed by explosion of its languishing companion was further diminished in structural integrity and showed progressive signs of break-up as its tumble became erratic with the force of high velocity collisions with debris.

Destroyer 2913 was far too distant from the scene of the apparent suicide to be effected with the exception of an understandable shock at having a would-be prize so unexpectedly snatched away.

"Cowardly.", Glankira muttered at seeing her enemy's lives end in a form other than that of the appropriate means for a warrior- combat.

Iyos understood though, and knew that her opponent had read and understood well her intentions.

"Admirable.", she countered simply without admonishment in the least for Glankira's differing assessment.

And suddenly, as things often happened in battle- there was no action to be had here.

The battle had been brief and fairly won, but Iyos knew her duties now lay elsewhere and it was her greatest desire to find them.

U.E.S.S. Gordon P. Samuels

"Ventral Battery Two out of action!", LCDR Petersen reported, assimilating information from both the ship's status boards he'd called up on his side of the tactical display and from the Damage Control Center with whom he was communicating by intercom phone.

"-We've got multiple penetration points in the primary hull low port and ventral spanning frames forty-seven to seventy-two. Pressure hull leaks through inner-hull buckling deck twelve in compartments-."

"I get it- we're hit!..", Devereaux snapped with unintended but situationally-reasonable edge as crew continued to pick themselves up from the blow that had nearly knocked the CO off her feet herself moments before.

There had been no warning of a hit from enemy gunfire from any particular direction because increasing levels of enemy gunfire were now coming in from almost all directions.

Gordon P. Samuels' crew had done their job eagerly and proficiently from CDR Devereaux to the ship's mess staff who acted as damage control and nurse's assistants in combat conditions- but no level of skill or aggression could offset the inevitable direction that the battle was now taking.

Te'Dak Tohl squadrons and battle groups were no longer rousing themselves from lazy station-keeping in orbit around Earth. The Zentraedi beast was now fully awake, and with the attack corvettes' breaking of contact and lightning egress from the battlespace, the rage of the enemy was in need of another outlet.

The clear and readily available target was the force of frigates that had chased in the wake of the corvette assault in hopes of providing some measure of distraction and defense for them from the rear. In this task, they had been as successful as any operational planner had dared hope, but that task accomplished the order of the day had become every vessel for itself in the face of obscenely overwhelming odds.

For minutes now Gordon P. Samuels had been fighting from behind a layered defense- employing her sensor image projection system to the maximum while shielding herself with the protective bubble of her DS-2 spherical barrier defense system which dulled the edge of her electronic countermeasures somewhat. Running without the added physical protection to the ship had simply become unsound though as enemy vessels were filling space with active sensor pulses in hopes of finding quarry upon which their guns could be trained.

The wisdom of the decision had repeatedly shown its self-evidence over the course of just a few minutes as Gordon P. Samuels' barrier had absorbed a dozen or more glancing blows from enemy particle beams, and five direct hits penetrating- the last of which had contacted the hull to the effect reported to the CO through LCDR Petersen.

"Conn, Communications-. Subspace UHF on Priority channels from Jun Chau and the carriers-. They're reporting themselves engaged at close range, Skipper- sounds bad…"

"Conn, aye."

Devereaux did not waste breath on voicing questions of whether such circumstances could ever be deemed "good" and instead invested herself on closing out business for herself and her command this day.

Power was still strong to all of Gordon P. Samuels' gun batteries with the exception of the ventral battery Petersen had reported knocked out of action, and they continued to suck juice as quickly as it could be fed to them. There was an abundance of targets, and all were growing steadily nearer under covering fire from their own guns.

All that could be done had been done, and now it was time to leave.

"Weps, what's in the tubes?!", Devereaux demanded from the Senior Fire Control Director.

"All tubes will be hot in fifteen seconds Skipper- reloading in progress."

"Select proximal Master targets and push the solutions!", Devereaux ordered, craving strangely at that moment the cigar in her coveralls' breast pocket that she had reserved for after this very battle. She wasn't done earning it just yet though.

"-Navs, refine your jump profile to the rendezvous point, and Fold-Ops stand by to execute."

"Aye, Skipper!"

"Conn, Fire Control- all tubes hot- now."

"Shoot upon assignment, Weps!", Deveraux ordered and was rewarded with the indication of Pegasus missiles leaving her ship before she issued her next order, "-Helm, come right one-two-five degrees and keep it floored!"

"We getting outta here, Skipper?", Petersen asked, the steely-nerved XO sounding clearly relieved.

"We're getting the hell outta here."

Even under the buffering effect of inertial dampeners, Gordon P. Samuels creaked and groaned with the physical strain of changing course at sub-light speeds and her crew felt the same effect having to lean heavily into the turn or risk being thrown by it. Loose objects, of which there were very few in CIC slid away from the turn skipped across the deck to resting places against station consoles or bulkheads.

Devereaux monitored the changing direction of her ship's plot in the tactical display as she came hard about in the direction of the only broad avenue mostly devoid of enemy units left available to her. She would make the jump into fold long before she physically cleared the collapsing pocket of converging Zentraedi vessels- but there was a certain psychological relief that came with actively evading peril.

Other frigates of Doolittle Two were in the process of jumping away already- but the last of Devereaux's "hot" tubes were only now releasing their weapons – and Devereaux had one last surprise she could leave for the dittos at minimal risk to herself and her ship.

The tactical display blanked for a moment, a split-second really, returning with all of the detail it had shown before its flicker, but with the blinking message "RE-ESTABLISHING INFOLINK NETWORK".

InfoLink, channeled through Bristol as Doolittle Two's flagship had collapsed signifying a number of horrible possibilities that Devereaux had neither the time or emotional capacity to dwell upon at the moment.

Gordon P. Samuels was leaving.

Bianca Stowe in trail by 500Km and to Gordon P. Samuels' port flashed in icon representation as parting salvos from the Te'Dak Tohl found her barrier and obliterated the little field integrity it had left to it. Devereaux's heart entered her throat as she looked for what indications the tactical display could give her of the sister-Stratford Class frigate's condition and whether she was to be lost so near to the moment of escape.

Breath escaped Devereaux in relief as Bianca Stowe's icon glowed in the blue flicker that indicated spacefold and then vanished.

"I thought we were leaving, Skipper?!", Petersen asked as Gordon P. Samuels became the lone REF vessel on a churning sea of Zentraedi fury.

"Weps-.", Devereaux ordered as the CIC shook around her from another strike to her vessel's weakening barrier sphere, "Deploy mines- wide dispersal!"

"Conn, Fire Control, aye! Mines away and clear. Lockers empty!"

"Cease gun fire, secure all and return guns from battery! -Sensor, retract and secure passive antennas!", LCDR Petersen added, inserting the necessary direction between the CO's orders.

"Drop barrier!.", Devereaux ordered as she motioned to the waiting Fold Operations station and its technicians, "GO!"

"Barrier secure!"

"Folding!"

Gordon P. Samuels slipped smoothly into hyperspace with the dissolving blue streak of her hull-conformal field and to her enemies was gone.

Salvos fired by Te'Dak Tohl vessels both shrewdly and wildly sliced through now-open space having been fired at a target that no longer remained even in the same physical plane.

The hounds' blood was up and their nostrils filled with the scent, and though the fox had vanished from the field into a burrow- the ground it had occupied had the primal requirement attached to it to investigate.

For this purpose with little hope of confirming anything but open space and the waning trembles of subspace disturbance left in the wake of a spacefold, a single destroyer advanced in trail of a four Salan scout element in a narrow search and sweep formation.

As space near to Earth had acquired in the past days an expected quantity of metallic and synthetic debris, it was not inconceivable that eight masses, each slightly smaller in dimensions to a city bus, and seemingly adrift were missed by Zentraedi sensor technicians searching for threats in the form of a warship.

The eight Mk-29 self-propelled mines were drifting, though in a controlled, self-monitoring fashion that had borrowed velocity from their deployment from the tubes situated in Gordon P. Samuels' aft, ventral hull and moderated by small bursts of thrust from their maneuvering jets.

The weapons were already in communication with one another, aware of each other's relative positions, and working to form a pre-assigned net configuration that would maximize the area of the snare they were intended to be measured by the reach of the four Ballista missiles each carried. –And though they had not yet reached their optimum "net" configuration, the mines were active and aware by means of passive sensors the approach of five spacecraft.

Panels opened along the smooth flanks of three mines within the field that the collective had determined to be best positioned to ambush the approaching prey, and initial guidance was fed to the Ballistas as they were swung outboard within their launch tubes.

Coldly calculating and unflappably patient computers waited, waited, waited as the Zentraedi warships came on, touching the outer sphere of the Ballista's range. Deciding by risk-algorithm to stay missile release and permit the warships to draw even nearer, the mines oriented themselves into position.

Having determined by passive sensor analysis that the vessels were indeed Zentraedi, the three mines performed a final failsafe function intended to prevent accidental fratricide-. A coded, subspace transmission burst made IFF challenge to the approaching vessels and waited for a fraction of a second for the response that would have been provided by a "friendly".

No response.

The three mines exhausted themselves with a in a single volley, a fusillade of all twelve of their combined Ballistas released at just over 8,000Km distance.

The weapons had shed their rocket motor launch stage and were halfway to target before the small Zentraedi force was even aware of the threat, and the orders for evasive action in the process of being given when eight Ballistas divided themselves evenly between the leading line of Salan Class scouts.

Nuclear warheads in the .5 kiloton range, each comparable to a full-powered particle beam bolt from one of their own vessel's primary battery turrets, penetrated thinly armored hulls and detonated with lethal effect from within.

Burning clouds of nuclear-fired vapor were still expanding in the space where the Salan scouts had been when the destroyer, initiating an emergency turn and 2,000Km in trail took the remaining four Ballistas in staggered hits that walked along the length of her starboard flank. Her thicker outer hull intended to stand the trials of the line of battle accepted most of the explosions with some severe though non-catastrophic damage penetrating into the secondary hull and the compartments within. The starboard engine flared brilliantly as the last missile of the salvo struck it squarely through the intercooler vents, rendering the drive unit useless.

Other Te'Dak Tohl vessels, tens and hundreds of thousands of kilometers distant who had been monitoring the probing unit's progress with only modest interest were suddenly at alert again- wary now of a formerly unknown threat, but in the terror of not understanding it's precise nature or abilities.

The fox it seemed had teeth even in its absence, and sharp ones at that.

For the hounds whether or not it was their intent, the day's hunt was over.

Brasilia

"When can I get outta here, Sarge?", PFC Crawley from 3rd Platoon's 2nd Squad asked Byerly eagerly, having probably asked his own squad leader, Sgt. Nadeau already and not gotten the answer he wanted.

The makeshift infirmary set up in one of the niches off of the unfinished subway station's tunnel sheltered worse cases for treatment than Crawley, but the gauze bandages applied with medical tape to a good portion of the left side of the PFC's face, and the empty syrette of morphine similarly taped to the frame of the cot he sat on with the time of its administration said that he was in the right place. Scorch marks to Crawley's body armor that was collected in a neat pile nearby spoke of a Regult's particle beam that had hit near enough to sear its synthetic components, and also the PFC's face that had been unshielded for some undetermined reason at the time of the bolt's arrival.

Crawley was fortunate though- a direct or nearer hit by the weapon designed to engage and defeat light to moderately armored mecha would have precluded the need for him to be restricted to the infirmary and the medics' care.

Crawley knew of course, but he was not one who liked to be seen idle or slacking. –It wasn't the Ranger way.

"You'll get out when Doc Lancing says you get out.", Byerly replied shortly but with unspoken understanding of Crawley's desire to be back on the line, "Until then that cot is the post you're standing."

"-Post he's sitting, Sarge.", corrected PFC Gordon from 3rd Squad, laying face-down on the cot next to Crawley, "Best thing too, `cause seeing his pretty face all jacked up would just break everyone's heart…"

Crawley, not so dulled by morphine to not recognize a jab and respond shot back, "Yeah, well at least I can sit, you tool. How the fuck do you get shrapnel in the butt wearing body armor? You must'a wanted it in the ass!.."
"Like your sister?"

"Yeah, and your mama."

Whilite, who had been hanging back gestured at Byerly to end the schoolyardish repartee – it was clear that the wounds were neither life-threatening, nor banter-quelling unfortunately. -And there were occupants of other cots who needed quiet to rest and whose platoons had fared worse than 3rd.

"Yeah, well be nice to one another.", Byerly said in a forced, "mother" tone, "-You've got so much to talk about now- like having your best sides all tore up."

Crawley laughed a little, the rip on Gordon made a little funnier by the morphine as the other PFC replied, "Thanks, Sarge-."

Byerly and Whilite were ready to move on when Gordon asked after the NCO primarily, "-Hey, did the dittos really get Soap?.."

"Soap", as the name had been hung on him, or Corporal Ivory had indeed been "gotten".

Neither Whilite nor Byerly had seen it happen, but when 3rd Platoon had rallied Sergeant Emmerson had reported it to them mastering himself and still every bit in the fight, but clearly shaken below the hardened surface.

Ivory's fire team had been covering the movement of the team that composed the other half of 4th Squad when a bold-spirited Regult pilot would not take the hint that two anti-mecha rockets were intended to provide.

From the unimportant details Whilite had gotten later through Byerly from Emmerson, it was unclear whether the Battle Pod had actually seen Ivory's fire team, or if it was just charging through engrossed in the hunt- but the end result had been the same. Ivory had not been as quick in displacing from his fire team's position as his subordinates and had been crushed underfoot by the Regult.

Driven by the same mecha that had killed the corporal and in retreat from the area under the warning of the Gnerls on ground-attack approach, PFCs Wurth and Carnes had sworn to Sgt. Emmerson, and then SSG. Byerly, and then later to Whilite that there was no question of Ivory's instantaneous death nor of their ability to immediately recover his body.

None of their superiors had insinuated cowardice or failure to come to Soap's aide- but Rangers did not make a practice of leaving their fallen behind.

Even core principles had to give way to reality though. –One Ranger dead, as unpalatable as it was, was still preferable to three.

-And other platoons had lost more.

"Yeah -.", Byerly confirmed, "Part of the business, but so is payback."

Crawley muttered, "-Man, that's fucked up…"

"Yeah.", agreed Gordon.

At least they wouldn't be at each other it seemed to Byerly, and yeah- it was fucked up.

-But that was it. No more profound reason sometimes than it just being part of the business.

"Hey, El-Tee-.", Crawley asked, looking at his lieutenant through the bandages that partially covered his face, "What's up with the ASC dudes, sir?"

Whilite shrugged and replied honestly, "Don't know yet. Cap's figuring that out now."

Crawley shook his head again with the injustice he then verbalized, "So, Soap gets it, Gordon gets a couple new assholes, and I get half-turned into a Whopper and they skate outta it unscratched? That ain't right, El-Tee."

Whilite recalled his initial exchange with ASC Staff Sergeant Alvarez hours earlier at their first meeting and assured his Ranger, "They'd taken their beating already, Crawley. –And since when does what's right have anything to do with anything? Rest up now- we're gonna need all our peter-pushers pushin' peter in the theater…"

Byerly followed Whilite on the exit, saying over her shoulder to back her lieutenant, "-Yeah, dick metaphors –like El-Tee said."

Levity, as necessary as it had been, seemed suddenly in poor taste to both Whilite and Byerly as they stepped through the crudely hung tarps that served as a door of sorts for the tunnel niche that functioned as the makeshift infirmary and came almost nose-to-nose with Lieutenants Hall and Fenton of 2nd and 4th Platoons respectively.

LT Hall had sustained the most wounded to his platoon out of all of those in Echo Company, all varying degrees of non-life threatening that would be macho, boast-worthy scars in three weeks' time. –But he'd also lost his senior NCO, Staff Sergeant Krona and the company's notorious "card shark", PFC MacGregor at the same time.

Lost it seemed to Whilite as he met with Byerly the other officers on the narrow, elevated walkway to the side of the unfinished tunnel's rail bed was an odd, sterilizing term for how the two Rangers had died by report of "soldier's talk". The Regults engaged the previous night had quickly learned that the thermal-masking elements of the Rangers' body armor deprived them of clear targets to track and engage- so by the end of the fight they had turned to their lesser, dual autocannon armaments to saturate areas the pilots suspected the Rangers to be.

Whether the Zentraedi Warriors had been unique to their kind and "forward thinking", or if it had simply been coincidence- they had loaded the ammunition hoppers of their mecha with fragmentation rounds better suited for "soft" targets and not the armor-piercing variety that would have been appropriate for mecha or hardened vehicles.

The end result had been the same.

In Gordon's instance, a proximity-fuzed fragmentation round had exploded to his rear (literally and figuratively) as he'd been on the retreat with his fire team, producing the wounds he now suffered from.

In Krona and MacGregor's case, the round or rounds exploding had been much nearer and the result unescapably fatal in the most gruesome terms. Whilite and Byerly had seen the corporal and a PFC from Krona's squad before their visit to the infirmary as the two men had been desperately trying to remove dried human blood and clinging bits of flesh from their body armor out of the sight of others who had witnessed and were not in need of reminding.

"How are Crawley and Gordon?", Hall asked Whilite, relieving the 3rd Platoon officer of the awkward burden of initiating a conversation.

"They're Crawley and Gordon.", Whilite said, offering a cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket to both Hall and Fenton as he took one for himself, "-The dittos only had to wound `em. –They figured they'd finish each other off, I suppose."

Hall, smelling strongly of many cigarettes smoked recently declined the offer of another lest cancer do what the previous night had not, but LT Fenton accepted.

If Hall's 2nd Platoon had taken the night's prize for the most jarring deaths, then Fenton's 4th Platoon had taken it for the most unsettling. They had by chance been in the thickest, most unrelenting area of the skirmish in the woodland outside of the Brasilia International Airport, but had been causing far more grief to the enemy than what they had been receiving when the urgent order to withdraw had been given. Deepest into the fight and farthest from the established rallying point, 4th Platoon had been under the greatest pressure to move with speed out of the area that the enemy obliterated with plasma napalm under a minute after the order to retreat had been given.

Fenton's 3rd Squad simply had not shown up at the rallying point, nor was there response from any of the six Rangers that composed it to radio call.

The woodland that had been was by this time a broad field of boiling puddles of glass, making any kind of meaningful search impossible.

Captain Nguyen had made the call to withdraw with the obligatory promise that a search would be performed later- but even at the time there were no expectations that Fenton's 3rd Squad was to be found alive.

-Still, Rangers did not leave their dead behind, so the loss carried with it the dangerous and solemn duty that would serve Krona and MacGregor as well.

"You've got everyone in Third Platoon volunteering to go out looking.", Whilite said lighting his cigarette as he spoke while Fenton took one being offered, "-The whole company, really… So when are we on the hump?"

"Captain won't say yet.", Fenton replied, "But he's not gonna let everyone go on a recovery sweep."

Whilite was relieved to hear the other lieutenant use the term recovery versus rescue- at least he had a grasp on what to realistically expect.

"-No, but that doesn't mean that everyone won't honestly volunteer."

"Everyone..", Fenton laughed darkly, "Seems like a few more fights like last night and there might not be enough everyone left to form a fire team. We're going against full-size ditto infantry and mecha with small arms and anti-mecha rockets. Any way you slice it, attrition is gonna be a bitch on us."

"Seeing as how, we tripped over near a whole platoon of ASC when we thought for sure we were the only shooters left in town.", Whilite pointed out having done the tripping, "Maybe there's others creepin' around still out there."

Hall was immediately unconvinced, "Yeah, Ed, you found some ASC types, but that doesn't mean they're gonna stick around- or that the old man wants `em sticking around. You remember sweeping the northern districts. –I'm pretty damn sure Captain Nguyen does. The damn ASC was almost as dangerous as the dittos."

"Well, circumstances have changed a little, haven't they, Dave?", Whilite countered, "Maybe it's only a little better, but still better ASC with us than going it alone."

"Marginally.", Fenton conceded, "But Cap' won't leave `em tending the store while we're out bringing our people home."

"-And a platoon of ASC- even commandos- will buy us maybe one or two more skirmishes like last night before we're combat ineffective.", Hall added showing the twitch of needing the cigarette he had declined, "We're just not equipped to brawl repeatedly with Zentraedi regulars. At best we're on the shit-end of the stick."

Whilite could not honestly argue with Hall and Fenton. By realistic measurement, the operation the night before had gone well given the risks involved and haste in which it had been planned and executed – but it had cost Echo Company nine Rangers dead, and over twice as many wounded.

The enemy garrison by contrast had committed only a fraction of its strength to the fight that had ensued, and while its casualty list at the end of the operation was longer- the enemy had the numbers to lose.

Echo Company's "successes" would bleed the unit dry before they were more than an annoyance to the Zentraedi. It was the simple math equation that was Brasilia now.

Still, Whilite knew that neither Hall nor Fenton were advocating the throwing-in of the towel yet –but an alternative had to be found.

"Singh had a thought on that yesterday.", Whilite said, recalling the conversation by its sudden relevance, "There are still a lot of Cyclones lying around Homestead wanting for use. –And Sri's boys did a pretty good job holding their own against the dittos, didn't they?"

The handful of Gurkhas remaining from the 70th Gurkha Rifles had fared well, not having lost a single rifleman or having sustained so much as a scratch. Machismo-driven argument aside, the Gurkhas were no stronger, braver, or better trained than the Rangers of Echo Company- nor were they sons of Krypton either. Their edge in battle and the reason for their null losses had been the Cyclones that their legacy unit had adopted.

"Something to think about, I guess.", Hall agreed after mulling over a moment and looking to Fenton for some kind of agreement, suggested, "-Add to our strengths, play on the dittos' weaknesses. It isn't the worst idea I've heard anyway…"

"Better than the hate-fucking last night turned into at the least.", Whilite said having not thought his words through before voicing them and in seeing Byerly wince slightly, quickly back-peddled with, "-Sorry, Mike- I didn't mean to…"

Lieutenant Fenton, showing for a moment a more acute version of the expression Byerly had flashed shook his head dismissively, "Forgotten-. It's like I keep saying to my people- just gotta rock up."

Whilite could taste the distinct flavors of boot and Brazilian soil from having put his own foot into his mouth, and saw no need to linger on the chances of a second helping.

"We're headed to the CP. –Gonna see about getting the Old Man to let Third Platoon tag along with you on the recovery, and maybe pitch the Cyclone idea if I can dig Sri up-."

Fenton nodded agreement for Hall and himself, replying, "We'll be along in a few. –Just gonna make the rounds with our wounded."

"We were twelve kliks northwest of Brasilia when the dittos attacked.", Staff Sergeant Alvarez said, having consumed the full contents of one MRE ration package and opened a second with the intent to inflict heavy casualties. Like he had revealed of his men of The Army of the Southern Cross, 24th Mountain Regiment, Hotel Company, 2nd Platoon- Alvarez had been living in the field for the better part of a week on quarter-rations. Malnourishment had not become an issue yet, but hunger had been a nearly constant weight upon them.

Captain Nguyen had extended every hospitality he had available to Echo Company's Gemini Coalition allies. The senior Ranger had insisted after a short, preliminary debriefing that determined that the Recon commandoes had no intelligence of any enemy activity that might have been an immediate threat to the two units that they eat and make use of the base camp's limited but evolving wash facilities. Hot bunking rack time rotation had even been figured roughly by SGM MacDonald and approved gratefully for his men by SSG Alvarez

Alvarez and the next ranking NCO, SGT Carol had washed, shaved, and eaten having first seen their troops do the same. So now as a number of the ASC was crashing on cots for the first scheduled sleep for weeks hospitality was seeking reciprocity in the way of more information on how Echo Company and Hotel's 2nd Platoon had come to meet.

Sergeant Major MacDonald offered Alvarez a cup of modestly hot coffee in an aluminum mess kit cup as the ASC staff sergeant continued his exposition.

"-We'd been out on a hard target sweep for malcontent units that we knew to be hitting some of our OPs and patrols monitoring the northern traffic in and out of Brasilia-. -Standard stuff to put the fear of God into `em. We sprang a few really sweet raids on their camps, displaced 'em, stalked and hit `em while they were still on the move- even got out in front of `em once and snared them in an ambush because they were busy looking over their shoulders for us. Whittled a hundred or so down to fifty in three contacts, and halved that again in three days. –Point wasn't to kill `em all, y'know…"

"Strong-arm psychological warfare, basically…", Staff Sergeant Byerly expounded.

3rd Platoon's lieutenant and senior NCO had slipped in while Alvarez had been engrossed in the telling of his unit's epic, and the Rangers around him captivated in the hearing of it and in filling in the details with their own experience-fueled imaginations.

"Yeah, exactly.", Alvarez affirmed, a slight grin coming to the corners his mouth,"-Sounds cooler when you say it like that…. Can I borrow that?"

"No, but the cost per use is real reasonable.", Byerly replied offering Alvarez a cigarette.

Whilite knew Byerly's sass as though it was a standard ration that all of 3rd Platoon received daily- which in fact they did. He was going to warn Alvarez with that grin of his as much, when the lieutenant realized his sergeant was wearing the same quirky expression.

"-No thanks- don't smoke.", Alvarez said declining the cigarette before continuing, "So we're about to turn twenty-five or so into ten or less who we figure we'll cut loose to tell the tale to their friends when the attack comes- the real attack, I mean."

"-We're familiar with this part of the story.", Whilite said sounding short enough to surprise himself and drawing a sharp look from Byerly who still had that damn grin on her face….

"-Sorry, Sergeant- go on."

Alvarez shrugged, "Well, we lost contact with that group and never saw `em again really as we were trying to get back to Homestead- we'd lost comms with the JOC, Regiment everyone. We did manage to bump into every group of pissed-off dittos on the way back though. Multiple random contacts, real intense close-quarters shit. We lost our lieutenant and two others, but eventually we got back to base. The place had been abandoned and ransacked- the supply depot and armories emptied and what wasn't taken was burned in a hurry. We took what little was salvageable and made off with it."

Whilite thought back to the nerve-peeling process that had been surveying, collecting, loading, and transporting supplies from the RDF storage areas also on Homestead a now-distant 48 hours or more before. His recollection was filled with the maddening task of moving too much material with too few men over too great a distance with even fewer men providing overwatch against an onslaught of malcontent Zentraedi that he had been certain would come flooding the smashed post or ambush the awkward supply convoy on broken roads at any second.

"We never got into the ASC areas.", Whilite said, "It would have been a longer haul, and there wasn't a need. Why didn't you probe the RDF side?"

"We'd meant to.", Alvarez explained, "-But there were indications of activity in the RDF compound and we had what we needed immediately for the raid on the airport we'd planned. –You know the rest, sirs."

Byerly said to Whilite referring to the last of Alvarez's tale, "That'd be a lark if that had been us, El-Tee... Would'a saved us a real cheek-clencher last night at least."

"Yeah-", Whilite replied noticing that the two staff sergeants were eye locked again, "Had the stars only aligned…"

Whilite realized to his own displeasure that he was less interested in SSG Alvarez's report of his unit's activities up to encountering 3rd Platoon mid-operation than in Alvarez himself- or rather, Byerly's interest.

Alvarez had shown every required military courtesy in speaking with Echo Company's officers and SGM MacDonald, demonstrating subordination in rank- but there was something that was rubbing Whilite the wrong way about the ASC Mountain Recon NCO.

-And then in a flash, he had it.

Alvarez, with his sharp, and admittedly handsome Latin features and an MMA champion's build straining against the confines of a cotton/polyester blend BDU t-shirt was everything that high school and university girlfriends had drooled over- and everything that Whilite's fit, but lanky, mostly Scottish, pale and white bread appearance was not.

A measure of self-loathing washed through Whilite's veins hotly as he shamed himself for the pettiness of thinking that way of the other man who he barely knew because he happened to look like a Calvin Klein underwear model with miraculously perfect teeth and…

Damnit, there it was again….

"CP, OP One-.", came SGT Harris's voice clearly over the speaker of a walkie-talkie left atop a neat stack of C2 gear that had not yet been connected and configured in Echo Company's new command center, "-I need Actual."

All who had been focused on Alvarez's tale heard clearly the telling tone of the sniper team's senior member and were instantaneously attentive.

Captain Nguyen motioned to the walkie-talkie, snapping his fingers with the clear imperative to which SGM MacDonald responded by picking up the radio and tossing it to the company CO.

"-Actual. Over.", Nguyen said calmly though nerves around were suddenly on edge.

"Need you topside, sir.", Harris replied, "Nothing dangerous, I don't think- but something you gotta see. Over."

Nguyen's expression was a puzzled one, as were the expressions of all hearing Harris's cryptic report. –But at least there was the assurance that it was not a threat.

"Coming topside.", Nguyen said, "Give us a minute or two to get there. Over."

"No hurry, Actual. I think this might go on for a while. Over."

Captain Nguyen slid off the crate he was sitting on and nodded for all in his presence to join him as he headed toward the scaffolding that provided access to the unfinished subway station's mezzanine that in turn gave access to the steep escalator shaft to street level. That climb, plus an additional five levels through the stairwell of the gutted office building standing directly overhead would bring the "expedition" to the observation post from which SGT Harris had made his report.

Only SGM MacDonald picked up his M-35 rifle that leaned against a concrete wall nearby as he passed, the other officers and NCOs went carrying only their side-arms.

SGT Harris had promised no danger, but MacDonald was one who always erred on the side of preparedness.

Staff Sergeant Byerly had been falling in to follow the group that included SSG Alvarez when she had become aware that Whilite was lingering behind- and by extension caused her to linger as well.

The group led by Captain Nguyen was on the level above and by their fading voices and footfalls approaching what would have been the station's escalator had war not intervened before either who had stayed behind spoke.

"Was there something we're staying on, El-Tee?", Byerly asked sounding slightly guarded.

"I don't know, Staff Sergeant-.", Whilite replied, "-Is there something?"

"Not that I'm aware of, sir-."

Whilite laughed, partly trying to defuse the tension that was quickly ramping up to an uncomfortable level, "Well, then you're the only one unaware of it!.. What's with the… -The googly eyes?.."

"Googly eyes, sir?", Byerly asked, sounding more formal than ever.

"You and Alvarez- we barely know guy."

Byerly edged out of her position in rank slightly as she replied, "Is there some kind of problem, Lieutenant?"

"I thought I just asked the same question.", Whilite said.

Byerly contained noticeable fire with regulation civility, saying, "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"If it'll move things along, granted."

Both barrels went off.

"What's your problem?!", Byerly snapped with an energy that nearly put Whilite back onto his heels, "-We're neck-deep in the shit for a week, coming off of a month of kickin' in doors and starting shit before that- and you're getting up my ass about smiling at a cute guy?!... You got some huevos there El-Tee, seeing as to how many times you and every other mud-roller in this platoon have checked out the way the booty fills the BDUs!…"

Whilite was suddenly in his high school principal's office again.

"-Have not!…"

"Have too!", Byerly fired back, slapping her right hip emphatically with each syllable, "HAVE FUCK-ING TOO! -If looks could impregnate, I'd have twenty baby-daddies by now!.. Do I say anything though? -No. Do I tell every Private I tie my boots in front of that I'm too tired for an eye-fucking? -No. –They do their jobs, I do mine, and so long as everyone stays squarely within the lines of regulations, the Green Machine keeps rolling on. –But I smiled and made eyes at another NCO…"

Whilite was no longer in the principal's office, he was out at the woodshed having picked his own switch for the licking he was taking.

"So, El-Tee-.", Byerly continued, demonstrating the leathery constitution that partially made her the great sergeant that Whilite considered her to be, "-Have I violated any regulations?"

"No, Staff Sergeant."

"Have I violated the Uniform Code of Conduct?"

"No, Staff Sergeant."

"Have I failed to perform any of my duties?"

"No, Staff Sergeant."

"Do you have any reason to suspect I will fail in my duties?"

"-Of course not…"

"Well then.", Byerly resolved, the storm having passed, "Will there be anything else, Lieutenant?"

Whilite felt obligated by rank to have the last word- but what that word was, he simply could not grasp.

"-Look, just…."

"Keep the beaver off the log?", Byerly suggested.

"Yeah, something like that."

"-You ask so much of me, El-Tee."

Whilite felt the need to seek the company of others, and safety in their numbers from his senior NCO. He found himself leading the way up the scaffold to the mezzanine as quickly as possible- without looking rushed.

"We never have to speak of this again."

"No problem, El-Tee.", Byerly agreed, "-He is hot though."

"Really?.."

"Especially his butt. Talk about a double-handful there…"

"I can't hear this anymore."

"You're just jealous that his is nicer!"

"Did I mention that the whole speaking freely thing was over?"

"Yes, sir. Understood."

"-Good talk then."

"-What do you mean, his butt is nicer than mine?..."

"Soooo much better, El-Tee. Orders of magnitude better…"

It had been a long, but very informative five flights of stairs to the roof of the office building and OP-1 where Harris and Fuller had created a nest that bordered on comfortable.

The morning sun was well above Brasilia's beaten and slouching skyline and was driving the last cool dewiness from the air. A light breeze was blowing due east and in doing so was drawing the black cloud of smoke that still rose from the international airport to the southwest into stream of sooty haze. Lesser amounts of white smoke drifted from further west and where the parcel of woodland into which Echo Company and their ASC allies had had made their escape had been.

A plume of flame infused with glittering particles rose through the densest of the black smoke and was followed at several seconds by the crackling, popping report of distant explosions.

"We must have put a worse hurt on them than we thought, Captain.", Whilite said, genuinely surprised that the fires within the Zentraedi perimeter had been permitted to continue burning. The Zentraedi were not known for practicing great damage control or containment though.

"Yeah, that's something Lieutenant", SGT Harris agreed, "-But look up."

Whilite's and Byerly's necks craned to direct their eyes heavenward.

-And what a sight it was….

Through the deepest blue of the sky, an orb of light flashed intensely and subsided, followed by another in the same relative area, followed by another, and another.

As the initial shock of the sight thawed, Whilite searched the sky to find similar indications of orbital space combat visible in a broad band that appeared to arc the sky in an east to west direction.

"-That's gotta be our Fleet doing the shooting, right Captain?", Whilite asked.

"That would be the best guess.", Nguyen replied not able to confirm the suspicion, "-And it's a hell of a welcome sight."

-And it was, as was the distant, thin line of smoky fire that seemed to originate from a random point in the eastern sky and descend toward the horizon like a spider riding down on a strand of its own web-silk. Something massive falling out of orbit no doubt.

Whilite only hoped it was Zentraedi.

Durango, Mexico

Meals and enemies were best consumed one bite at a time.

-So said the old Warrior's proverb.

Action General 1st Grade Hesthira's 9th Mechanized Corps had been spilling out of every pass and rolling down every eastern slope of the mountain range for hours now with the promise of more hours of the same before the whole unit would shake itself completely free of the jagged and extreme topography.

Hesthira had no idea of the name given to the range in the indigenous, micronian tongue- but the name his Warriors had come to call it had filtered through the chain of command to nestle in his ear- "The Saw Tooth Mountains". –Perhaps not the most carefully conceived name ever given by a Warrior to an alien landscape, but not inaccurate to be sure.

The mountains had claimed the lives of as many Warriors in the 9th Mechanized Corps' navigation of them as the first hour of actual combat with the micronians had. Insignificant losses overall, true- but losses that would have served a better purpose if they had been sustained in battle and not to deeply plunging hills of loose, baked earth and rock.

It was a matter of Fate's will that Hesthira had admitted long ago that even he was subject to as a corps commander.

In the open field though he had a measure of greater influence, and it was control that he wielded to its understood limits.

-And right now he controlled the gross movements of his corps as it consumed the retreating enemy's flank a bite at a time.

Hesthira had been briefed extensively, or at least to the extent that intelligence was available, on micronian mecha and military technology as well as tactical doctrine. As one could expect from a race that appeared to have neither embraced cloning nor autonomous servile artificial intelligence, great measures had been taken to maximize the combat effectiveness of every mecha or vehicle fielded while placing equal emphasis on survivability for the pilot or crew. This, and the prevailing approach to combat of conducting the fight from as great a distance as each particular platform and its weapon systems would afford was something that had been documented repeatedly from Supreme General Breetai's first encounters with this unremarkable species to the dwindling and last reports from units of Dolza's Imperial Fleet whose shamed remnants could still be found marooned on this world.

Hesthira had taken the accumulated intelligence and briefings for the most part on face value, reserving final judgment for himself and not discounting the variables of his enemy's motivation and skill that were so often the weightiest of factors in a battle's disposition.

-And the micronians had not disappointed.

One for one, Hesthira had seen with his own eyes how standard or artillery Regults were little to no match for most if not all the micronian forms of Robotechnology and military vehicle encountered so far. Glaug Officer Pods fared somewhat better in most conditions, the heavily armored Nousjadeul-Gar combat suits better still, though not with the superb performance of the Serhot-Ran's Nacht-Rau power armor. –All of which added up to adhering predominantly to the battle doctrine that had served norghil Zentraedi for generations.

Attack in numbers.

Attack with speed.

Attack with aggression.

Hesthira had refined his tactical principles considerably beyond these simple precepts, and he applied his refinements rigorously- but the three central pillars remained.

Free of the mountains, the Action General had directed his Warriors to rush on smaller micronian units, enveloping and destroying the smaller elements of the alien whole with the weight of numbers. The enemy, he found could not outpace or outmaneuver his ground forces on an open field- and their advantages of artillery and long-range weaponry were negated when forced to engage in close quarters with a foe.

Similarly, even their specialized and admittedly impressive air power was of diminished to null value when the enemy and Hesthira's units meshed. The enemy's air advantage could be precluded altogether when forced to contend with Gnerl squadrons and Nacht Rau in quantity of either or combination of both.

Hesthira had also discovered quickly that tactics discovered and fine-tuned long ago in campaigns against rogue norghil and Invid were equally effective against these micronians. Area saturation by heavy missile from supporting warships in low orbit, followed by immediate air assault by Gnerl fighters from the same had a pronounced, withering effect on the alien units and their ability to fight effectively. –And when used against micronian artillery or missile battery positions, the effect was equally staggering to the enemy and with all the beneficial windfalls coming to the 9th Mechanized Corps that removal of those micronian assets provided.

When these attacks were followed by intense assault moving to close range by company or multi-company sized elements of the 9th Mechanized Corps, the result all this day had been either the scattering or obliteration of the alien units.

Much of this had to do with the courage, initiative, and skill of field grade officers down to the platoon level. Hesthira did not delude himself to think that he could ever apply his own mastered and balanced aggression at that level, so he was vigilant in imparting the need to identify and groom those warriors to his division, regiment, and even company commanders.

Cracks in the enemy's cohesion and effectiveness began often at a low level, sometimes even a single skirmish. If Hesthira had commanders at that level who knew to look for and to exploit those opportunities, he knew he would have advantages to exploit at his level of Corps Commander.

For Hesthira and the 9th Mechanized Corps, the day had started with initial frustrations and set-backs. At the battle group level, Fleet had failed to anticipate and assign adequate warship support for field operations. This was not uncommon, even in The 7th Grand Army of The Te'Dak Tohl as officers who fought campaigns from command bubbles were more keen to envision and seek out fleet-level action and not concern themselves with Warriors who muddied their armor.

Coordination of consistent Fleet support had not been achieved when Hesthira's Warriors had broken out of the mountain chain and would not likely have been of use in preventing the dropping of a massive conventional bomb by the micronians that had leveled one of their own small population centers and the better part of one of Hesthira's regiments in a single, awesome blast.

The realization in Fleet's command chain shifted with that moment and a series of others similar to it all along the axis of advance that the battle and claims to glory were to be found below.

Support became abundant for Hesthira and his Warriors, increasing substantially as the shock of the powerful conventional bomb was still thawing within those who had witnessed it and survived. The template for effective and aggressive advance was quickly established thereafter with adequate coordination between Hesthira's vanguard units and Fleet to direct orbital missile fire and fighter support established tenuously.

And so the cooperation between Fleet and the 9th Mechanized Corps had functioned for many hours, late into the day, through dusk, and into the night with Fleet's missiles pulverizing areas of micronian unit concentration or strong points of resistance before Hesthira's mecha moved in to complete the massacre under heavy Gnerl support overhead.

Until-.

Something had started to happen within the Fleet above.

Command channels open to all sanctioned commanders at the appropriate level of rank during combined action efforts had suddenly become glutted with frantic and confused messages, and then had gone silent as non-essential access was cut. In the moments that followed, tactical officers aboard low-orbiting vessels informed their earthbound counterparts in tones of forced calm that support operations were being temporarily halted as was evident in parallel on the tactical channels directing Gnerl squadrons whose courses and tasking was redirected mid-descent into hurried return to their base ships.

Whatever portion of restricting comms-channel access to select commanders was necessity to preserve uncluttered communication and what portion was to compartmentalize the panic inherent in being under surprise attack was unclear. –However, the evidence of a fleet action that had not been planned for became quickly visible to all in the dark western skies not yet softened by the hints first light in the east.

The flare of clustered, catastrophic explosions blemished a particular region of the sky, marring its inkiness and muting out the pinprick light of stars with their subsiding glow that lingered like the fading aura of dying embers. The distinct flash and streak of heavy energy weapons fire streaked the canopy from all points indicating by their general direction and convergence the distant area at and below the western horizon where the battle's center had formed.

Hesthira had noticed the martial aurora pulsing across the heavens, but was not captured by the spectacle. His interest had immediately become the redirection of his orbiting support's attention outward rather than downward.

Whether the micronian warriors and their commander situated to direct battle wherever he may have been planning on or even aware of the impending fleet action that was now transpiring, they too noticed the immediate drop-off in fire and fighter support for the 9th Mechanized Corps. Their commander too had field grade officers trained to recognize and exploit advantages as they arose, and there was no missing the opportunity presented to them now.

As the final waves of heavy missiles from Hesthira's "dedicated support" vessels set the portions of the field and the horizon to the Action General's north aglow with the rapid and irregular strobe of their detonations, the micronian artillery began to respond closer to where the corps commander's Glaug stood in the company of his staff. Whether the alien artillery and missile batteries had been kept silent in reserve or for some planned, mass barrage to support another attempt by the enemy commander to break contact- it was unclear. –But their presence became known by Hesthira's leading regiments as curtains of fire swept diagonally through his lines northeast to southwest opening swaths through the dense force movement.

Had he the ear of a single destroyer commander, Hesthira could have had him identify the originating points of fire and crater the landscape, burning anything that was left into fused glass with following Gnerl strikes with plasma napalm missiles. Destroyer commanders were more interested in combatting enemy vessels at the moment than they were in silencing artillery though. Hesthira knew his Warriors were for the moment on their own, able only to hurl wild counter-battery fire from Artillery Regults that were under the immense psychological pressure of attack.

What Hesthira was wary of and what he could not allow under any circumstances was the break in contact that the enemy commander was clearly trying to achieve. If the enemy could break away and open the land between himself and the concentration of the 9th Mechanized Corps' units, he might be inclined to use those weapons that he would not have considered while micronian and Te'Dak Tohl forces were grappling.

"Grom", Hesthira said to his trusted personal aide and action officer, "Couple four Regult Heavy Artillery companies with two of the best assault companies you can bring together quickly. –Have them move outside of our lines of advance with the sole task of performing counter-battery action. Even if we do not destroy the enemy's guns and missile batteries, we can silence or minimalize their effectiveness by keeping them on the move. This will have to be sufficient until we regain our support from the Fleet."

"Yes, Lord.", Action Commander Grom replied, "-I already have particular units in mind for the assignment."

Hesthira drew back from the field immediately before him, taking in the progress being made by Bren's corps to his northeast.

As Hesthira's 9th Mechanized Corps had been moving at a remarkable pace that had even impressed its commander through "The Saw Tooth Mountains" to position itself to open a second line of action on the micronian commander's left flank, Action General 1st Grade Bren's 74th Heavy Assault Corps had been butting heads with the micronians all along and smashing its way south over open land.

Hesthira had long since abandoned trying to meet on common ground with Bren as it applied to tactical doctrine. Bren had none, other than applying the force needed to flatten everything and every enemy in his path.

Hesthira had seen Bren march fresh divisions over stalled areas of the battle line still thick with his own Warriors for the benefit of maintaining forward momentum overall. It had been said with justification if not slight exaggeration by officers and Warriors in his own corps that Bren preferred to swim into battle in the blood of his own than dirty himself with the dust raised by marching.

-But for reasons that Hesthira could not fathom completely, Bren's officers and Warriors were fiercely loyal to him. Those who survived multiple campaigns under the action general were likely to have more boast-worthy scars and stories than most Zentraedi- Te'Dak Tohl or norghil. This bloody glory was a status symbol worth dying for- a precept that Bren instilled down through the ranks into the lowliest warrior grades.

Bren this day and for days before had been doing all he could to create the ideal swimming conditions for himself in trail of his corps' leading edge units. He had bludgeoned and kicked the micronian units before him ever southward, either grinding them into nothing before the improved norghil replenishment units he kept consistently at the front, or throwing them back over and over until exhausted they could be ground into the landscape.

Sub-General Jekketh, fond of Bren's uncomplicated effectiveness and giving broad direction from his command ship somewhere out in the alien world's high orbit or beyond showed nothing but pleasure in Bren's regular reports of land gained and estimates of alien units destroyed.

There was no displeasure indicated by Jekketh in receiving the same manner of report from Hesthira whose gains and accomplishments were admittedly less, but also with on average half the casualties of Bren's corps.

Jekketh was desirable as a commander in Hesthira's mind in that he was not determined to dictate tactical principle to his subordinates- he only was concerned with their effectiveness.

-And Bren was effective, even if his methods differed from Hesthira's

By necessity, Hesthira had forced the time out of Bren to speak and loosely plan the time and geographic point at which they would join their efforts. These were details that now were clearly more important to Hesthira than to his counterpart.

Bren, every bit aware of Hesthira's position and unit movement as Hesthira was of Bren's, was not showing any indication of altering the pace of advance to effectively incorporate the 9th Mechanized Corps.

As it had been planned, or at least as Hesthira had proposed the meeting to Bren, the 74th Heavy Assault Corps would maintain its east-to-west line, moving south and would be joined at the west end of its line by the 9th Corps lined north-to-south and pushing east. Determination could then be made on any number of alternatives in tactical maneuver to inflict the greatest harm on the micronians.

As it stood, Bren's corps was picking up its pace in pursuit of the micronians and would be well beyond the planned rallying point when Hesthira and his corps arrived. Hesthira would then have to select from the options of admiring Bren's right flank as it passed, or making a broad turn south and racing to catch up and keep with Bren's axis of advance.

Neither promised direct contact with the micronians' main force, and less desirably offered Bren's Warriors an almost endless source of boasting. –That was of course if Hesthira adhered to the plan that Bren had clearly abandoned.

"Grom, contact Naku and have him immediately detach his division from the main force.", Hesthira directed, "He will move at maximum speed southeast creating a second line of advance for us as we continue to press on our advance, partially covering his left as we do. Let's see if we can salvage the merge with Bren and push the alien's flank guards into his path."

"Very good, Lord.", Grom complied, "Should I have him contact you to confer?"

"Negative, Grom-. Get Naku moving now and we can refine his movement as we go. Bren will not slow his pace, so we don't have that luxury either."

"Understood, Lord."

Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt let the sensation wash over him as the shrill tone in his ears- his Regult warning him of incoming projectiles- changed to a chilling of his spine to ice that quickly spread to his extremities.

He did not recall how many times in the past two, almost three days now, he had felt the exact same penetrating cold, like splinters of ice- but each time he had been certain it would be the last, and each time for whatever reason that Fate saw fit he had come out on the other side of danger.

Tahlt now feared he was growing familiar with death- accustomed to it. In that familiarity there was the sense of the true fear that had beads of cold sweat standing out on his skin. He feared that Fate might take that sense of familiarity as one of entitlement to continuously slip the same dangers that claimed others around him.

Entitlement was pride cloaked in circumstance, and Fate (so Warriors' talk said) favored very few that flaunted pride.

Relief.

As the plunge of scores of micronian artillery projectiles were marked in the dark and smoke-murky sky by bursts that told Tahlt that these were the worst kind- containing dozens of smaller explosive charges to scatter like deadly hail- he felt only desperation to keep living.

Fate could not fault him for a sense of entitlement or pride for that-.

Fate did not have to spare him again either.

Leading a Regult squad of warriors whose names he had not attempted to commit yet to memory on the left flank of a hastily reconstituted platoon at full charge under command of a Te'Dak Tohl lieutenant whose name may have been Foga- Tahlt did all he could do. –Did what The Warrior's Code and Fate demanded of him…

Tahlt trusted the foot-fall of his Regult at full charge speed to ambulatory control system as he focused his attention and the mecha's twin particle beams on the micronian mecha and vehicles whose unit flank they were trying to round.

Light intensification with IR and sensor integration coupled with the now relatively flat and open land made spotting the enemy easy despite clear and effective attempts by them to jam the Regults' sensors with electromagnetic countermeasures. There was simply nowhere for them to cover or hide.

Covering or hiding was not the intent of the micronians now- retreat and escape was, and for good reason. A general collapse and withdrawal of their entire army to undetermined points south was now in progress and as such units that at the beginning of the day had considered themselves along the "front lines" were now seeing themselves in the favorable position of rear guard elements.

Lines of contact had devolved into running gun battles using primarily energy weapons, both sides having exhausted their complement of missiles and kinetic munitions hours earlier. In this mode of fighting, Tahlt knew the enemy's heavy EM jamming to be a play of desperation and quite futile. His side had numbers and more guns, now the only attribute of real relevance- and Zentraedi units had shown consistently to be swifter and more agile on the move.

Tahlt knew as he was sure that the commander of the micronian unit with whom his nameless Warriors were exchanging fire that this particular skirmish was entering its final trade in moves, and that the outcome was almost certainly decided in favor of the Zentraedi.

-But first….

Tahlt's Regult jerked violently as it was battered from all sides by the detonation of raining sub-munitions that had finally completed their journey from a fire base somewhere over the southeastern horizon. The sub-lieutenant was not certain that the mecha's feet were even contacting ground as it seemed to ride an invisible, cresting wave of explosions. The memory of a mountain road liquefying beneath him returned in vivid detail and it was only the strong, overriding desire to be through the storm of high explosives that provided him with focus.

Explosively ejected dirt and rock clattered against the Regult's outer hull as a Combat Pod in the squad ahead of Tahlt's took a bomblet to the thin armor squarely atop the pilot's compartment. Terilium alloy spall joined the nerve-grating congress of startling sounds, adding the distinctive zing of metal pelting metal as the Regult that Tahlt had seen struck toppled end-over-end, frozen in stride of running and with its body split and opened crudely like a grotesque flower in full blossom.

A Glaug's weapon-arm arced through the field of Tahlt's viewscreen with a portion of the mecha to which it had been connected still attached speaking grimly of Fate's disposition of the lieutenant whose name was clearly no longer important. His may have been one of the terrorized screams cut short by destroyed communications equipment as the warriors screaming were destroyed swiftly with the mecha carrying them.

Numbed with the anticipation of sure death himself, Tahlt felt the waves of crazed chaos and panic flow through him like wind through tall grass. His mind shielded itself in narrowing simply to the operation of his Regult and the directing of fire from its particle beam cannons wildly at an enemy that was returning the act in kind.

The world around Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt stabilized and the ground beneath the feet of his Regult became solid again as the storm of explosions all around stopped as abruptly as it had begun. –And again, Tahlt found himself alive.

-Alive, but with the distinct and increasingly familiar sense that he was ranking Warrior in a rabble of shattered Regult units.

The trade of fire between the surviving Regults, the exact number of which Tahlt was unsure, and the micronian force whose flank finally appeared to be passing to the left was a roughly equal one. Even Tahlt's opponents suggested a certain symmetry as they appeared to be the micronian-adopted variant of the Regult with their added weapons systems now depleted reducing them to nothing more than additional weight to hinder the performance of what was originally a nimble mecha form.

What Tahlt saw in all of this as the fog of certain violent death lifted from him was a cue to engage directly. The micronians only advantage here and now was their artillery, which they had shown they would not use if their warriors were in the mix with Zentraedi forces.

It was a solid argument for a decision that Tahlt had already made, not actually sure that he was indeed in the position of authority to be making the decision- but the truth was that at the very least direct attack presented the possibility that if death came for him or his Warriors, they would be facing the enemy delivering it.

"Wheel left and reform a wedge on me!..."

Hell was a very real place.

It had come to the world of the living and it was all around.

The sky above burned in bursts of nuclear flame and thunderbolts of radiant blue in the same tone as the chains of ice that bound Satan himself. The world burned below in ghastly patches of glowing red like flares of burning oil that popped and sparked with the innumerable explosions that dotted the landscape in a ceaseless dance of infernal light.

And Winters was in the center of it.

It was no surprise really- he had always expected to end up there anyway- or at least for as long as he could remember contemplating such things.

It was just that his run through mortality had seemed so brief and that both the good and evil he had accumulated in his ledger so unremarkable.

But after all, wasn't that what made it Hell?

It wasn't actually Hell, of course- Winters knew as much- but perhaps this was the "sneak peek", like the coming attractions at the cinema. Something in the way of promises for the world to come.

-Or perhaps it was just coming up on thirty-six hours without sleep, propped up by "go pills", caffeine and nicotine and with no end worth looking forward to in sight.

-Or maybe it was just the company...

"So, Kemosabe, I'm dyin' to hear about Tanto kickin' your ass-. What's with that? -And you don't have to water down the details… I can handle the gruesome."

Since Knight Hawk Squadron had picked up the duty of escorting and covering a ground support package including Lt Col Mathias's Crimson Cavaliers, he had dreaded the possibility that the ASC-AF squadron leader had heard about the- tiff- between he and Dalton hours before. Silence through the flight with the exception of procedural comms-chat had only heightened it.

-But less than three minutes out from their assigned "kill box" to support, Winters had developed a sense of optimism.

"Dying is a poor choice of words when you choose to pluck the nerves of the chap providing you top-cover, Mojo.", Winters said flatly.

There was a pause, but then Mathias persisted, "True, so this may be my last chance-. Did you find yourself getting a little moist when he was administering the bitch-slapping, or does it take more than that to light the fire?"

There was a general giggle- high school girl-like in its maturity- coming across on the common operational frequency being used, and it was clear that there would be no waving-off or taking the high road.

"Buster didn't kick my ass", Winters clarified, "-He just got in the first shot. –And a bloody dirty one, I'll have you know."

"Pissed yourself, eh?"

"He didn't kick my ass."

"Oh yes, I did.", Dalton interjected, holding his section in trail to port in a covering position.

"You're hardly an impartial witness.", Winters pointed out, "So…. Preacher- what's the verdict? -And remember the big chap's position on honesty."

Caught off guard, it took Major "Preacher" Wayne a moment to reply with, "-Well, maybe not a kicking, but certainly a paddling…"

"So Jack likes spankings then?", Mathias asked, finding another salacious detail to exploit.

"He did not kick my ass..."

Vice, from his station off of Winters' starboard wing chipped in, "Sorry boss, if it had gone on any longer you'da had Buster's boot laces hangin' outta your nostrils."

"You're saying that because you won money.", Winters pointed out.

"A lotta money Boss. I'll give you a loan so you can buy back some pride."

Mathias gleefully capped the exchange with, "-It just breaks my heart when you girls fight like that, Jack…"

A real urge to simply leave The Crimson Cavaliers to fend for themselves was taking firm root in Winters when the AWACS with tactical command over the operational area intervened.

"Desperado to Tailgate 43 flight, we show you ninety seconds from Kill Box Seven. Stand by to chop your ground attack package to JSTARS C2. Tailgate 43 ground package, descend to Angels Three and switch to tac-comms channel 44. –Your boy is callsign, Armadillo. Over."

"Tailgate 43 Ground Lead, roger that.", Mathias replied from below and astern of the Valkyrie flight, "-Well, Jack- I guess this is us. Don't fly angry now…"

"Hate you like taxes and dental work, Mojo.", Winters replied as the SAR display on his cockpit's central MFD showed the two reduced squadrons of Logans and Spectors dip away with two intact squadrons of Adventurer II attack bombers following at a generous interval.

Mathias and his squadron would now be shuffled into the mix of attack aircraft providing ground support with the particulars of targets determined by the JSTARS in the region. Mojo and his miscreants were now Armadillo's headache to endure.

Winters pushed the annoyance of the preceding tag-team verbal assault upon him out of mind for what it was- a necessary distraction from the strains of impending combat. He too needed to focus now. –He'd hate Mathias like taxes and dental work later, God-willing….

For the moment though, it seemed God might be agreeing to allowing him another day. The wanton violence and murder in the region appeared to be taking place at ground level. Only a handful of bandits were to be seen in Kill Box Seven, and those were being engaged vigorously by a superior number of ASC-AF Phantom fighters.

Winters' intuition kept optimism in balance though- there was too much work being done by both human and alien armies on the ground to think that the skies would be empty for long. He did embrace however the hope that whatever was going on above would hold the Zentraedi's interest for a while.

Others were clearly having thoughts along the same lines as Major Grim from Dalton's flight demonstrated without warning.

"-Jack, do you figure the Fleet's coming back?"

Whatever it was that was inflicting clear damage on the Zentraedi in orbit and had them stirred up like angry hornets had to involve the REF, but…

"Haven't a clue more than you, Reaper. Sorry to say, my gut says no. It's hard to imagine they'd just show up with the intent of staying and not coordinate with the poor bastards on the ground. –This is just a hell of a lightshow for all. -Maybe something a little more."

"Damn, are you a buzz-kill.", Vice muttered reproachfully, "I think Buster dislocated your optimism or something, Jack."

"Where've you been, Vice?", Dalton responded in the squadron commander's defense, "Everyone knows Jack traded in his optimism for cynicism years ago."

"-I was downsizing my emotional availability.", Winters added blandly, "It was part of the package deal. –It doesn't figure into a thing here though. The lot of you are still going to have to work, not pawn it off on the Fleet chaps."

Vice convincingly feigned genuine disgust and annoyance, saying, "-Well, if I wanted to actually work, I wouldn't have joined the damn Air Force, would'a I?"

It was good for a laugh anyway.

"Tailgate, Tailgate- Berserker Actual, what's the ETA on those goddamn med-evacs and slicks?! Over!"

By the raw burn in his throat, Major Gunston could tell he was yelling- though his ears could not confirm this for the sharp ringing that persisted in them. His Gen-1 Gladiator had with its additional armor applique plates done more than seemed physically possible to preserve the company commander's life over the course of the day. Gunston had stopped counting at a dozen the direct hits by missile or particle beam the mecha had sustained and had kept trudging along to his command- and this had not been counting more minor damage.

-But, he was still here, and though with only three Hydra rockets, a single Sabre missile, and 345 rounds in the ammunition pack that belt-fed his battered GU-11 gun pod he was still in the fight despite having lost the Gladiator's left arm sometime before.

The only problem was that he, and what remained of his company and Hercules Company folded together and under his command was still here.

Retreat- and there was no point in cloaking the present movement as anything but retreat- had been ongoing for the better part of the day. The Zentraedi like pit-bull fighting dogs just would not let go.

Artillery and missile strikes, close air support, brief reversals on the retreat to attack the alien pursuers, and combinations of all had done little to unclamp the figurative jaws from The Gemini Coalition's dwindling rear guard units. Efforts heroic as they had been to break the pursuit with direct counterattack had yielded no discernable benefit for the sacrifice offered each time. The Zentraedi had simply applied their superior numbers and speed in open terrain to form a salient in each instance, enveloping and neutralizing the blocking forces intent on slowing them.

-And it was a salient that was starting to form around Gunston's mixed company and the hodge-podge of other units he had cobbled together in moving south. A company of MBP-1 Battle Pods, adopted and modified in design by the RDF-Army as a cheaper and easily manufactured mecha while Terran designs were being tested and refined for production had been sent in an hour before to offset the enemy's stubborn and persistent flanking maneuvers – but almost constant contact had reduced them to only a handful now. Those, reduced to use of the particle beam cannons that also was the main armament of the larger force of Regults they were trying to push back were not far from faltering.

The only hint at God's mercy at the moment was that the Zentraedi air cover had seemed to simply evaporate over the course of a few minutes. Others in Gunston's command and random comms traffic that had otherwise been a hindrance in the deteriorating situation had reported some great disturbance in the sky- in low Earth orbit, most likely.

Gunston had made no attempt to visually confirm the event himself, but rather had exploited it for what it was worth.

A diminished enemy air presence meant for the moment stable airspace that the Army would commit choppers to. Gunston had hoped for gunships in addition to medical and taxi birds- but Tailgate had agreed to only ships to carry out the wounded and those forced to abandon their vehicles or mecha.

In truth, Gunston knew that any chopper that arrived was going to be used as a med-evac bird. There were simply too many wounded needing immediate care to use the crew space of a Lakota otherwise. –And there seemed to be an understanding of that too amongst dismounted vehicle crews or mecha drivers who were piling into and on top of anything with tracks or wheels that was still serviceable.

Gunston also knew that the situation would get far worse. There was no turning it around at this point. Eventually the order would come to cut the ravaged rear guard elements loose. They would not be actively abandoned, but at some point Command would have to recognize that resources in personnel and equipment applied to the rear guard were ones that were not going to be recovered and would not be there for future fights of consequence.

-Already, Command had denied Gunston his request for gunships, and both mecha and armor units to the south were drawing away as quickly as their forms of mobility would carry them.

Berserker Company's commander only hoped for his unit and for himself to be deemed assets worth saving and not be in a position to be considered a regrettably acceptable loss when the time came for that call.

"Berserker Actual, Tailgate-. Mercury flight ships inbound, ETA eight minutes. –Stabilize your LZ and pop UV strobes to designate. Over."

"Copy that, Tailgate.", Gunston replied, "Tell Mercury Leader not to stop for coffee-. We've got wounded piled up on wounded down here, and we need `em out. Over."

"Understood, Berserker. Be advised, ground support will be clearing the approaches from the south. –Keep your people back! Over."

Gunston's blood was in full simmer and on the verge of boiling at Tailgate's "advisement". He was certain that nestled into a controller's station aboard a JSTARS aloft somewhere to the south, the direction made sense as it meant only keeping the "friendly" icons on a screen segregated from the "tangos".

It was something more to do it where the rounds were flying.

-But it was sound advice.

"Got it, Tailgate. Get those birds in here! Over."

There was a flash at the left leg knee joint of the micronian Regult from where a particle beam bolt from far to Tahlt's right struck it. The burst of light dissolved into a shower of sparks as the leg buckled, sending the mecha to the ground and ruining the shot Tahlt had been ready to take.

Having committed to depressing the firing trigger, Tahlt found it inexplicably difficult to redirect the aiming reticule on his viewscreen in a wild sweep for another target. He also found it irrationally maddening to see that other Zentraedi Combat Pods- perhaps of the squad he had actually been assigned to command- or not- lingered to fire on the stricken alien mecha and upon the vulnerable micronians who quickly spilled from it. All the while dwindling but still lethal direct energy and projectile fire from micronian mecha and vehicles closer to the enemy's center continued to rake the advance of the unit Tahlt was now attached to.

"-The mecha will kill you, you fools!", snarled Tahlt who had seen too many times over the past three days Warriors obsessed with killing dismounted micronians who were of no more threat than the trees or rocks of the landscape, "-Ignore the aliens!"

Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt recognized that as the enemy unit's avenue of escape to the south was being closed off, that it was no longer a skirmish in any organized sense of the term. It was becoming a killing frenzy on both sides, and that there would be no directing it as Zentraedi Warriors in small groups or fractured units came into direct contact with micronians whose chain of command was likely in no better condition.

Tahlt's only concern through the conclusion of this particularly meaningless engagement was suddenly just survival for which numbers were a desirable advantage.

A cluster of Regults, not moving in anything resembling a formation, rushed across Tahlt's field of view and arc of fire- rushing to engage a target or targets not immediately clear to the sub-lieutenant.

As they passed, the leading Regult's forward hull expelled a small spray of flame and sparks as a larger plume carried out from the rear with the same peculiar occurrence befalling a second Combat Pod in close trail of the first. Unlikely as it seemed, Tahlt's mind grasped the fact that it was a single projectile that had passed through both Regults that went to ground as a tumbling mass of tangling legs.

A sweep of the land revealed the inflicting party of the singular stroke of dual execution to Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt, though it could have as easily been missed.

Squat, and low to the ground the angular micronian vehicle did not appear to rise even to the height of a Regult's knee. Fine details were difficult for Tahlt to make out with the smoke that clouded much of the field and the flash of the fusillade of particle beam bolts that the companions of the two destroyed Regults unleashed upon the micronian war machine.

As bursts and towers of sparks leapt off its sloped hull, Tahlt was able to glimpse the additional detail that it was riding on tracks, and that there was a single turret equally angular to the rest of the vehicle's hull with a menacing gun tube protruding- and this was traversing to continue to engage.

Tahlt had heard other Warriors in other units throughout the day make mention of the "iron beetle" and that though unsophisticated in appearance, it was an enemy to be feared. This had to be the same type of micronian vehicle.

The "iron beetle" rocked back in a counter-play of immense force versus great weight as the muzzle of the gun tube flashed blue with a static-electric spark. It had not recovered from its own gun's recoil when a third Regult in the group that had been reduced to five shattered at the side and rear hull seams with an immense explosion delivered with a single projectile.

Undeterred, four Regults now pressed the attack against the heavily armored, tracked vehicle that was proving to be every bit as indestructible as it was ugly. Its forward hull glowed at points where particle beams had chewed out craters into the sloping armor of its foredeck and turret front but with little effect other than affirming the rumors spread through Warriors' talk.

Determination of whether the Regults would collectively overwhelm the micronian armored vehicle, or if the iron beetle would eliminate the persistent Warriors one by one was a question that would not be answered as two torrent-streams of energy bolts sawed through the four mecha from an angle above and to their right, felling the last of the squad with a single sweep.

Aware suddenly of the danger, Tahlt wheeled his own Regult right to engage but found that the attacking aircraft- equally absurd in appearance as the iron beetle, only rounded forward like the toe of a boot from what he could see of their shapes as they climbed rapidly away- were serving their own agenda. Their presence though marked a change in the battle though. Tahlt had seen these aircraft and others like them at work on numerous occasions now. Though few, they were a great equalizing force for the enemy and were to be feared.

The original candidates slain and left burning in the field as the iron beetle they had engaged quickly resumed a southward course, Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt was again in need of companions and resumed the search in a rising sea of Regults around him. He preferred Warriors with some of the sense he had rapidly acquired, but if not- those who could lower his odds of being killed by their numbers would do just as well.

"Tailgate, Cavalier One- scratch four to the western side of our friendlies.", Mathias reported as he pulled his Logan onto its back, out of the near vertical climb he and his wingman had used to disengage, and back into level flight where a half-roll righted them both, "You're thick with dittos down there. What are we holding off for? Over."

"Cavalier One, Tailgate-. Spoiler alert- we're building target density for a nape strike. Helos are three minutes out. We'll cook the landscape before they arrive and have them out under your cover before the enemy can cross the line. –Need you to withdraw south and stand by. You'll be clearing the path of mecha for the choppers and our ground forces. Over."

"Thanks for the insight, Tailgate.", Mathias replied, finding his Logans and Spectors in orbit six kilometers southeast- waiting, as Tailgate had described, "-And I was starting to worry we'd have to ad-lib. Over."

"No chance of that, Cavalier One. Watch for the choppers inbound at low level. Over."

Turning south, Mathias could see the A-9C Adventurer II attack bombers descending and moving into the airspace above the pocket of Gemini Coalition ground forces whose boundaries were defined clearly at lines west, north, and east where the visible fire was directed toward the salient's center. Working to maintain the division of forces, the RDF-AF A-9Cs began to launch the Hellfire and Sabre missiles that accounted for a portion of their substantial weapons load.

Mathias would see the flash of rocket ignition, or multiple ignitions, beneath the wings of aircraft followed at several seconds by a corresponding detonation burst somewhere in the Zentraedi ranks below. These were joined by rippling patters of detonations that seemed to follow the lines of force division as Mathias had perceived them. This show provided by the Adventurer IIs' cluster bombs and groupings of small-diameter bombs whose deployment had been invisible to the Logan pilot in the darkness lay down the lines that the attack bombers seemed to dare the enemy to cross.

-And by Tailgate's foretelling, Mathias knew that there was more to come. He could sense WSOs coordinating the distribution and dispersal of the plasma napalm missiles that their aircraft carried. When preparations were ready and the conditions right- Mathias did not envy the position of the Zentraedi who had not heeded the firm warnings made repeatedly.

It would not end the night's work, but Mathias hoped it would at least provide his squadron credit in menace that he could capitalize on to clear a path for the battered rear guard units below. It had a promise of success at any rate.

It was then that noticed the apocalyptic light show in the heavens above had ceased.

-And this troubled him for reasons that he did not want to think on at any length….

Eight kilometers out one patch of darkened desert landscape looked pretty much the same as another, augment the view how you liked with IR and image intensification technology.

What allowed First Lieutenant Inid "Skeeter" Bradley to identify the particular patch of desert she was leading her flight of Lakotas to was the distinction that it was the point on the horizon where fire was either pouring in or radiating outward. A distinct blip of UV light, visible only through an image intensification system, and pulsing once per second with perfect regularity was also of great use. The marker strobe would guide the nine choppers scrambled with short notice to make a final effort to evacuate wounded unable to the "fluid" LZ in a final effort to extract wounded too badly injured to evacuate by other means. –That was simple.

The getting in and out was going to be the challenge.

"Mercury One, this is Cavalier One-.", called a strong, clear voice with a faded but not eliminated New England accent, "I've got eyes on you on approach. We'll be your cover on the ground and on your way out, so get in and do what you need to do. Don't waste time looking over your shoulder- that's what we're here for. –Just don't get too close to the perimeter-. Over."

"Cavalier One, Mercury One- call me Skeeter.", Bradley replied, "-Thanks, and what perimeter?"

Bradley's optical enhancement systems reacted, dimming their intensification of ambient light before rising towers of flame on the nearing horizon could blind her. In the prolonged moment of detonating plasma napalm warheads, Bradley could see jostling the deeply piled ranks of Zentraedi mecha trying to close on a center of mixed RDF-Army mecha and equipment. The closest lines and those doused directly with the airburst spray of plasma gel either evaporated or seemed to melt into the land that simultaneously combusted. Those not destroyed in the heat retreated- the haste of their retreat determined by how closely they had brushed with incineration.

The intense heat would provide a physical barrier to the enemy for some minutes, but minutes only. This would be all the time Bradley and her pilots would have.

"-Nevermind, Cavalier One- I think I can connect the dots."

"The winds are going to be wicked in and out, Skeeter.", Cavalier One warned with good cause, "Watch yourself. –And call me Mojo."

"Copy that, Mojo-.", Bradley replied as a mild buffeting of turbulence began some three kilometers out. It was the convectional uplift from the flames sucking cooler air into their intensity and sending them in superheated currents skyward.

-Which reminded the Lakota pilot-.

"Tell me you're in good with our top cover, Mojo. We didn't see a single bandit the whole way in, and I'm a superstitious girl."

"-We've got some history, Skeeter."

"Good to know."

The air was growing rougher as the open path to the marked LZ yawned at Bradley like the gates of Hell itself, and in quelling the nerve-soothing small talk to focus on flying, she noticed that her relative land speed had risen significantly over her indicated airspeed. The inferno it seemed was sucking her sinful soul in.

"Mercury Flight, open your intervals to ten ship lengths- it's going to be like flying into a hurricane in there, so don't bunch up!"

Bradley was still getting used to giving warnings of the obvious and not receiving them. Her squadron had arrived early the day before to the Durango operational area with a full sixteen ships in the unit, and under the command of an officer senior to herself.

SAR work had been the duty they had been assigned, and one they had trained for- but as the battlefront had deteriorated and the Zentraedi's aggressiveness had escalated off the scale it had been a dangerous one to be employed in. It had been different from flying into "hot zones" occupied by malcontent Zentraedi or lawless, Outlander human types whom Bradley had operated around for going on three years now.

In fighting Zentraedi regulars, even their infantry weaponry had the punch to bring a Lakota down- and the aliens saw in them an easy and appealing target.

"We're all set back here, Lieutenant.", Bradley's crew chief, Chief Warrant Officer Wilcox said from his chair up through the passage into the cockpit, "-Just don't take off before I'm back aboard, please…"

"Barry", Bradley said to her chief over the Lakota's intercom channel, "-The other pilots got briefed the same and are spelling it out to their crews now too. –The medics in the LZ have triaged, but you don't load anyone who looks like they're clinging by a thread. We don't have the space to give to anyone who's likely to die in transit. You got it?"

Wilcox was quiet for a moment but then replied without signs of disobedience, "-That's fucked up."

"All sorts of fucked-up happening today. –We load who we can save and then motor-. Savvy?"

"Roger that, ma'am."

The walls of flame that had gone up a minute or so before with a blast of heat like the door of a furnace being thrown open were now moderating to a mean treetop height whose cast glow was softer and gave the arid terrain an eerie, dreamlike quality. A wind had suddenly risen, riding up on the currents of hot air- but it was a wind that brought no relief to anyone within the blazing perimeter.

Corporal Garner whose BDUs were already sweat-soaked beneath his body armor despite the protective equipment's temperature regulation system, and the hot wind did little to comfort. His MOS as a gunner on a fighting vehicle had been rendered moot when a ditto missile had struck the engine compartment of his ride- wrecking the fighting vehicle but sparing the crew for the moment. Within ten minutes as RDF-Army Destroids pushed back and forth with Zentraedi Battle Pods over the ground Garner and his vehicle's crew had been pinned down in, it was only Garner and Moss who remained alive.

Garner had become a "volunteer medic" after fireman carrying Moss after extensive search and a great bit of luck to an improvised first aid station set up beside a trackless and immobile Cavalier tank whose solid hull provided a lee of fire from at least one direction.

Garner had assumed full responsibility for the first aid station from Sergeant Palmer, the only true medic working the first aid station, minutes after. –The tank after all provided cover from only one direction as was evident by the standard-issue, mylar emergency thermal blanket that covered both pieces of Palmer in his place along the row of the dead, beside Moss.

If Garner was grateful of anything related to his brief stint with the medic's trade, it was that Palmer had made it clear to Garner and a handful of "walking wounded" whose names the medic clearly did not know even after enlisting them in his service what exactly needed to be done. Palmer had repeated it over and over with almost machine-like exactness of the words said over and over, and specificity in the tasks and actions to be taken. –So much so that Garner found himself repeating the instructions in his head only moments after a stray round or random bit of shrapnel had bisected Palmer just above the waist.

The most critical, stabilized wounded were lined shoulder-to-shoulder in a row. Rifles stood between every other patient, muzzle-down, anchored in the earth by their bayonets and serving to hold elevated bags of plasma that provided a stopgap for many of them from bleeding out. These were to be loaded for med-evac first, and their states made known to the ranking medic in the evacuation effort.

Three times the number of severely but not immediately life-critical wounded were then to be loaded for ferrying to the undetermined treatment site that was farther at least from the immediate danger of the enemy.

The third group of wounded had less specific instructions attached to them collectively and for reasons that Palmer had not wanted to discuss explicitly.

Each young man or woman in the third group had an "X" in bold marker drawn on their forehead. Laid out with every effort to provide what comfort could be provided lying on the sun-hardened dirt, they had all been given more than their allotment of morphine, at the cost in some cases of depriving lesser wounded with the pain-eradicating drug.

"They're gone-.", Palmer had said stabbing at the radial vein of a soldier whose face he had not even looked at, demonstrating to Garner how to administer morphine with the last of three syrettes, "-Just let the drugs do their work and move on."

Those with more minor wounds had either been waved away by Palmer and told to move on, or tossed a first-aid pack with the implication of treating themselves.

-This had been the tutelage in Army field medicine by Sergeant Palmer to Corporal Garner before he had become a member of the fourth group laid out near the first aid station.

Now as the downwash of a low-passing Lakota clouded the air with dust and heat-desiccated plant matter, Garner's mind suddenly and unexpectedly shifted gears. When the wounded were loaded, what then?

The question was too large to grapple with at the moment.

Mastered expertly by its pilot in the conflicting cross-winds created by the encircling plasma fires, the Lakota made a tight, graceful turn to port that brought it to the point where the pilot had selected to touch down. Somewhere overhead and through the muffling beat of the chopper's rotor blades, jet engines ripped the air in passing. From the north, the dark of the sky was dashed by the zip of particle beam bolts whose target or targets was not apparent.

From beyond the northern wall of flame laid down by friendly air support minutes earlier, a half-dozen, maybe more, explosions rocked the landscape under the roar of jet engines climbing rapidly away.

The Lakota's crew chief spilled out of the open side door before the wheels of the "slick" configured helicopter had fully accepted the weight of the craft. He spared no time in moving directly to Garner who supposed in succeeding to command of the ragged first-aid detail had also inherited from Palmer some appearance of authority.

"You honcho?"

The corporal nodded his affirmation, shouting over the same rotor noise, "Garner, Chief…"

"I don't give a shit what your mama calls you, Corporal- get your goddamn detail loadin' wounded, NOW! -You triaged, right?"

Garner found his moth filling with the grit whirling through the air and only then realized how dry and thirsty he'd become through the course of his medical education, "Yeah- done!"

"Then let's get `em aboard while there's still someplace to get `em back to!"

Garner found that the other "medics" Palmer had impressed into service before parting ways with the living were already lifting and moving the critically wounded with the best balance of speed and care that they could manage.

The crew chief, seeing his aircraft taking on its load without his guidance turned his back abruptly to Garner to resume his primary duties and maintain control.

Garner seized the other man's shoulder just as he was reaching the edge of arm's length, stopping him, and yelled into his ear- "Can we get a lift outta here with you, Chief?.."

The crew chief did not even attempt to look back, saying, "Not a fucking chance."

Three additional Lakotas has come to ground forming a line that reached north and with more coming in for the purpose of extracting the wounded.

Perhaps, Garner hoped, there would be room on a later one.

Mathias watched with a considerable measure of satisfaction as the oversized squad of Battle Pods that had decided to test and probe the northern boundary of the salient was shown the error in their thinking by a single element of Spectors from the squadron that had been attached to his Crimson Cavaliers. The ditto mecha that had correctly sensed a "thin" area in the ring of human mecha and fighting vehicles encircling the improvised chopper LZ had been slain quickly with Hydra rocket and Jaguar missile fire, but their boldness was indicative of what Mathias assumed the prevailing Zentraedi motivation to be. They were testing the approaches and looking for a way in. –And if not "in", at least a vantage point from which to continue the fight at a distance.

They already knew from fierce attacks by both the Spectors, Mathias's Logans, and even the Adventurer IIs whose last ordinance had been spent countering enemy movement that closing the southern approach to the LZ carried a price that they were unwilling to pay. Patience seemed to be prevailing mostly that the plasma napalm barriers would burn out, and that then not even the Gemini airpower would be able to hold them back.

-There were exceptions like the one just dealt with that Mathias knew needed to be managed. For now, the best he could hope to do was to manage the enemy around the west, north, and east perimeter lines.

-What he would, or even could do once this turned into a running battle again was a later problem.

"Good shooting, Panthers.", Mathias said in honest praise, the expenditure and aim of rocket and missile having been exactly correct by the Spector pilots, "-But save some. We've got a long night ahead. Over."

"Roger that, Cavalier One. We'll be frosty and fresh for the last dance too. Over."

Mathias was certain that at least in spirit, they would be. ASC-Air Force only tossed the keys to pilots who had fire in their bellies. What couldn't be known was how many "dances" there would be between this and the last. –It was going to be one fight at a time, Mathias was sure.

Above, high above and to the east there was a twin flash that the squadron leader's trained eye recognized as definite missile detonations showing that Winters and his miscreants were not asleep at the stick somewhere aloft.

All traces of the orbital melee that had overarched the ground support package's infiltration into the area were gone now, only the dark and star-studded sky reaching from horizon to horizon to be seen. The details of the melee were still a curiosity to Mathias, but more than that its subsidence was making him increasingly uneasy.

"Good hits- scratch two.", Captain Israel "Isn't" Cohen called as his tactical MFD showed a lethal meeting of his two Basilisk missiles, and the pair of Gnerls that had been skirting the kill box earlier and had elected to cross the invisible line making them fair game to engage without additional authorization.

"Confirm that, Knight Hawk Eleven-.", said the combat air controller seated at a console amongst other CAC consoles aboard the AWACS "Desperado" hundreds of kilometers south, "Chalk up two."

"Piglet, you're up.", Dalton said, reminding Vought needlessly that for limited engagements he had dibs on the next bandits to come poking around.

"Looking forward to that, Buster.", Vought replied, "-They're still paying for one Valkyrie and an inch of my vertical presence the way I see it."

The squadron was on its second "round" cycling through the pilots providing the conservative response to enemy intrusion into the kill box. It was the best method to conserving ordinance in the face of the uncertain. Knight Hawk Squadron had left the ground heavily armed for air-to-air work, but as Durango base was being stripped of its munitions that were being moved for the supposed "next stage of the fight" further south, this was not the condition of all fighters taking to the air.

Both RDF-AF and Southern Cross Air Force fighters pulling escort duty for the incessant cycle of cargo flights arriving at Durango empty and departing after hasty loading south were armed in the most limited sense of the word.

It was nothing less than rationing of weapons to the fight that remained, and conserving for anticipated fights to come. –And it was clear where the emphasis lay.

"Jack, did we say something wrong, or something?...", Dalton asked unexpectedly, "Aren't combat ops usually supposed to involve the enemy? -I'm starting to feel like we've been stood up on a blind date-."

"Wouldn't know.", Winters replied checking his tactical MFD and finding that the dozen or so Gnerls that Desperado was tracking were either far north or west running the coastline- all far too distant to engage without a reckless chase well outside of Knight Hawk Squadron's assigned airspace and not worth the effort in the final analysis. –But Dalton was right, the enemy's total disappearance was disquieting.

"-Personally, I've never been stood up on a blind date…"

"You've never been set up on one, Jack.", Vice prodded.

"-My own wingman.", Winters muttered, "Twice in one day even…"

"-And that's unfair, Vice.", Preacher chimed in from Dalton's flight section, "Blind dates are the only kind Jack can get."

Winters like the pilots under his command, never having allowed the time-passing potshots to draw his mind off mission, noted that the flight of Lakota helicopters was one by one beginning to take to the air again- presumably loaded with their critical cargo of wounded. Mathias's support package was starting to break the counter-rotating inner and outer rings of the wagon wheel orbit they had created and were maintaining a kilometer or so outside of the perimeter that had been established initially with plasma napalm. As the spools of attack aircraft unraveled, they began to form a broad line that they would hold at low altitude, sweeping the land before the Lakota flight like a custodian's broom on the same relative course as the Adventurer IIs had already egressed. Knight Hawk Squadron would keep the air above secure. –Assuming there were bandits to secure it from.

"-Preacher's mistaken. I only take blind dates. By evening's end I've usually kicked a dog at least twice and have a tin cup full of spare change to show for it."

"Knight Hawk One, Desperado- stand by for vector change.", an AWACS air controller hailed, "-Mercury Flight is now outbound. Assume course one-six-nine at Angels four. Maintain a lid on Mercury Flight- formation and intervals, your call. –Oh, and on a personal note, Knight Hawk One, there's a special circle of Hell waiting just for you. Over."

"Desperado, Hawk One. –Copy that on both.", Winters replied, "Buster, put your element static over Mercury Flight in a fluid four. I'll borrow your odd section to run a ten kilometer circuit with my flight. Turn left onto one-six-nine and ascend to-."

The sound that Winters had been both expecting and dreading overrode his issuing of orders to the squadron- the quick, double-beep of a new radar contact. –And it was followed by another, and another, and another until the alert sounds began to bleed into a steady, electronic chirping and with each mingled report clusters of radar contacts at all points of the clock around Winters' tactical MFD screen.

The bandits, those that had withdrawn from the terrestrial battlespace with the onset of the orbital battle coming up on twenty minutes before as well as many more that likely sortied from orbiting vessels were now coming down like the Wormwood prophecy itself.

Winters, afraid to take his eyes off the tactical display still stole a quick glance at the screen showing his fighter's remaining ordinance stores. Six Basilisks remaining out of an initial load of eight, and six Furies and eight Asps for the possibility of dogfighting before he would be gun-fighting. Loaded identically at wheels-up, the other Valkyries of Knight Hawk Squadron now varied between their full load and being down slightly as Winters was- all of which would have made for a fair fight against one or two squadrons of Gnerls, certainly, and up to four possibly.

-But this….

The knot formed in Winters' gut like a croquet ball as InfoLink showed what his radar alone could not- a ceiling of Gnerl Fighter Pods and "Green Bandit" power armor falling on the entire region.

"Desperado, Knight Hawk One- we're going to need some SAM support for this scrap, I'm afraid. Clear a corridor for me, and we'll do our best to keep it open. Over."

"Knight Hawk One, Desperado. Stand by. Over."

Winters felt cold panic as the altitude indications for Zentraedi squadrons continued to plummet. There was no sign that any particular bandit unit was lining his Valkyries up to engage, or that at their extreme altitude that they were even aware of the Gemini flight below- but that many fighters would not miss a target of opportunity as inviting as a mixed flight of fighters and attack aircraft shepherding a reduced squadron of woefully slow utility choppers.

"Desperado, Hawk One- standing by has thirty seconds of life as an option here! Get some damn SAMs in the air and vector us to the nearest goddamn support! Over!"

"Hawk One, Desperado. –Stand by. Over."

Winters searched the skies seeing target indicator boxes through his helmet visor that seemed to rival the stars in number. It wasn't quite the final stand against immeasurable odds that he'd envisioned once or twice as ways out of life that were preferable to rotting in a retired officers' facility- because in those visions he'd stood the chance of lasting more than a minute in the fight. –But one only had the options that one had in life, do what one might.

At least it would be preferable to die in a fight than waiting for an AWACS air controller to decide on the best way for him to check out.

"Cavalier One, Hawk One-. What are you packing for an air brawl?"

"Two dogfighting missiles apiece and my girthy cock.", Mathias replied short-winded. The smart-ass tone of their last exchange had dried up on the double-quick, and Winters was grateful at least that the ASC-AF pilot was sounding as panicked as he felt.

"What's the play?"

Winters found himself at a loss, "Slash and stab-. ECM jam hard and stay in close with my chaps- we'll help cover until we get in close. Then we open them up to you, and you go at `em with guns at close range. We'll keep at that until-."

Mathias interjected understanding completely, "Yeah- until. –I still don't like you, Winters.."

"Still hate you like taxes and dental work, Mathias.", Winters replied- it being as close to a heartfelt a goodbye as any.

Goodbyes were a jinx, and Winters would not be saying any to his pilots nor would he tolerate hearing any from them. If any of them were to feel a jolt and see a flash of light followed by finding themselves in the company of long-dead relatives, then that was fine. –But saying goodbye was tantamount to predicting defeat, and predicting defeat was the first step towards getting there….

-And Winters just didn't have the stomach for it besides….

"Knight Hawk One, Desperado. Vector one-eight-zero true and ascend to Angels twenty. Proceed on assigned heading at full throttle and you should be under SAM cover of battery Buzz Saw before bandits can engage. Over."

Winters felt a surge of relief that a means of escape had been discovered, but this rush was as short-lived as it had been intense. Checking his tactical display he found the joined SAM companies with the common callsign "Buzz Saw" just over 190Km south. Their umbrella of protection extended north of Durango Base, but it was going to be a race to get under it before the Gnerls could start hurling missiles at Winters' pilots.

"Desperado, Knight Hawk One. Cavalier and Panther flights may take honorable mentions at the finish line, but that's leaving Mercury flight without top cover. Recommend diverting additional fighters to this area. Over."

"Received, understood, and denied Knight Hawk One. Ascend to Angels twenty and take heading one-eight-zero true. Do this now. Over."

It clicked suddenly with Winters what was being said, and the realization was icy.

"Desperado, there are nine helos with wounded down there, we'd be leaving them naked."

"Understood, Knight Hawk One. Follow your orders. Mercury flight will return to base under terrain masking and with Desperado's ECM cover. Flying at under fifty meters, Red Bandits will have a hard time acquiring them anyway- you know that. Over."

"That's horseshit, Desperado!", Mathias chimed in, having dialed in on the C2 frequency assigned to Knight Hawk Squadron, probably to discuss the next move with him, Winters surmised, "-Winters, if we go, it's as good as sending them into the slaughter chute ourselves."

The incorporeal entity of Desperado took on a new voice, stern and uncompromising.

"Knight Hawk One, Cavalier One, this is Desperado Actual. You will egress the area as ordered immediately. Fighters and combat aircraft have been designated a Tier One asset, and if suicide is your intent you will not use a Valkyrie as an eighty-five million credit noose. Am I clear, Knight Hawk One?!"

Over the course of the exchange with Desperado, Mercury flight had already fallen fifteen kilometers aft despite moving at the top attainable airspeed of the Lakota. The ceiling of Red Bandits with an intermixing of Green Bandits had descended another ten thousand meters and would be detecting the RDF and ASC aircraft under Durango's C2 authority soon.

"-Winters?!..", Mathias demanded, audibly teetering on the line between fight and flight.

"Knight Hawks, keep it loose and ready on me-. Go full throttle and ascend to Angels twenty. Mathias, your Spectors aren't going to keep up, but get them to keep their foot on the gas and they should scrape by."

"-Jack?..", Dalton protested, sounding prepared to wage a futile campaign of argument.

"It's okay, Buster-.", Winters said feeling his throat tighten suddenly to which he told himself it was the dryness of the air through his facemask, "This is my order, not your decision."

Nothing else was said as Winters eased up the throttles and pulled the control stick back, putting Marilyn into a climb with the other Valkyries keeping combat formation.

There was nothing to be said as everyone knew it was not okay.

It was just the way it was and nothing more.

ASC Durango Base

General Leonard stood in the doorway of Operations Center, his banquet table-sized, detailed topographical map whose northern boundary showed the Rio Grande River and whose other extreme terminated south below Panama rolled and sleeved in a tube beneath his arm.

Three hours before, this most fortified and secure chamber of the deeply seated, subterranean command bunker had been alive with the voices and sounds of the command and control of a major military operation being played out in inter-related vignettes across more than two dozen duty stations with a combined staffing of nearly one hundred.

Now, the chamber looked much like any of steel-reinforced concrete, save perhaps the extensive metal framework whose computer systems, high-resolution flat screen monitors, components, and kilometers of wires and fiber-optic cable. These had been disassembled, transferred to ruggedized shipping crates, and moved on to transports for relocation faster than the staff themselves. Only the ceiling mounted LED lighting remained providing strong illumination to nothing.

Rapid displacement and relocation had been a contingency built into the Operation Center's design- Leonard saw this as nothing more than exercising the option by necessity. –And like any good commanding officer, he was here to be the last boots on this ground, taking his map and flag with him as he went.

Leonard would be at the center of the deteriorating situation again in minutes, courtesy of his Gemini Coalition partners in the RDF-Air Force, and the very equipment and staff that surrounded him in this Operations Center would be in place and waiting for him when he arrived at the next. –Operations went on.

He was certain that he would return to this place again- though less sure of when that would be. Too much was unknown, too many factors uncertain, but he had faith that occupation campaigns favored the occupiers less and less as time dragged on. –And already, there were indications that the enemy was making mistakes that Leonard knew how to use to his advantage.

But victory would not be easy under the most ideal conditions, and it would not be won this day.

Patience and perseverance would be qualities much in demand in the coming months- perhaps years…

An infantry detail assigned to safeguard critical personnel in transit arrived in the corridor outside of the Operations Center with an air of purpose about them whose substance Leonard already knew.

"General, sir-.", the captain commanding said respectfully but firmly, "We need to get you to the air field now, sir. The JSTARs is prepped and warming up, and we're receiving word that the regional airspace is becoming volatile. Please come with us now, sir."

Leonard closed the heavy blast door to the Operations Center with the same sentimentality he would have applied to closing the door of his backyard tool shed.

He would see this place again.

"Let's go then, Captain."

1007