Twenty-two
Planetary Cannon Assault
Planet Etheria
4 Sept 2017
Colonel Markson waited impatiently for the computers to reboot to optical systems. They were overloaded by the thundering explosion that had been the planetary cannon's discharge in an effort to destroy the Ladyhawke. In the aftermath, he had people outside searching the area with binoculars and Mark I eyeballs. So far, nothing.
Optical displays finally started popping up on designated camera screens. Private Catherine O'Rourke, manning the computer station, make a swift, thorough check of all systems. She reported that everything was back online. She and the colonel did not bother with the sensor systems. Ladyhawke had made her run with the MASC system engaged and the Val-kyrie had yet to figure a way of detecting a starship equipped with a system they created.
A corporal entered the carrier to report. "I'm sorry, sir. There's no sign of the Ladyhawke. We've searched everywhere."
Markson turned to the private monitoring the comm panel. "Have you made contact with the Eternia, yet?"
"No sir. I get nothing. It's almost as if she went radio silent."
There was no reason for Captain Majourny to go radio silent unless something had come up. A change of plan, maybe? Hard to say.
Markson addressed the corporal and shook his head. "No. They're still out there somewhere. Cobretti and the Sorceress would no allow themselves to be taken out by some measly cannon. Search again."
"I thought the plan was to destroy the cannon on one run. Not get caught in a discharge," Catherine said.
Markson nodded. "That was our plan. I don't think that was ever Adrian's." He left her to continue surveilling the area and stepped outside. He walked around to stand in front of the carrier, slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and looked around. He had no doubt those two Guardians were up to something. Flying in the face of a cannon blast apparently had been a part of the plan. That Eternia was now silent meant that Jo-jo may have been let in on the real plan. Probably after the Ladyhawke had taken off. If Jo-jo had been let in on it before the launch, she would not have let Adrian and the Sorceress continue with the mission.
The corporal suddenly rushed up to him from where he had been scanning the skies to the south, interrupting his musing. "Colonel, I found them!" the kid wheezed out, breathless from running.
Markson's heart leapt. He knew the pair hadn't bought the proverbial farm making the attack run. "Where?"
The corporal turned and flung up his right arm, pointing south. "There!"
Troopers manning the commander center deep in the heart of the Fright Zone continued to scan the surrounding area looking for a starship the watch commander was sure had been vaporized by the cannon blast. Hordak demanded that they continue to look for the ship while he monitored the battle in space. The battle was not going well. Those damnable Val-kyrie knew their business when it came to three-dimensional space combat.
Their initial volley blew away the two carriers. Fortunately, they managed to get all the fighters and bombers into space first. It didn't mean much as the battle unfolded; none of the craft got close to the invading battlestar. Its defenses were just too powerful. What the battlestar didn't kill, the Bladewing squadrons finished off. The data was incomplete, but Horde Prime suspected the Val-kyrie had suffered some losses among their pilots. The warrior women lived by the motto: 'Live fast, fight hard and go out in a blaze of glory.' And they did so on many an occasion, usually taking their enemy with them.
Then the battlestar's commander did the unthinkable: She ordered a ramming attack against the battleship line after the screening vessels had been annihilated. Hordak stared in amazement as the great ship rotated on its long axis and plowed amidships through the Horde battleship.
Where do they get such power? Hordak wondered. In the past, such attacks had ended in the loss of both ships. Val-kyrie commanders usually only executed a ramming attack when their ship was lost, and they were determined to take the enemy with them; the last recorded ramming attack had taken place over seventy years ago. Clearly, they had a source of power greater than ever in order to survive physical assaults on capital ships.
"My lord! We've detected the starship Eternia in the air south of the planetary cannon," the watch commander reported.
"What are they doing?" Hordak demanded.
The commander frowned. "They appear to be circling. It's as if they were searching for something."
"Or someone," Hordak corrected. The attack plan suddenly became clear. With the intrusion into the cannon's unground control complex, the invaders would have discovered that it took almost twenty minutes to rebuild power for a second shot. Getting them to fire the cannon once left it open to the real assault. But from where?
The commander spoke up again. "My lord, surface units picking up some sort of intermittent disturbance on the ocean surface. Eternia has stopped circling and is now heading in the direction of the cannon. Battle computers suggest it is flying high cover for something else."
"Contact the frigates. Order them to bombard that ship from orbit," Hordak commanded.
"Frigate captains are unable to comply. They have come under attack by a squadron of Bladewings. Two destroyers are moving to support."
Hordak ground his teeth together in frustration. The attack plan was now crystal clear. Where it be by happy accident or design, it did not matter. The disturbance on the ocean's surface was undoubtedly the other unidentified starship. Clearly, it had a power all its own to survive even a glancing blow from the cannon's discharge. The only thing he could do was order the Bat meks to head south to intercept, put as many surface ships in the way as possible, and hope they could shoot both starships down.
Hordak did not have high hopes that the naval units and Bat meks could accomplish the mission, however. Horde Prime learned long ago the dangers of giving the robot troops too much intelligence. But Hordak could certainly use it now.
Ladyhawke sprinted across the ocean surface at a height of precisely fifty feet at just over Mach one. Twin columns of water were kicked up in the wake of the supersonic shockwave.
The plan had gone better than Adrian had hoped, though they had caught more of a piece of the cannon blast then he wanted. The ship was slowly dying. The cloaking device had lasted until they had gotten far enough out to sea to make the turn back in toward land. Number three engine – the starboard one – trailed black smoke but was still functioning normally. A slow cascade failure crept through all ship functions, the automatic repair system trying to stem the tide. Even Mirriam was not in good shape. With the AI tied into most ship systems, the cascade failure was affecting her as well. Unfortunately, the auto repair could only handle so much at one time. Adrian and the Sorceress had to pick and choose which systems to try keeping alive and which to sacrifice.
"Baaaaaaaaat meks in…cooooooooming," Mirriam stammered.
"Forget them. We're too low for them to lock on while the MASC is functioning," Adrian said. "Besides, we're about to have some air support."
Sorceress frowned. She knew the Defiant would be in system by now, and probably engaged with Hordak's space fleet. A squadron of Bladewings was to be dispatched to Etheria to back up the Guardian Force, but there was no telling if they were in orbit. Or if they were engaged with any warships still in orbit.
Enemy fighters launched missiles at extreme range. The speed at which the Ladyhawke was travelling meant the distance closed before the missiles could find their target, much less make a dive at the starship. Explosions blasted apart the columns of water in the ship's wake.
The enemy pilots overshot their prey and banked hard to reacquire the target. The robot pilots suffered from target fixation, focusing all their attention on the target when they should have been watching their surroundings. They never noticed another starship winging around to swoop in on their six o'clock position. Missile warning systems screamed for attention, but heat seeking missiles exploded in the engines of both fighters before the robot crew could figure out where the attack originated.
Eternia pulled up out of the dive, winging over and making a corkscrew ascent back to altitude. Another pair of Bat meks closed to laser range on the Ladyhawke. Ace rolled the ship up on the port side to give the dorsal and ventral gunners a shot. Both bursts were on the mark, the diving Bat meks continuing straight into the ocean. Ace rolled back to horizontal, leveling out at ten thousand feet, and searched for more targets. Lieutenant Denton made short work of a third pair of enemy fighters with missile shots.
Jo-jo looked over the sensor display. The naval units did not appear to be a threat. They were out of position and the Ladyhawke was moving too fast. Also, her ship's sensors still could not get a lock on Adrian's starship. For the moment, the skies were clear.
Jo-jo opened a channel reserved for the Ladyhawke. "You're all clear, Adrian. Now blow that thing so we can go home!"
Blue leading-edge panels on the weapons pods opened automatically when the Ladyhawke closed the distance to maximum range, Mirriam stuttering her way through the announcement.
"Hang in there, Mirriam. You're about to get your wish to blow something up," Adrian said.
He squeezed the right-side triggers on the throttle lever. Plasma cannons belched a steady stream of bolts. Standard procedure was not to fire off a stream longer than eight seconds or else damage to the emitters could result. Since the starship was slowly dying, Adrian pushed it to twelve seconds. He calculated that a twelve second burst would be enough to heat up the armor belt and make it easier for the quantum torpedo spread to blast their way through.
Adrian let off on the plasma cannon triggers at twelve seconds. Red indicators illuminated announcing weapon failure. He squeezed the left-hand triggers one at a time. In response, torpedoes leapt from the port and starboard tubes in staggered launches, kicking out a weapon every two seconds. After the sixth one was launched, he squeezed the triggers for a simultaneous launch of weapons seven and eight. If all the calculations were correct, the last two torps would have a clear path for their onboard sensors to lock on to the cannon's power core and follow the read down the conduits to the reactor buried deep underground.
Panels closed over the weapons' launch tubes as the Ladyhawke veered away to the east. Away from the approaching navel units and further into the protective envelope of the Eternia still flying cover above and behind. Adrian chose to bring the nose of the starship skyward, throttled up and blasted off for orbit.
"How is Mirriam?"
"Not good," Sorceress answered, worry creeping into her voice.
"Better shut down her higher brain functions."
"Already done."
"Any minute now," Adrian muttered, pointedly not looking at any part of the wraparound display screens showing the cannon. When it went up, the detonation would likely be blinding.
Over a minute after launch, twin streams of plasma bolts slammed into the armor belt protecting the base of the planetary cannon. Armor flaked off from the impacts, but the important thing was the target area was heated up to a cheery-red glow. Then the torpedoes arrived. One by one, quantum torpedoes exploded on contact with the thick armor. Chunks blew away, more was vaporized, and several molten rivulets meandered down the side. The explosion of torpedo number six was short lived as the fireball was sucked away by the differential pressure between the outside air and inside the massive column sunk into the ground. As expected, torps seven and eight had a clear path to the massive fusion reactor deep underground. Their onboard sensors lock onto the nearest power source and chased it to ground.
For almost a minute, nothing happened. The weapons could have flown off course. They could have bumped some unseen structure on the way down and exploded prematurely. The warheads could even have been duds.
Colonel Markson frowned at the monitor whose camera was pointed at the cannon. The light show from the attack was impressive, he had to admit, but it was all for naught if the cannon did not explode. When the warning came, the observation team had only a few seconds to respond.
A jet of flame burst from the hole, blasting in the armor belt over a hundred feet in the air. The cannon vanished in a white cloud. Tremors in the ground reached the carrier at almost the same time, the soundwaves from the explosion washing over it. For a few seconds, it sounded as if doomsday had arrived. Colonel Markson ordered the lookout back inside the APC. Once everyone was accounted for, he hit the hatch controls to close the doors. His caution paid off as pieces of the cannon began raining down on the countryside. Bits of metal drummed on the roof like lethal rain that would definitely do some damage to anyone caught outside.
Once the storm of falling shrapnel had finally ceased, Markson called the waiting dropship for a pickup. It was time to return to Castle Brightmoon. He had a feeling things were about to get lively around there real soon.
Ladyhawke blasted off for the stars after the attack run. With the ship slowly dying, Adrian needed to get someplace where the ship could be fixed. That meant getting to the Defiant. Which meant getting into orbit. Sensors picked up debris falling into the atmosphere. The analysis was sketchy due to the creeping system failure, but the composition of the metals appeared to be consistent with Horde manufacturing. From the amount of debris falling and the size of the area, Adrian suspected at least one warship was down. And that meant friendly spacecraft in orbit. Probably of the Bladewing variety.
Sorceress sent a signal to the battlestar. Moments later, a window opened on the front left surface of the wraparound wall monitor. Commander Mundu's face filled the screen, however, they could see enough background to know she had tangled with something. Red battle lights case the bridge in a ghostly half-light and wisps of smoke drifted through the air the scrubbers hadn't yet purged from the atmosphere. Both of them wondered what they could tangle with that would give a battlestar a run for its credits.
"What have you got cooking on that bridge?" Adrian asked.
"Never mind my bridge" Mundu countered. "Mission status?"
"Mission accomplished. The cannon's history."
Mundu glanced at someone off screen. Nodding, she turned back to Adrian. "Our squadron there confirms detonation. Well done. Ship status?"
"Not good. We caught a piece of the cannon's discharge. Slow cascade failure of all systems. Mirriam is shutdown. One engine failing," Adrian reported.
A new voice came over the comm channel. "Then set down. Auto repair-"
"Is compromised along with everything else," the Sorceress interrupted. "It's functional, but not doing more than delaying the inevitable."
"If we set down, we may not take off again. Better to get someplace the ship can be repaired," Adrian added.
"Understood," Colonel Shabala acknowledged.
"What do you want us to do?" Adrian asked the commander.
"Just get to as a high an orbit as you can. We'll do the rest. With the cannon down, our fighters will go down to support the rest of your companions," Mundu said.
"What about Hordak's fleet?" Sorceress inquired.
"What fleet?" the commander asked, smiling slightly.
"Riiiight" Adrian drawled. "Expect us when you see us."
Moments after the channel closed, the number three engine finally gave up and exploded. Adrian quickly shut it down. The ascent's speed dropped off, forcing Adrian to throttle up the other two past one hundred percent thrust. He kicked in the boosters for good measure. If they didn't get high enough, gravity would simply drag the starship back down again.
Blue sky rapidly turned to night speckled with bright pinpoints of light. They had made it to a high orbit when engine number one gave out. That left one working engine and the reaction control system. A few timely bursts from RCS thrusters fore and aft oriented the ship so that the planet was on the starboard side. Adrian throttled up his only remaining engine long enough to push the dying ship into an orbital velocity of around fifteen thousand kph, then shut it down.
Systems continued to die. Life support was restricted to A Deck. Hollow clangs signaled the closure of airtight hatches to isolate the upper deck. All non-essential systems were powered down to conserve energy and make it easier on the auto repair system to keep them alive long enough to be picked up by the battlestar.
Now, all Adrian and the Sorceress could do was wait. And hope.
Defiant was not in the best of shape, but she was better off than the Horde warships. The dockyard was still intact, but it wouldn't be producing warships for a while. Commander Mundu wanted to finish off the shipyard and connected factories, but the last gasp volley from the capital ship they had been after changed that plan.
Val-kyrie intelligence had been correct. While Horde Prime might be working on a dreadnought-class warship in his main shipyards in the Argolus system, Hordak definitely had been building one. Fortunately, the dreadnought had been far from complete. Its drive systems had been fully functional, along with some of the defensive shields. Many of the secondary guns for fighter suppression had been installed, but many of the primary weapons hadn't been mounted. Only the forward cannons and missile launchers had been installed and hooked up to the power grid.
The beast measured two and a half kilometers in length, almost twice the length of the Mark XX battlestar. Sensor analysis would have to wait for the techs back home, but Mundu figured a fully functional dreadnaught would easily mount twice the firepower of a battlestar. It would certainly have the space to house hundreds of Bat mek fighters.
Battlestars made up for the firepower deficiencies with the new vacuum energy generators. But even those had their limits, since the warships had not been designed from the keel up with a power distribution system capable of handling the full output a generator could provide. That would be incorporated into the next generation of battlestars.
Even so, Defiant gave as good as she got. The ramming attack on the battleship had temporarily knocked the main guns in the bow section offline. Power had been restored by the time they got within range to launch an attack upon the shipyard. The remaining flight-capable fighters had been rearmed and launched.
A dozen Bladewings had been lost in action against the dreadnought, but they acquitted themselves well against the screening force of three cruisers and eight frigates and destroyers. Several pilots did manage to slam sever of their capital ship torpedoes into several of the dreadnought's vital areas. If the Horde monster had had a full complement of defensive armaments, it was likely that none of the Bladewings would have gotten through.
As it was, several of the dread's systems had been damage by the strikes, including shield emitters. The damage gave Mundu's gunners the edge they needed to eventually disable and then destroy the dreadnought. By the time the Val-kyrie finished turning the fearsome warship into a leaking mass of scrap, their mighty battlestar was in no shape to finish off the shipyard.
Bladewings did make a few strafing runs at the massive collection of docks, foundries and manufacturing plants. Without torpedoes, the fighters had been reduced to using ion and plasma blasters, and railguns. The pilots went for structures the could damage from power generators to habitat modules. Anything that would delay Hordak's forces getting it back into operation.
When all resistance had been quelled, all fighters were ordered to return to base as quickly as possible. Once the last fighter had touched down, the battlestar's mighty main drives lit off and throttled up to full power. They had to get back to Etheria to pick up the Ladyhawke before its systems died.
Two Bladewings were pacing the compact starship and feeding regular reports back to the Defiant. The news was not good. Life support had been reduced to the top deck. Main drives were inoperative. Most functions had been reduced to standby or turned off completely. There was some evidence that the auto repair system was still operating, but there was no telling for how long.
Adrian and the Sorceress were huddled in the cockpit, wrapped in blankets to ward off the cold seeping into the ship. With all essential systems reduced to bare minimum, it was just enough to keep the air breathable and to keep frost from forming on the interior surfaces.
The pilots pacing them in orbit would make contact periodically to ensure the pair was still alive and kicking. Assurances were reaffirmed that the Defiant was on the way.
Adrian and the Sorceress passed the time talking about anything other than their present predicament. Adrian didn't have much to talk, about having been orphaned very young. His life didn't turn around until he enlisted in the military. Then the horde came. The Sorceress, on the other hand, related the story of how she became the current guardian of Castle Grayskull. She told him everything about how invaders had come to Novella and were in league with Morgoth. The only piece of information Adrian could not weasel out of her was her real name. Sorceress maintained that Teelana was her real name, but Adrian suspected that was only partially true. He had been playing with different pronunciations of Teelana but had yet to settle on one that sounded right.
Sorceress had moved on what had become known as the Great Unrest when the few functioning displays on the port side of the wraparound screen suddenly darkened. Both sat up a little straighter in their seats and tried to identify the source of the shadow. Whatever it was, it was big. And that could only mean one thing.
"Defiant to Ladyhawke. Anyone still alive over there?" Colonel Shabala called.
Sorceress tapped a few keys on her left-hand panel to bring several key systems back up to full power. She nodded to Adrian.
Opening the channel, Adrian replied, "We're not that easy to kill."
Mundu's voice came over the line. "If you were, I doubt those battlesuit AIs would have chosen you."
"She has a point there," the Sorceress said just loud enough for Adrian to hear.
In the screen, the battlestar soared past the stricken Ladyhawke to settle in orbit ahead. The great ship disappeared beyond the horizon as it slowed down. Adrian wasn't sure how they managed to get back to Etheria from so far out in the system, and he didn't care. Mundu had come through on her promise. Now they had to land safely before the ship died entirely.
The battlestar soon came back into sight, as it had slowed practically to a stop relative to the planet's rotation. This allowed the Ladyhawke to catch up without either ship having to execute several orbits to get together.
Approach control for the portside landing bay talked Adrian in. A few bursts from the bow and stern RCS thrusters nudged the ship into a better alignment. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do. After the last-minute adjustment, the RCS system went down.
"Defiant, reaction control is down. We are…ballistic," Adrian reported.
"Roger that, Ladyhawke. Your alignment looks good. Just sit back and enjoy the show," the approach controller said.
"Wish I had her confidence," Adrian grumbled.
Erina, Chief of the deck, scowled as her crew went about preparations for the incoming starship. All the fighters clogging the landing had to be moved out of the way to make room. Many of the undamaged ones and those with minor damage had been pulled forward and parked in front of launch tubes. The rest had been pushed to the inboard side where they would be well out of the way.
"Energize the grappler system. Set for automatic computer control," Erina spoke into her comm headset. She paused as the report of the Ladyhawke's RCS system going down. "Clear the deck and standby. That ship will be coming in like a missile. If they crack up, I want the foam crews to move in immediately."
The approach control, located in a bunker on the sloped surface above the opening to the landing bay, called off speed and distance over the comm. The ground crew readied themselves for the worst as the speeding starship approached the outer marker. In moments, there would be no turning back even if the Ladyhawke's crew had had the ability to change their course.
"Landing struts," Adrian called out.
Sorceress pulled out a lever and moved it to the down position. She frowned at the indicator lights above it. "Forward struts are down and locked. Aft indicators are dark." She repeated the movement with the lever but came up with the same result.
"All right," Adrian sighed. "Retract aft struts. If there's any auto repair function left, redirect it. We'll need them."
He sat back and stared at the forward arc of the wraparound display. It was the only section still functioning and gave him a great view of the headlong flight toward the waiting battlestar. Both had strapped into their seats as a precaution against something going horribly wrong with the recovery. The Approach controller reassured them not to worry about their speed. They had it all under control.
Ladyhawke crossed the last ten thousand yards in seconds. Both winced involuntarily as they shot into the landing bay at a speed far greater than intended. Emitters set into the vertical bulkhead struts flared to life instantly. Translucent blue bands formed in the path of the streaking starship and broke just as fast. The magnetic beams were not meant to stop the ship instantly; doing so could kill the crew even if the inertia dampers were functioning. Instead, breaking through the magnetic beams performed the same function as an arresting cable used on the flight decks of aircraft carriers and at the ends of land-based runways.
The beams rapidly slowed the starship to a safe speed in an acceptable length of the landing bay. Beams were penetrated slower and slower until the last three struts the starship tried to pass arrested its flight. It was an awesome sight seeing the one-hundred-meter length of starship suspended in the air above the deck. Magnetic beam projectors snapped on and took the weight from the braking beams.
At Adrian's behest, the Sorceress tried the landing struts again. This time the panel read back four green indicators for the down and locked position. The beam projectors gently set the starship down on the deck with hardly a bump. Ground crew rushed in with a portable generator on wheels, unspooled the heavy cable and plugged it into a port on the starboard aft strut. As was hoped for, the emergency systems had not been affected by the system damage. In moments, the rest of the ship had been powered up enough to restore life support to the lower decks.
A green light illuminated on the status panel near the hatch to B deck. Adrian hit a switch and the armored hatch slid aside. Both clamored down to B deck and moved forward to the hatch leading down to C deck. Once there, Adrian stopped off at the armory to pick up a few things before joining the Sorceress in the forward cargo hold. It seemed to take forever for the cargo doors to pop inward and slide apart. The trip down on the lift platform was agonizingly slow. Once on the deck, the pair reported the long list of problems resulting from catching a piece of the cannon blast to the tech assigned as crew chief to oversee the repair effort.
Commander Mundu and Colonel Shabala arrived in short order to congratulate them on a job well done, clasping forearms in the traditional Val-kyrie greeting.
"So," the colonel began, "how did you survive an indirect hit from that cannon? No one has ever survived even a glancing blow."
"I'll make a deal with you, colonel," Adrian proposed. "When this is over, we'll share a bottle of blood wine and swap stories. I'll tell you how we survived the attack run, and you tell us what you tangled with to give your ship all its stylish new battle scars."
Grinning broadly, Shabala agreed. "Deal."
A report came in of activity south of Castle Brightmoon. A runner from the bridge produced a small sphere. At a touch, a cone of light sprang up from the sphere and resolved into a real-time display of the sensor relay from a Bladewing fighter in orbit.
The holo-display depicted a large mass moving up from the south headed directly for Castle Brightmoon. Smaller masses were moving before it like waves of the ocean moving in on a sandy beach. A Bladewing's sensors could only provide so much detail, especially with all the ground clutter. The battlestar, on the other hand, could pick out details to a fine degree. The group of people did not need such detail to know that the Horde was striking at Castle Brightmoon just as Colonel Markson suspected it would. Even if the planetary cannon had not been successfully attacked and destroyed, Hordak would still have sent a strike force out after the Guardian Force.
Commander Mundu began barking out orders. She called for Major Oran to assemble an assault force to assist in the defense of Castle Brightmoon. Mundu then contacted Captain Sithas, who led the flight of fighters orbiting Etheria, and ordered her to take her squadron of twenty-four craft down to fly cover for the Guardian Force.
The commander turned to Adrian and the Sorceress. "I presume you want to get back to the surface to join the fight?" A rhetorical question, if there ever was one.
"Can't be of much use with two battlesuits hanging around up here," Adrian commented.
Mundu and Shabala had no idea what Adrian meant until he and the Sorceress touched the medallions they wore. Eyes widened in surprise as the man and woman were swiftly enclosed in a suit of power armor, the combat forms of War Wing and Falcon.
"Now I see why Harana was so obsessed with making that expanding armor suit she used when you two struck the prison complex," Mundu commented with just a touch of envy. "Good luck." She and Shabala returned to bridge while preparations for the assault drop picked up steam.
After getting her people moving, Major Oran stepped aside with the two Guardians to review the sensor data as the battlestar scanned the area. What came up on her data pad was disturbing. They would need some serious firepower to take apart the force Hordak had matching on the castle. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was what trailed the small army of troopers, drones, tanks hunter/killer units and other assorted assault machines. Adrian and the Sorceress recognized the towering machines that lumbered behind the Horde formation and their blood turned to ice at the sight.
Monstroids.
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