38: The Die is Cast

Something was wrong. Cassalis sensed it right away, from how the chatter within the command centre changed to the more frantic movements of those officers and technicians working around her. Things had gone from the rapid and organized chatter of directing the ship and its part in the battle, to something quieter and more hurried, with some worrying raised voices coming from the Captain and his staff. The main view-screen showed nothing out of the ordinary, simply the same order of battle, the various blips mingling with some disappearing as fighters on both sides were blasted out of the sky. However, something had the Captain concerned, and she spun about on the chair to look his way.

Captain Karal was speaking into an in-ship communicator when Cassalis locked eyes with him. He put aside the device, red lights flashing on a monitor above him.

"What's happening, Captain?" She asked him. Karal faced her directly, standing up straight and putting on his best tough exterior. No doubt it was his way of making it out that whatever new development was occurring, it was not fazing him in the slightest.

"We're detecting multiple hyperspace signatures, Commander." His voice was level, yet his yellow eyes were filled with a growing unease. Hyperspace signatures meant more ships, and Cassalis knew full well that there were no reinforcements on their way from the home-world. They had called for none, and it was unlikely the High Protector would spare any more ships, especially with a war going on beyond their borders.

"We're identifying them now," the Captain added. Cassalis looked back to the main display ahead of her, where a whole host of identifying icons had appeared far off to their left flank. Information began pinging back from those new arrivals, including unique ship identifiers and whether or not the ships had their guns charged and ready to fire. The readouts that she saw in the following several seconds made a few things abundantly clear: these ships were not from the home-world and they were coming in with their weapons ready to fire. Some of the identifiers marked them as part of the defence fleet for the colony world of Tornya, others had them as being in the Union space navy but evidently not on the side of the forces currently assaulting Vargania.

Cassalis felt a sinking sense of realisation in her chest. Her hopes of having this insurrection quelled by the end of the day were dashed in an instant. This new force outnumbered them greatly, and she had to wonder how the people of that colony had managed to muster so much support in such little time. It was clear from the look Captain Karal adopted that he was feeling much the same, and no one in the command centre of the Sword of Calshara needed to be told what it all meant. Help had arrived, just not for them.

Karal began barking orders into his communicator again, directing part of their attack force to turn and intercept the new arrivals. Cassalis allowed him to take charge, for she was no longer in the mood for command. Instead, she stared at the scanner screen and the deluge of new icons flooding towards them and she wondered, with a deep dismay, just how they had misjudged the situation so badly.


Amongst the streets of the Varganian capital, Toron sensed a change in the way the enemy conducted themselves. Their assaults had been organized and specific, targeting perceived weak points throughout the Varganian defensive line. Now, however, their advance had slowed and the Union forces appeared to be consolidating themselves, moving together their various assault forces in order to form a pair of larger assault forces. One was to the west of the central district, another to the east, and both no longer advanced with the same fervour as before. The Union forces would have known that they had the Varganian defenders on the run, that the best their enemy could do was a fighting retreat into the city. Draw the invaders into a close-quarters urban battle, force them into an area that the defenders could turn to their advantage. Ambushes and hit-and-run attacks had become the main tactic deployed by the Varganian defenders, at least until Jorran had arrived with his armoured force.

They had no heavy crawlers at their disposal, but they did have plenty of lighter armoured vehicles, some fitted with powerful armaments that would have been designed more for long-distance precision use than urban warfare. And yet, it was the close-quarters urban combat that these vehicles were now deployed in, their powerful precision plasma guns proving to be somewhat effective against the heavier vehicles that the Union forces had brought with them. A well-aimed shot at the rear armour of a heavy crawler could disable it, and the losses being inflicted upon the Union now would be unsustainable. They were still tied up in the fighting in orbit; not all of their intended ground assault units had broken through the defences up there. They were not going to be reinforced, and their hopes of putting down this rebellion quickly had been dashed.

Toron rode on the side of one of the armoured civil defence vehicles, with Jorran at the other side, both of them clasping handholds upon its armour as the vehicle travelled steadily along. Lahea lead the squad of troops following behind them, with the street ahead a fairly wide one flanked by townhouses and shopfronts. They entered into a circular plaza, complete with a statue in the centre surrounded by a small pool of water contained within a short, ornately decorated circular wall. The statue was of a tall and broad-shouldered male Varganian, specifically one of the first Governor of Vargania from roughly twelve-hundred years ago when the colony had first become an officially recognized independent world. That had not stopped any of the subsequent wars, not until Visala had unified all the major colonies under one flag. And now that first Governor's statue stood witness to the first significant inter-colony conflict in one-thousand years. From what Toron understood, this Governor, Silrek Vokoval, had been a fierce believer in keeping Vargania independent from any centralised government. Perhaps he had had a point, Toron mused. They had united in response to a greater threat; one-thousand years of unity was a long time. Things had to fall apart eventually, it seemed inevitable.

A cathedral-like structure was at the right-hand flank of the plaza. It was the central place of worship for those in Rokasham who followed the monotheistic faith that had formed the early foundations of Calsharan society. It was a tall, ancient building, adorned with stained-glass windows and towering steeples. A place intended for peaceful gatherings, now beholden to the chaos that erupted around it.

That chaos came in the form of a column of Union soldiers across the circular plaza. They were backed by a single heavy crawler, its plasma cannon letting fly as Toron and the others came into view. The cannon's shot, a blazing, searing bolt of blue energy as long as Toron was tall, darted through the air in a flash, leaving behind it a sizzling blue vapour trail that dissipated rapidly in the daylight air. It slammed into the shopfront just to the armoured vehicle's left side, blasting away much of the front of the building. Chunks of masonry rained down upon the street, showering Toron and Jorran and the armoured self-propelled gun with debris. Toron ducked as an especially large piece clanked upon the armoured chassis near his head. A cloud of dust blossomed forth, and he coughed as some of the thick dust caught in his nose and throat.

Plasma fire erupted right away. Both sides scattered across the plaza, taking up cover where they could find it, mainly behind the parked civilian vehicles that were about the edges of the space. Toron climbed off of the armoured carrier, with Jorran joining him. Behind them, Lahea ordered the mix of Varganian Planetary Defence soldiers, Union troopers and civilian militia out of formation and into the available cover. The armoured carrier turned its long, powerful gun towards the Union heavy crawler and fired, the plasma bolt that left the end of its long, precision gun glancing off of the crawler's thick frontal armour.

Toron dived behind the edge of the fountain's pool as a volley of plasma fire cut through the air behind him. Small chunks were blasted off of the top of the pool's stone embankment. His heart thumped in his chest, his muscles ached from over-exertion and the cuts and scrapes on his hands and face stung underneath the layer of dirt and grime that had covered him. Yet he kept on going, as did the others around him. They had no choice, and Toron would have liked nothing more than a rest. He had been off of his usual training regimen for too long, having been at home caring for his ailing mother. And now those months of much-less frequent exercise were taking their toll when he needed his fitness the most. That was something he would have to rectify, if he got out of here alive.

There had to be a good two dozen of the Union troopers. They had scattered across the plaza and were pouring fire onto the opposing group. Toron saw a couple of the Varganian defence force troopers off to his left go down, torn asunder by the unrelenting stream of plasma fire. Toron kept his head down, turning around to try and sight either Jorran or Lahea.

He saw Jorran further to the right, by the cathedral's steps. He held a plasma pistol, a customised model that had been painted with the red and black colours that were to be found on the flag and emblems of the Vigilants of Varondaar. He kept himself in cover behind the old stone steps, ducking as a few plasma bolts struck the ground near him, kicking up small shards of stone.

Lahea was further back, keeping behind a short stone wall that served to separate the normally two lanes of traffic that would come through the plaza. She had her carbine raised and she fired a volley at the opposing side across the plaza, her attention fixed entirely upon the fight at hand. Behind her, the armoured carrier was adjusting its aim for another shot. However, the Union heavy crawler fired first, the powerful blast striking the front of the armoured carrier.

Toron practically saw the metal twist and warp and melt, all in the space of the few seconds after impact as the shot cut through the thinner armour with ease. There followed a fireball as the interior of the carrier was incinerated, taking with it the four-man crew. Smoke poured upwards, rising on high above the surrounding buildings.

That put them at a disadvantage. Toron had to assume there were more carriers around, they were simply caught up in the fighting elsewhere. Now, however, the Union crawler ahead had no real threats before it, and the plasma repeater nestled in its front opened fire with a swathe of rapid plasma bolts that it used to practically hose the positions of the Varganian defenders. Toron saw a few more of those under his command go down, but his attention was suddenly diverted then by the growing hum that had become audible over the commotion of the battle.

A Varganian fighter was coming in low and fast. It was unmolested, with no enemy aircraft pursuing it. Instead, it seemed to be headed for the plaza itself, and Toron watched with mounting hope as the fighter opened fire with the missile pods on either wing. The powerful warheads shot through the air at a frightening speed, leaving white contrails in their wake. Both slammed into the Union heavy crawler, and the entire vehicle disappeared into a sudden gush of fire and smoke and dirt and debris. The very ground around the crawler seemed to rise up in a column, with fire coming up from under it and the crawler itself being torn asunder by the powerful explosion. Pieces of it were flung all across the plaza, sizzling from the heat. A group of the Union troopers closest to it had also gone, seemingly swallowed up by the detonation that had left a sizeable blaze burning in the crater where the crawler had been situated. The other Union soldiers seemed stunned for a moment, no doubt taken by surprise by the loss of their armour support.

It was Jorran's voice that cut in then, as the fighter darted away, the pilot no doubt feeling some satisfaction at this small victory. Jorran's booming shouts resounded across the plaza, a rallying cry for the beleaguered defenders:

"Take them now!" He bellowed, and he darted from cover and began to run for the enemy lines. Toron found himself following him, caught up in the heat of the moment, secure in the knowledge that the enemy had been thoroughly rattled. Lahea shouted at the other soldiers to follow as she started after Toron, and the mix of Varganian defence force troopers, Union soldiers and civilian militia came rushing across the plaza in a determined surge, some bellowing at the top of their lungs, a war cry intended to rattle an already startled enemy.

Jorran and Toron were first amongst the enemy, weapons firing at whoever of them happened to fall into their sights. Toron found himself running upon a Union soldier in full armour, the insignia at their shoulders indicating them as a low-level Regular. This one seemed startled by the crazed planetary defence Captain who came upon him, and he faltered in his attempt to bring his weapon to bear. Instead, Toron kicked it out of his grasp and then swatted him across the face with the butt-end of his own plasma rifle. The Regular's visor smashed and he fell across the paved road, stunned.

Toron, driven by a sheer determination brought on by hours of fighting and seeing so many around him die, did not hesitate to spin his gun around and blast the downed private. He shot him in the chest, blowing a hole through where his heart would have been. The Union soldier twitched, gasped and then fell quiet, blue eyes visible through the shattered visor. They stared off into the sky with a vacant, glassy look, one that Toron was all too familiar with by now.

Another soldier spun about to face him, coming up from behind a parked car. This one fired off a shot that struck Toron in the lower left leg, the burning sensation immediate and agonizing. Toron yelped, falling to one knee before he reflexively hit the trigger on his own rifle and blasted the soldier down. Around him, those under his command had stormed the enemy positions. Some were engaged in close-quarters brawls, with rifle-stocks and bare hands being used to bring down their opponents. One ageing militia man had pulled out a sizeable knife, and Toron watched as off to his right, this knife-wielder plunged the blade into the neck of a young Union soldier, blood spurting out quickly and in a torrent as the major arteries were severed.

Lahea was ahead, and she calmly shot down a Union officer without so much as batting an eyelid. Within moments, the Union platoon here had been neutralised, bodies littering the plaza and fires blazing from the ruined carrier and crawler. Toron leaned against a nearby parked car, his leg screaming at him. A look down revealed that the plasma shot had grazed him, but even that had left a mess of burned, blistered skin. The fabric of his pants had also melted into the mix, which would result in some serious pain when he finally got it treated. Had the shot connected squarely with his leg, it would have likely sheared it off entirely.

He settled against the side of the parked car and allowed himself to take some weight off of the leg. He looked about at the others, with some of those under his command already picking belongings off of the dead. Lahea approached him then, looking as dirty as he was, and amongst the soot and dirt that had collected on her face was a look of mounting worry.

"You're hurt," she said. She herself appeared unharmed.

"I'll be fine," Toron told her. She glanced to her right then, and Toron followed her gaze, seeing some metres away the familiar form of Jorran. However, he was sprawled on the ground, and right away Toron was hobbling over to him. He winced when his full weight fell upon his wounded leg. He almost fell over, but Lahea was suddenly there next to him, holding him up and keeping him from stumbling entirely.

Jorran was dead. Toron knelt by him, assisted in doing so by Lahea, and he looked down at the former Vigilant with some guilt, mingled with some genuine sadness. Jorran had been shot several times, with his torso marked with several bloody, burned holes. There were two dead Union soldiers near him, so he had apparently taken his enemies with him, at the very least.

"We needed him," Toron said. Lahea stood by him, her expression hard. She had barely known Jorran, so Toron was not surprised that she had little to add.

Toron reached over for Jorran's wide, lifeless eyes and gently closed his eyelids. At least that way he appeared somewhat more peaceful. It was strange, how abrupt death could come around. Toron lingered a little while longer by Jorran's side, whilst Lahea went off to reorganize the soldiers still standing. Some of their own had gone down in the melee, and when Toron glanced about the plaza then, he realised that at least half of those they had started with were gone, their bodies lying amongst those of their enemies.

Above, another fighter roared overhead, racing off to some far-flung battle. Toron, with some pain, slowly rose to his feet. He used his plasma rifle as a makeshift walking stick to get some of the weight off of his wounded leg. He considered what they would do now, and with the losses they had taken he surmised regrouping with other defenders would be the best course of action. As he thought over this, a familiar voice broke through his communicator:

"Captain Kavellan, are you there?" Grand General Masrak's usually gruff tones broke through Toron's train of thought.

"I'm here, sir." Toron turned to watch Lahea and the others, some of whom were gathering weapons off of the fallen. No point letting them go to waste, he supposed. "We're in Vokoval Plaza."

"I have good news, Captain. Help has arrived. We may just win this one yet." Masrak sounded pleased, not to mention relieved. He had likely gone into this fight thinking defeat was inevitable. Now, however, there was some hope that they would indeed pull through, even scrape a win. The first real battle of the war, a war that was likely to go on for some time. The first of many fights, and they were already down one leading figure.

"How goes the fight where you are?" Masrak asked him.

"We've taken heavy losses," Toron answered. "And Jorran Casker, he's dead."

There was a pause on the other end as the Grand General took in this news. When he spoke again, he sounded a little more morose:

"Find your way back to the estate, Captain. I want your input on our next steps."


"Commander, one of our frigates has been destroyed." Captain Karal announced this from his spot around the command centre's main console and projection table. The inside of the command centre was a bustle now, technicians and watch officers relaying information to and from various parts of the ship. They were taking direct fire from some of the Tornyan taskforce, with plasma rounds glancing off of the dreadnought's shields. Each impact sent a slight rumble through the ship itself, but otherwise there was little to be felt of the battle deep within the ship's command centre. They were right in the heart of the vessel, far from any outlying hull plating. It was a sound design, intended to minimise risk to the command staff. At the same time, it provided a strange sense of disconnect from the battle itself, one that Cassalis was not entirely sure she appreciated or not. She liked to be on the frontlines, she did not mind getting her hands dirty. Seeing the tide of the battle shift so suddenly only irked her, more so that she was not out there in a fighter engaging the enemy directly. Nonetheless, she was the Supreme Commander, and that meant being on the flagship leading their fleet from the front.

"Our corvettes are also taking heavy damage," Karal added. "Enemy bombers are moving for us."

"I want a full fighter interception screen," Cassalis ordered, glancing back at where Karal stood. "Every gun we have I want focussed on fighter elimination." She turned back to the main scanner display, watching as the enemy fighters and smaller support craft came swarming for the Union attack force. They were outnumbered now, and some of the ships from the Tornya colony were modern and heavily armed. The Tornyans had always been fanatical about their guns, so it only made sense that they had gone and crammed as many as possible onto their starships.

"Fore shields are taking heavy fire." Cassalis did not need Karal to tell her this; she could see it for herself on the main display. Tornyan frigates and corvettes were moving in on them in a rough pincer movement. Their own support ships turned to face the flanking enemies. The Varganian defence fleet was directly in front, and it now pushed towards them in a staggered formation, their confidence rising now that their help had arrived. Cassalis could see control of the fight slipping away from her in real time and it frustrated her to no end. This rebellion would not end swiftly now, and she could see right away that this battle was turning into one they could not win.

She put a finger to the small personal computer built into the left arm of the commander's chair. This opened up the inter-ship communications channel, on which the pilots of all their fighters and bombers communicated, as did the commanders of the various vessels in their taskforce. The chatter earlier had been organized and calm, with the commanders of the ships confident in an easy victory. Now the panic was beginning to set in, as did the anger as the enemy began to inflict serious losses. Voices piled atop voices, orders relayed, firing solutions given and fighter pilots screamed as they were blasted out of space. The enemy still took losses, but there were far more of them now. Even the Tornyan ships were spewing out fighter craft, a veritable swarm of hundreds of smaller contacts now rushing into the fray.

Their landing craft were being destroyed. There was no chance of getting their people onto the ground now, not with this onslaught before them. Karal recalled their own troop transports then, a means to try and salvage some of those ground attack teams they had sent off. News of the battle on the ground had become sporadic, and what they did hear presented an increasingly sorry perspective of the battle itself. They were losing down there, despite an early and successful push into the capital city. They were losing and Cassalis could see her future prospects being lost with it. To be bested over Sanctuary by a powerful alien vessel was one thing, but to be beaten by a bunch of disgruntled colonials? That was a humiliation she knew would cost her dearly.

The Sword of Calshara was a powerful ship, a dreadnought covered in sturdy armour and powerful state-of-the-art weapons. But even it could not face off a force that outnumbered it like this. Its point-defence cannons swatted fighters and heavy ordnance out of the sky, among them plasma-fusion missiles and older, cruder nuclear warheads (again, the Tornyans had seen fit to equip their support ships with fission warheads enhanced with naquadah on top of the usual armaments, despite such weapons having been phased out by the rest of the Union many, many years before). Colonial fighters were also blasted away amongst the fray, although the increased and heavy plasma/flak defence had also elevated the risk presented to their own fighters. Cassalis assumed that some of those Union fighters disappearing off of the scanners were being taken out by their own guns now, an unfortunate side effect of spraying every gun they had at the incoming enemy onslaught. Usually, the targeting computers were more careful, but up this close mistakes could sometimes be made.

"Enemy bombers are breaking through," Karal said, and he turned his attention to his executive officer, a firm-looking, older male with a grey eyepatch over his left eye and pale grey scales. "Start organizing damage control teams. If our shields go, we'll need them."

The executive officer picked up the in-ship communicator and began relaying the instructions. Cassalis remained seated in her place, viewing some of the external scanner footage. A wing of heavy bombers was coming in hard, accompanied by a couple dozen fighters. Some of them were blasted away, but others pushed on through, coming close enough for them to release their payloads. These were not standard explosives, be they conventional or plasma; rather, these were specially designed disruptor charges that could drain the power from a ship's shields if their resonance frequencies were sound. As such, the charges cycled through frequencies quickly, hundreds per second. Most would explode against the shields harmlessly, but a few would succeed in disrupting the shield harmonics, weakening it and potentially overloading the systems responsible for keeping them functional. All Calsharan ships came with a complement of such charges, and so seeing them heading for the dreadnought now was not a surprise at all. At such a close range, the point-defence guns had a much smaller window to destroy them.

Cassalis wore a grim expression as she watched the swirling purple-hued charges fly towards them. Some of the bombers and fighters were torn apart by the ship-to-ship plasma cannons before they could turn away from their bombing run. Others managed to get away, and the disruptor charges hit the dreadnought's shields within seconds of each other. Each detonated with a flash of white energy, and as expected most did not cause any damage. However, amongst the dozens that landed, a few caused the shields on the affected section of the ship to flare-up noticeably. Warning lights began to flash across multiple terminals, a high-pitched beeping from somewhere close-by indicating that at least one section of the ship's shields had been compromised.

"One of our cruisers is being forced to back off," Karal said. "They're taking far too much damage."

Cassalis could see that cruiser on the scanner display, represented by a sizeable green indicator. Another of their corvettes disappeared then, off to the dreadnought's right flank, and the chatter on the open channel before her became filled with panicked voices. She knew at that moment that they could not stay here. Tapping a button, she closed the channel and spun her chair around to look towards Karal.

"Send word to the fleet. We're pulling out." The words almost caught in her throat, but she pushed through them nonetheless. Karal looked surprised upon hearing the order, judging from the way his usually stern expression softened fleetingly with his brow-ridges raised. And then, almost as quickly as his expression had changed, it returned to its former all-business appearance. He spun about and passed on the order to the executive officer, and in turn the announcement was made to the ship and passed on to the others in the fleet. They were leaving, for this expedition was over. The enemy was far more organized than originally suspected. Not to mention, the losses taken were significant, borderline unacceptable. The High Protector would be upset, no doubt about that. He would need to get some of their units off of the frontlines to deal with this internal conflict, even if the High Protector had made it clear that he did not wish to do so.

Cassalis only vaguely listened to the announcement that they would be entering hyperspace in about ten seconds. She wondered how she would explain what had happened to the High Protector, about how their own colonies had turned against his rule and that she had failed to put a quick stop to it. Still, it was either pull out, regroup and replan or stay here, fight and be overwhelmed. Allowing the Sword of Calshara to fall into rebel hands was an unacceptable outcome, and they had just lost several of their own frontline ships. Would they have to burn Vargania to put an end to this conflict? Come back with a fleet ten times the size of what they had brought today, just to bombard the planet from orbit? All that would do was turn more of their own people against them. With the colony of Tornya involved, things would only get worse.

Perhaps the most pertinent thought on Cassalis' mind then, as the ship jumped into hyperspace with that familiar lurching sensation it gave all those on board, was how she would deal with the High Protector and his expected outrage at her failure. Perhaps she would have to implement the contingency she had had in mind since arranging for her nephew to take power? That is, if High Protector Garall himself had not already put something in place to rid himself of her.