A/N:

Had some trouble formatting this to fit FFN, so if there are any obvious errors, please point them out so I can fix them.

Without further ado, we're off!

Chapter 41

Remata'Klan: He does not have to earn my loyalty, Captain. He has had it from the moment I was conceived. I am a Jem'Hadar. He is a Vorta. It is the order of things.

Capt. Sisko: Do you really want to give up your life for the "order of things"?

Remata'Klan: It's not my life to give up, Captain — and it never was.

— Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

August 2220

Day Two

Hard and fast 'landings' were less 'landings' than they were 'everyone jump because we are not going to stop for anything.'. Every shuttle had parachutes for this exact reason, and as the space shuttle Jorban Sal'Naa found himself in began shaking violently as the air friction forcibly decelerated them, he reached underneath his seat and felt for the strap to the parachute; when the BattleVector found what he was looking for, he yanked it up and out, and in ten seconds he had the thick backpack secured tightly to his back. His next step was to secure his helmet on and seal his space suit - taking extra care to use a binding ribbon to seal up any punctures or scratches he'd gotten during the ship assault.

"Prepare yourselves! We're turning now!" Just a second after the pilot made his declaration, the shuttle began turning. It put the shuttle's structure under intense strain, turning at maximum speed while simultaneously bleeding off a majority of that speed due to air-resistance. Anything else, any other kind of aerial vehicle would have been destroyed by the strain the pilot was putting the shuttle under, but interplanetary shuttles, and more importantly, BattleVector pilots, could handle the strain just enough to make what would otherwise be downright suicidal, effective.

Executing an HnF landing was something of an art, hundreds of shuttles and pilots were destroyed every year training BattleVector and Tyyrahn Air in HnF landings, but its effectiveness as a shock-and-awe tactic was what proved its worth. First came a full-speed insertion into the atmosphere, and halfway to the target landing zone, the shuttle flipped around, flying upside-down for the duration of the 'landing'. After the shuttle leveled out, now flying straight, if inverted, its canopy doors would open, and all of those inside would then let gravity, be it the high gravity of Saltor, the low gravity of planet Hoomanisire, or the environments of the many moons, do the rest.

On paper, it sounded easy, if suicidal, but in practice, it was difficult, and suicidal. The only reason saltorians were even able to survive it in the first place was because of their natural durability and their healing abilities, but BattleVectors were the only ones truly able to execute it, due to their reflexes outclassing even the most experienced Tyyrahn. The entire trip took less than five minutes to go from orbit to the surface of the planet, and because of the speeds they were travelling, the pilot and the million occupants felt extreme G-forces, to the point where they felt even heavier than they did on Saltor's 5G surface. If it weren't for the fact that the saltorians evolved in such conditions, the G-forces they subjected themselves to in an HnF landing would crush their skeletons and liquefy their muscles. The entire shuttle was trailing smoke and was wreathed in fire from the friction of the air, and it was visibly shaking, inside and out, as the pilot turned the vessel so its roof faced the ground, his muscles all but bursting out from beneath his scales and underneath his space-suit.

"Opening canopy doors. Make ready to deploy!" The pilot roared, as his arms shook from the strength he needed to exert to keep control of the shuttle, and he reached up, flipping several switches and pressing multiple buttons, before his hand returned to the steering wheel.

Jorban grabbed the seat-belt's release on his chest, and looked up as the canopy doors opened above him. Through the cloak of fire covering the ship, Jorban saw the planet 'above' him, the grassy plains flying past them at dozens of kilometers per second. It was almost impossible for any person to eyeball the jump point, but the pilot was trained not to pay attention to the ground zooming by above them, because they were moving so fast that even the most sharp-eyed avian would only see a blur, instead they had to pay attention and listen to the shuttle's computers. Synchronized with the legion of GPS satellites in orbit, the ship knew its destination was Chairon city, and when the pilot punched in the necessary instructions and data for an HnF, the computer would tell him when to deploy the BattleVectors so they wouldn't overshoot their targets. The computer's timing had to be exact, and as a result, the pilot's had to be even better, and the BattleVectors' had to be even better than that, because if the pilot or the BattleVectors hesitated for even a second, and responded just a moment too late, they all would overshoot their target, and that could land them in any number of potentially lethal situations.

As Chairon city's inflamed, shattered, smoking skyline began to cross the horizon, the shuttle's computers all let off their klaxons, and the pilot roared out. "Deploy now!"

Jorban pulled the release on his chest, unfastening himself from the seat, and almost immediately he was ripped from the shuttle and thrown out into the open air, the shuttle's jetstream catching him instantly and causing him to flip around uncontrollably. Jorban didn't panic, instead he simply threw out his arms, legs, and his tail, as he felt the familiarly intense pull of Saltor's gravity pull at him, and he began hurtling towards the ground like a projectile. As the wind whipped and roared at his ears, the shuttle rocketed past him faster than a bullet, trailing thick, twin contrails from its wings and pouring out BattleVectors by the thousands. After several moments of struggle, Jorban was able to right himself, as he arced over the ground and accelerated towards the rapidly approaching city.

The BattleVector's head whipped up and for a brief moment he watched the shuttle continue forward, as tens of thousands of BattleVectors streamed out of it in a similar fashion to him: suddenly, without much time to prepare, and very, very violently. It wasn't uncommon for bones to fracture during these deployments, but Jorban didn't have time to focus on that, he turned his visor-covered head back to the ground below him. He and his fellows were two dozen kilometers above the city, and now that they were out of the shuttle, there was nothing assisting them in their fight against Saltor's intense gravity: They were falling so fast that they left contrails behind them.

The shuttle kept rocketing forward for another several seconds, before finally everyone had deployed, managing to subtly darken the sky with the numbers of a million airborne BattleVectors. With an intense struggle, the pilot pushed down on the steering wheel and simultaneously turned it to the right, arduously turning the shuttle back to an upright position, as its main thruster roaring in a continuous thunderous din. It slowly climbed back up into the air and turned back into a far more controllable, safe flight pattern. Jorban, however, was focused on the city he was hurtling towards; he was zooming through the air and down towards the ground at blistering speeds, the once distant city was barely a stone's throw away and was getting closer with each passing second. He looked down from the city and surveyed its perimeter, and after a second of observation of the chaos below, he decided that was where he would land.

Jorban scowled deeply, his razor-sharp teeth bared and his eyes narrowed in angry determination before he grabbed the parachute's release clasp and yanked hard. In barely a second, the parachute burst out from the bag strapped to his back, inflated to its rectangular shape, and took him from several dozen meters per second to just two. His inspiration being what he saw occurring in the outskirts of the city - on the outside trying to get in were the taut-skinned, four-eyed batarians, with their tanks, heavy weapons, and their free and enslaved ground force bearing down on the inside trying to keep them out.

The batarians were trying to be the unstoppable force in this invasion, using the momentum and damage created by their orbital bombardment to try and swiftly crush saltorian resistance, but it was clear that it was not to be. Any of their soldiers who lacked heavy weapons were being stopped wholesale by the Tyyrahn Ground and Militia forces, who were successfully proving to be an immovable object in the form of their defensive line. The fallen, strewn about rubble, the destroyed and abandoned vehicles, the perimeter of the city was all but crawling with saltorian fighters, to the point that the longer that Jorban looked, the more there seemed to be. The smoke and fire of the orbital assault choked the air, while the flashes of the ceaseless gunfire and sounds of men screaming in their various native tongues drowned out even the sound of wind ripping and tearing at Jorban's spherical helmet. Unfortunately, where saltorian ferocity and power met and far exceeded that of the batarians, their downfall was in supplies, namely: ammunition.

saltorian hand-cannons excessively exceeded the killing power of the alien rifles, but while most everyone in the city was armed, few carried enough ammunition to last anything more than a mugging or a brief confrontation with rebels or thugs, and as such they were relying less on their powerful weapons, and more on their superior numbers. After all, where one man may not have enough bullets to buy time for the BattleVectors, or Tyyrahn reinforcements to arrive, a thousand men surely would, and ten thousand men definitely would. There were waves upon waves of saltorians running up to the defensive line and entering the fight, and droves making tactical retreats to tend to their wounds, swap magazines and ammunition, rush into the ruined cities to scavenge corpses for more, and fortify the inner defensive line for when the batarians inevitably broke through.

Fortunately for the civilian defenders, they would not have to settle for the local Tyyrahn, and they no longer had to worry about any breaches in their defensive line: The BattleVectors had arrived, and they were filled with righteous fury, none moreso than Jorban, whose solemn vows were at the forefront of his mind as he fell towards the ground, his parachute dragging at the air behind him and slowing his descent to a more survivable velocity.

The first vow: I, as a BattleVector, am a part of an ancient and long-standing order of vigilant sentinels, and I shall carry myself with the honor, strength, and skill required and expected of me. Thought a growling Jorban as the ground came closer.

The second vow: I, as a BattleVector, do vow upon my honor and the honor of my ancestors to keep the accursed EverWar outside of, and away from, the sterling cities. I will give my life to ensure the lives of those who choose to live in peace are kept in such a state. The livid BattleVector drew his rifle and clenched it tightly, the wood and metal creaking and groaning under the strength of his grip.

The third vow: In failing the second, I vow upon the honor of the order itself that I shall end the lives of whosoever should set fire to our cities, and I shall not rest until they all are buried underneath the foundations upon which these cities shall be rebuilt. Jorban bared his teeth.

"I am a BattleVector." Swore Jorban, as he extended both legs and reached up to the clasp holding the parachute to his pressurized suit. "I live war, and I fear nothing. I AM A BATTLEVECTOR, AND YOU ARE MY ENEMY!" Roared out the warrior, his ears ringing from the force of his voice reverberating inside his helmet, just seconds before he slammed into the ground.

In one fluid motion, the thickly suited BattleVector unclasped the parachute from his body, which was immediately caught by the gale-force winds and whipped away. Jorban somersaulted forward, and on the end of the front-roll he launched himself upwards in a great leap. The BattleVector hurtled several meters through the air and tackled an unfortunate batarian to the ground, his immense weight and Saltor's extreme gravity both leading to a bone-crunching thud against the ground. Before the batarian could even process the pain and understand what had just slammed into him, Jorban pressed the barrel of his energy lance into the man's back and pulled the trigger.

The batarian felt pain like no other, but the searing hot beam burned through one of his lungs before he could blink, and he could do no better than wheeze. Jorban stood up straight and stomped his foot on the batarian's neck, meeting brief resistance from the metal frame the creature wore, but still managing to flatten its throat into the ground. Jorban ripped his rifle up and held it aloft with one hand, while the other snatched up his hand-cannon and both took aim. The hand-cannon fired with thunderous explosions and the energy-lance silently fried all who fell in the path of its deadly ray of light, the former blasting apart its targets on impact, and the latter needing only seconds to melt their armor and burn their skin, muscles, and innards to ash. Jorban managed to kill six of these creatures in as many seconds before the batarians realized, almost as if they had a hive mind, that they had enemy combatants landing all around them, and that more were falling through the air as they fought. Many started turning to face the BattleVectors, but all that did was allow them the chance to see who killed them, as Jorban was joined soon by another warrior, who was joined by two, and then four, and then eight, and their numbers kept climbing exponentially as the legions of BattleVectors literally rained down on the battlefield and engaged their alien enemies with ferocious intensity.

Jorban felt something slam into his side, he whipped around, both weapons pointed at his new target, and found, cast into a silhouette by Saltor's twin suns, a batarian who held a box-like gun as thick as Jorban's forearm. The batarian was bravely facing Jorban just as Jorban was facing his own enemies - upright and out in the open. The batarian took a few cautious steps back as he realized his attempt at tackling the towering alien creature had failed, even with the help of its metal, gravity-assisting frame. The alien raised its weapon and fired again, the multiple pellets slammed into Jorban's gut with great force, but his space-suit was designed to not only protect him from the vacuum, but fight in it too. It may have been penetrated or damaged in some capacity back on the ship, but they were merely grazes, scrapes, and the occasional true rip and exposure. It was fire resistant and was able to take several hand-cannon rounds point blank before it became too shredded to reliably operate in the event of void exposure. Jorban quickly realized, after looking at his left shoulder and then his stomach, that the batarian's weapon, while different in function from the ones on the ship, still carried their major weaknesses: It was powerful in its own right, but it carried more raw force than penetrative power, the result was a nasty bruise forming on Jorban's gut, but little else. Jorban and the batarian both looked down at his stomach, then at eachother.

Jorban growled, and made one step forward before the batarian fired again - this time his pellets slammed into Jorban's helmet, cracking it beyond repair, with one even having just enough energy to pierce it, and graze Jorban's cheek. The two stared at each other, the slack-jawed batarian in disbelief that Jorban was still standing after three shotgun blasts, and the snarling Jorban in the same irritation an apex predator would have when faced against a pup. Jorban growled behind his shattered visor and raised his pistol and emptied the magazine into the alien creature's chest, obliterating it in a shower of red paste, leaving naught but his limbs and a pile of blood, gore, and sinew to tumble to the ground in a grotesque shower, as Jorban switched out magazines and racked the slide on his pistol, all with one hand.

The saltorian ripped off his useless helmet and tossed it aside, roaring to the heavens a battle-cry that echoed across the kill-zone, before he rushed into the thick of things and engaged the enemy directly. His enemies scattered upon seeing one of the unstoppable, white-suited beasts charging directly at them, and his allies were inspired by his initiative and soon enough the entire battle devolved into one massive melee. Even the city's Tyyrahn, after realizing that the unconquerable BattleVectors were taking the fight into their realm of advantage, joined in on the melee, quickly meaning that every one batarian would find himself facing a dozen angry, naturally stronger saltorians. Worse for the batarians, though the saltorians had no idea of this reality, was that Saltor had a gravity well several times stronger than that of a majority of batarian worlds - meaning that they were both fighting unfamiliar, intense gravity, and sentient creatures who were born and raised in such gravity. Were it not for the metal frames they wore, most of the batarians soldiers would have been crippled the moment they stepped foot on the saltorian homeworld, or crushed by a full-forced blow from one of the angered predator.

Jorban ran up on several enemies and slammed the stock of his energy lance into batarian heads, before he blasted apart batarian chests and limbs with his hand-cannon, his previously white space suit quickly becoming stained with deep red blood and caked with thick globules of pasty gore. The world seemed like it was moving in slow motion to the BattleVector, there was so much adrenaline running through his system that his senses were in overdrive, to the point where even his brain was processing the images sent to it by his eyes faster than the batarians could even hope, and his body could react fast enough to act upon this information. The result was that he - and, in due form, the other BattleVectors - were blurs on the battlefield, moving, attacking, acting and reacting at speeds the batarians couldn't hope to match in a melee confrontation.

If the batarians held any kind of tech-based advantage in ranged battles, they lost every possible advantage the moment the saltorians brought it back into melee combat. In scant minutes the battle had gone from being marginally batarian-favorable due to their vehicular and orbital advantage, to completely favoring the saltorians, and it kept up like that for several minutes. Many saltorians even went so far as to feel disappointed as they tore apart and crushed their enemies, them having for the briefest of moments looked forward to a melee confrontation worthy of epic songs and scholarly, philosophical reflection, but instead finding that light jabs even children could replicate broke alien bone, bent alien armor, and tore alien skin. Jorban had actually been stunned when he'd hauled off and smashed his fist into the chest of a batarian, and actually torn through the alien's thin armor, pierced his skin, and broken several bones. Almost on auto-pilot, Jorban followed up the savage punch by using his new position to grab the batarian's bare chest, slam him into the ground, and rip off his chest-plate, before he stomped on the thing's chest with all the force he could muster, his boot going straight through the thing's chest and into the sinew, gore, blood, muscle and bone of his inner body, killing it instantaneously.

There were no savage, extended fist fights or honorable, bladed duels in this melee, only saltorians pouncing upon their opponents and ripping them apart. Aside from the frequent fool being blasted apart by batarian heavy weapons, there were no questions about it - the batarians were simply outmatched, but a scientific analysis would have to wait for later - if it ever came in the first place, while there was blood to spill - for now, the homeland was under attack, and as such Jorban leapt back into the fray. The battle continued, and the tide was mere moments from turning past the point of no return, until the batarian aerial forces finally broke the thick, dark gray barrier of clouds high above them. Though none of the saltorians even knew, thanks to their Mass Effect engines, the batarian air vehicles were wholly unaffected by planet Saltor's increased gravity, and thanks to that, the pilots had absolutely no problem adjusting to the new environment, and were free to unleash hell on the saltorian fighters.

The sudden explosions, the ground being raked with higher caliber gunfire, the air screaming with the thunderous staccato of the gunfire from the batarian hovercraft turned the battleground from a blood-covered and body-strewn hell with a broken, smoldering city to serve as a backdrop, into a minefield of explosions, sudden and heavy rainfall, death-cries, and soldiers from both sides running in all directions to find cover and dodge the heavy gunfire.

Jorban snarled, his first instinct was to crouch down and start shooting the fighters down - his Energy Lance would be perfect for such a task - but that would expose him to the fighters he wasn't focusing on, which would court death. Instead, he did the sensible thing and called for a retreat - this wasn't a battle they could win now, so they needed to retreat now and set up in the city's ruins. In barely forty seconds, the previously brutal melee was a full-blown retreat as all of the green-scaled aliens ran for cover in the shattered ruins of their broken city.

Jorban fingered the radio in the neck of his space-suit, and retrieved an ear-piece from a hidden pocket as he sprinted into the city, stomped over ruins and debris, and shouldered his way past fleeing saltorians. He barked quick and fast orders to any BattleVectors who were listening - they needed to keep the batarians on their toes, there were nearly a million of them, and they had an entire city to hide in, so it was time to work their deadly magic. With those orders sent out, Jorban skidded to a halt, and took a quick glance around him, grinning madly.

He was in the middle of the road at the center of a previously busy intersection, not the city's central intersection, but very close - anyone just passing through had to first get through this one. Appropriately, there were therefor dozens of massive, sky-scraping buildings all lying in heaps around him, the dust and debris, while once thick in the air, had long since settled and let him see the devastation. Once a marvel, a symbol of what saltorian peace could achieve, with hundreds upon hundreds of buildings that scratched the sky and pierced the ground, roads that criss-crossed the city in a grid pattern, apartment buildings in which to live, office buildings in which to work, this city - a minor city, ironically enough - had by mere convenience of existing been a source of pride, joy, and culture for the saltorian people. Once a gleaming mass of steel, glass, concrete and vehicles, now it was a shattered husk of destroyed buildings, concrete slabs, abandoned vehicles, and bodies.

Jorban looked directly ahead and above him, there was a perfect sniper's nest in a former office building, which had managed to survive most of the bombings mostly intact. It stretched one and a half kilometers into the sky, and since it was now the tallest building in the city, it had a clear view of just about everything. Near the eighth floor was a gouge ripped out of its side, likely created by flying debris. With his exceptional eyesight, Jorban could see loads of cover, dust and debris, and its elevated position gave him a perfect line of sight for a great distance, it was a perfect place to hide, and thanks to the power of an Energy Lance, it was the perfect place to endlessly harass the enemy armies.

With a brief snarl, Jorban took a running leap towards the building. Though he leapt far, no saltorian could jump high enough to reach his designated sniper's nest, so instead he took a different option, and soared straight towards the shattered windows of the third floor. He lifted his hands to cover his face as he leapt upwards and straight into the thick panes of glass, which shattered upon impact and sent him rolling into the building. Jorban stood up after he made a rough and tumble landing, now inside the ruined, shattered building. The immediate area was gray-tinged and dark, the power having been knocked out earlier in the orbital assault. Jorban looked up, the ceiling was dipping down, as if it was ready to collapse underneath its own weight.

That's not good… Thought Jorban, knowing it as a sign that many of the building's supporting structures had been damaged or outright destroyed. It explained why the building was leaning a few degrees, anyhow. But it may prove useful… As a last-resort measure, Jorban knew a few pounds of axite, dropped down an elevator shaft, could take the whole building down. The question then became whether or not Jorban trusted himself to survive something like that.

He shook his head, and sprinted for the emergency staircase, keying his radio as he did so. "This is Lancemen Sal'Naa, BattleVector. Innsua Command, are you there?"

Barely a second later, an operator responded. "Lanceman Sal'Naa this is Innsua Command, send situations report." Jorban could hear faintly over the radio, the voices of hundreds of other operators on the northern end of the planet, tirelessly working to keep communications up and running, so as to make certain that the war would not degenerate into pockets of disparate, leaderless resistances.

"BattleVectorian Third Legion has landed in Chairon. The Zeroth fleet has arrived and is likely on its way to refuel, while the first, second, third and fourth fleets are still mid-transit. The city's infrastructure has been shattered - the siftu building is now the roof of the city. I am ascending right now to the eighth floor to set up a sniper's nest and slow the enemy's advance, but this city will fall if we do not receive air support or a HellFire cannon."

As was par for the course for an Operator, there wasn't even a second's delay in Jorban finishing his report, and his response. Such was the skill of a communications operator, able to give timely and reliable assistance the moment it was needed. "We hear you, Lanceman Sal'Naa. Our update is as follows - we are currently trying to rally the planet and organize an all-fronts counter attack. We are trying to spread out our BattleVectors through the seas and the air, but the xeno space-navy is proving difficult to work around, even with Tyrrahn Orbit and returning BattleVectors boarding and clearing their ships. The Praetorian is Missing In Action, last reported near Kurah. His last orders were to release the Dregs should Innsua come under attack, and we have seen enemy scouts in the area."

"I hear you, Operator." Said Jorban, as he cleared floor seven and kept climbing. "What about our nuclear weapons?"

"Those have largely been untouched - the batarians know not where our silos rest. Our priests are considering that option first and foremost before a Dreg release. If you are within a selected blast radius, or are slated for Dreg release, you shall be notified. Amen."

"Amen." Jorban scowled, and kicked open the door to the eighth floor - his eyes flooded with pale gray light, as the light from Saltor's suns pierced the cloud of dust and debris. He made a bee-line for the sniper's nest he'd found earlier, and almost immediately started pushing desks, doors, and chairs over to the gouge carved in the building. Soon enough he had an impromptu fort covering him, consisting of desks pushed together, chairs leaned against one another, and blankets and tarps covering various blind-spots. His goal was to make visual masks, to make the enemy think he was elsewhere, when in reality he was in a relatively exposed position - taking refuge in audacity. Others may call it a ridiculous ploy, but the area around him was much the same dull color as his suit, even covered in blood as it was, so he would be covered through camouflage.

Jorban laid down on the ground and grabbed scope from inside his suit, and hooked it onto his energy lance. He made a few adjustments, and soon enough it was a long-ranged, focused energy lance with a thermal scope. The world went from dull and gray to dark indigo in an instant, and he saw the bright reds and yellows of the heat signatures on the ground eight stories below. Down on the ground he saw dozens of squads of aliens entering the city, crowding around large infantry fighting vehicles, cowering next to them and scanning the skies, the ground, and anything else they could see from behind their guns. Jorban could also see, just barely, hundreds of saltorians hiding within the ruins of what used to be Chairon city's buildings. There were enough on either side of the street to set up a bloody crossfire, all they needed was a little push.

Jorban centered his sights on the treads of the infantry fighting vehicle. If he crippled it, then the batarians would have nothing to run to, and they would therefore be unable to escape from the crossfire that would blast them apart. The massive, rectangular blob of bright red and yellow heat slowly lumbered across the desolate streets, crunching rubble into dust underneath its heavy treads. The question now became which should he target first - crippling the treads meant the vehicle would have no way to move, but slagging the main cannon would disarm it, and this was under the assumption that this vehicle was as similar to saltorian IFV's, due to its similar aesthetics, though their size left something to be desired - they were smaller than a trash hauler!

Jorban eventually decided that the best option would be the easiest one - and he decided he'd go for both. There was no way for them to track his shots unless they had the requisite vision enhancers, or could naturally see the lower or higher spectrums of light. There was the problem of his barrel lighting up, but he was eight stories in the air and the air was clearing up fast - someone would have to be looking specifically at him when he fired.

The dark-scaled saltorian centered his sight on the barrel and pulled the trigger. Immediately the focused, searing hot beam of light hit the main gun of the alien vehicle. Not even half of a second later, the barrel of the main gun started glowing white-hot, and Jorban's continued assault didn't allow it any moment of reprieve until he saw the front, lethal, end of the barrel fall to the ground under its own weight, and the blasted end turn to molten, slagged metal. The driver of the vehicle had no idea something was happening until alarms started sounding, but by then the damage had been done, and the fist-sized section of the barrel Jorban had literally lit up was so hot that it lost its solidity and had turned into slag. The front end of the barrel bent downwards under its own weight, soon falling off entirely and rolling onto the ground.

The vehicle slammed to a halt, but the saltorians hiding in the ruins had seen their chance the moment they saw the barrel turn from a solid to a liquid. Almost immediately the aliens were caught in an intense crossfire, as the massive slugs from various hand-cannons and auto-rifles, with dozens of BattleVectorian Energy Lances thrown in the mix. Scores of the aliens fell in seconds due to the speed and intensity of the sudden attack, the others dived for cover and fired wildly wherever they saw saltorians. Jorban shifted his sights to the tank's left-side treads and slagged them, crippling the vehicle. It tried rotating its secondary turret, but the moment Jorban saw it start blasting apart his people, he shifted all of his attention to it and it was melted in seconds, making several satisfying explosions as the hyper-accelerated slugs impacted the melted barrel and slammed into it; only a few passed through, but the metal was cooling quickly due to its open-air exposure, and soon enough it was blocked entirely.

Jorban now shifted his attention to the front of the crippled vehicle and held down the trigger for a full-power, ten second burst. He grinned maliciously at the sight of the vehicle's armor plating melting away, leaving a hole in the vehicle, and just barely revealing the inside - and the panicking batarians, trying to fix their vehicle and figure out just what was going on, why their weapons and treads were failing, and what just melted through their tank. Thus was the power of an Energy Lance - with the safeties removed, an Energy Lance could generate enough heat to melt through a six-inch thick plate of tungsten in three minutes. The alien vehicle's armor, which could logically be concluded to be designed around their high-force, low-penetration weapons, couldn't handle the heat for more than a handful of seconds.
The problem, however, reintroduced itself in a terrifyingly sudden, and deafeningly loud strafing run: batarian air superiority. Several alien hovercraft hurtled through the air and blasted apart the ruins with rockets and explosives, though the ground-forces hadn't yet made the connection that they were being watched by a sniper, so when they reached the building they just banked hard and avoided it. Jorban, however, now had his opportunity to start blasting these damnable things from the sky. The advantage to energy weaponry was that, as long as he had a line of sight, he never missed, so he just looked for a target, found it, pointed, pulled the trigger, and the powerful laser did the work for him.

Soon, thanks to Jorban's work, alien hovercraft started falling from the sky. He targeted specifically their thrusters, because melting those meant that they couldn't keep themselves in the air and would therefore be forced to obey gravity. Even with the 'Element Zero' these people almost worshiped, no thrusters meant no way to halt their momentum, they would hit the ground, it was just a matter of time.

Time started passing by quickly for Jorban. The battle for the city was fierce - the batarians needed only that first hour after the BattleVectors had arrived to change their tactics, and as such they stopped trying storm the saltorian defenders, and instead started trying to route them out. They stopped allowing saltorians to bring the fights into a melee by setting up snipers' nests off in the distance, with their snipers having much higher caliber weaponry with just enough penetration to injure whoever they shot. The ground forces started travelling in larger packs and started trying to sync up with each other - multiple soldiers focusing their fire had a much greater chance of killing whomever it was they were shooting.

Jorban, however, remained unnoticed as the day progressed. Due to the fact that his shots made no visible, traceable trails through the air when he fired, no one could find the BattleVector, and no one knew where he was. That wasn't due to lack of trying, mind - as time went on, the aliens started wising up to his act. They stopped walking out in the open, started moving faster, from cover to cover. His building was regularly lit up by passing aircraft and snipers trying to get lucky, but after one particularly close call, Jorban had created upwards of a dozen snipers nests on the building's highest level, and then had moved to the ninth floor to throw them all off.

By the time the suns had set and the moons were highest in the sky, the aliens calmed down, and accounts of damage were taken. Despite the heartiness with which the saltorians fought, and the savagery with which they defended every standing building and every possible room, they had lost a dozen of the buildings that had survived the alien bombardments, and the enemy had a solid foothold inside the city, and an even better one in the surrounding areas.

Jorban, very far from the point at which he would have to go to rest, still scanned the city's streets with his thermal scope. He switched his radio on and listened to the scattered conversations on the local channels. A few squads of Tyyrahn were planning a night-raid on a captured fire station, squads of civilian militia were going to make a run for a few local wildlife impounds and try to release some of the more savage beasts. Others were just dedicating to harassing non-saltorians who passed by. This situation right here was a prime example of why they needed to find the Praetorian and get the command structure up and running - without the Praetorian around to issue out orders and coordinate the Tyyrahn and BattleVectorian forces, no one would coordinate, sync up, or act together; everyone would be their own, separate, personal fighting force.

This in mind, Jorban decided to take action.

"Tyyrahn commanders and fellow Lancemen in Chairon city. Lanceman Sal'Naa requests your ears." He called out over the local short-wave; It was a simple call - but no one could claim to be a Lanceman unless they truly were one, liars were found embarrassingly quickly, though they were few and far between, and it was because of this fact that it only took a few minutes of hesitation before responses came in. "Our enemy thinks this night to be his rest, we must show him otherwise."

A Tyyrahn lieutenant spoke on Jorban's pause, "what do you suggest, Lanceman?"

"BattleVectors, take to the sewers. Tunneling protocol. Tyyrahn, use your numbers. Our defenses may be good against their weapons, but when they focus their fire we lose men fast, so instead of a massive charge, we launch a wide-scale, hive-minded, coordinated attack. We will overwhelm them with our sheer mass - they have no counter for this; their snipers cannot reach indoors.

"The BattleVectors will detonate charges beneath the captured buildings, and upon the explosions, you will sneak in during the chaos and execute everyone you find. Our Praetorian declared this a holy war, so you know what this means." Even if the enemy surrendered, they would not budge an inch - no survivors, period. A Holy War was so thorough in its claim of life that, when the war was over, the lands contested would be sanctified and the lands lost would be cleansed in nuclear fire.

"Lanceman, if we burn them from the city like a blood-sucking insect, they will just storm the city from the outside and take us from there." A Tyyrahn brought up, his point valid.

Jorban, however, had predicted this outcome. "I will keep them busy. Their plan is to starve us out or strike at us when we are weak - they have destroyed all entrance and exit roads and routes to the city save one major road, and I have a perfect view from my vantage point." He explained, "and if they overwhelm me, I have a way to seal us off from them, and them off from us." He had, after all, considered the possibility of whether or not he'd be okay with dropping this building the very moment he'd climbed it.

Several minutes passed by as Tyyrahn and civilian militia deliberated. The BattleVectors didn't even question his orders - they trusted his judgement and, after giving it some thought, a vast majority saw the wisdom in it, and as a result, the streets were crawling with small squads of BattleVectors, heading for sewer entrances and vanishing under the concrete surface.

Eventually, the Tyyrahn acknowledged Jorban. "Okay, Lanceman Sal'Naa. We will move to surround enemy buildings. I motion that we leave behind token defense forces, in case they have similar ideas."

Jorban nodded, as a matter of fact, many BattleVectors had had the same idea, and he'd received word that single-man units had formed and separated from their squads to achieve that very goal. "I second that motion. I want this strike to occur at high moon. Good luck, Amen."

"Amen, Lanceman."

Two thousand years ago, in the direct aftermath of the bloody war that had ravaged almost the entirety of planet Saltor, the legendary Praetorian made a decision: Never again would a city be without an indirect entrance. During the endless sieges conducted by the Dregs, they always first found all of the main and secondary entrances to the cities and blocked them off, before sending tidal waves of drones into the city to sterilize it of all saltorian life. Whenever they won these cities, it would prove largely to be impossible for the BattleVector reinforcements to pierce back inside, due to the raw number of bodies the Dregs brought to any engagement. Even airborne drops, and Hard and Fast Landings were impossible, what with the flying Dregs ripping people out of the sky. Back then, it was largely considered that, if ever a Dreg was seen in a city, no one would ever get inside or out, ever again. The only way to get back inside was to fight numbers with numbers: It took millions of Tyyrahn and BattleVector air and ground soldiers to break the Dreg line and get back into the cities.

After nuclear weapons had been forged, and the war ended scant centuries later, the Praetorian deemed this a serious lapse in judgement, and from then on, any and all cities - be they newly constructed, rebuilt, or repaired - were mandated to have indirect entrances, untraceable by any means. The result was an immense series of underground tunnels, deeper than the city's sewers, that extended several hundred kilometers outside of the city, that way they could always be used, no matter the occupation force. These tunnels were stocked to the brim with weapons, ammunition, rations, explosives - and anything else the BattleVectors or accompanying Tyyrahn needed to win back their city. The best part was its in-built defense: only BattleVectors knew the entrances to these tunnels, they weren't logged in computers or charted on maps. The only physical proof of their existence were paper-logs buried deep within the Temple of the Hoomanisire - and if ever the temple were compromised, doctrine dictated that they were among the first articles to be burned.

Every building in every city had an entrance to these tunnels, cleverly disguised as a sewer entrance, and hidden to the point where even people who worked or lived in these buildings for their entire lives knew not of their existence. If one were to stumble upon it and go through, they would indeed be led to the sewers, and would conclude that it was just how maintenance got to the city's guts - not at all aware that, if they just kept searching, they would find the ancient, massive tunnels.

It was these tunnels that were now swarming with the hundreds of thousands of BattleVectors who had either already been present or had arrived for the defense of the city. They who came from the space assaults were switching their space-suits for proper uniforms and body armor, they who hadn't left Saltor were re-arming themselves for battle, and all who were present were refilling ammunition and filling up on explosives, many chose various conventional bombs and grenades, but all had at least one or two pounds of axite, for emergencies or - as the case was - explosive entries. Axite is the greatest non-chemical explosive in all of known space, just one gram of the crystalline substance exploded with the force of sixteen tons of TNT, and the tunnels had tens of thousands of tons of them, just waiting to be used.

It had barely been an hour since Lanceman Sal'Naa's curtain call, and already his gun-brothers were all geared up and ready to fight, already making their ways to the indirect entrances of the buildings lost to the batarians, many making muted, idle conversation with others. Topics such as when the women had evacuated and where they had evacuated to, the idiocy of the batarians trying to win their alliance through openly trying to conquer them, to how long they expected this war to last. The batarians may be good, but the problem lied in their standard-issue weapons: they had great kinetic force, outstanding, even - all direct hits fractured or outright broke bone, but they had no penetrating power, meaning that no skin was broken. It took many focused, direct hits to start piercing skin, and even then, they didn't travel far. Broken bones could be dealt with, once set, they healed in days, and the minuscule injuries caused by these weapons were laughable at best, and barely lethal at worst.

The common consensus was that, within the month, the batarian advance would be halted, and within three, they would be routed and killed. Many believed that, within just one year, they would have their world back and their skies would be cleansed of batarian ships - and those they captured would be used to strike back. All believed that, regardless of the outcome, no batarian would live to regret the decisions of the few.

At the IE to a captured fire station, a group of sixty two BattleVectors waited, whilst a BattleVectorian Wraith snuck through the building and placed various explosives - lethal fragmentation bombs, smoke bombs, shaped charges, everything he had that could kill a lot of people and keep the building standing structurally sound. Wraiths were known for their skill in stealth - a BattleVector couldn't be called a Wraith unless he could sneak out of the Temple of Hoomanisire, through Innsua, onto a launch platform, off of Saltor, and then out to planet Hoomanisire without anyone knowing; it wasn't a matter of disguise - it was literally a matter of not being found by anyone. He couldn't be seen, heard, smelt or felt by a single soul during this proving journey, and if he were, he had to do it all again - with security around him and his path to victory being strengthened due to his discovery.

The result of such harsh, perfectionistic training was that BattleVectorian Wraiths were hardly, if ever, detected while on a mission. One of the more legendary Wraiths had even managed to sneak his way into the Praetorian's very quarters, while he slept, without either the Praetorian or any of his sixteen sentries being wise to his actions. So, sneaking into a fire station, which had within it several squads of alien soldiers, who had no idea Wraiths even existed, let alone may be coming for them, was in a word, easy.

Ten minutes after he entered through the IE, the Wraith came back through, and nodded once - his mission was complete. The BattleVector at the head of the pack clasped arms with the Wraith and was given the detonator for the explosives before the man melted into shadows, waiting for the clear for attack. They didn't want to attack too early and risk alerting other captured buildings to impending counter-strikes, but they didn't want to attack too late and risk patrolling aliens finding their bombs.

The solution to this problem was a check-in with the Lanceman who had taken control of the battle, Sal'Naa. Given his position, literally above everyone else in the city, he was uniquely placed to coordinate everyone, and as such all of the BattleVectors and Tyyrahn forces were reporting to him first before they began their attacks, he knew the status of everything going on and his was the word that would synchronize everyone's attack.

After an eternity passed, the order was finally issued - the attack was on. The BattleVector clenched the detonator with a firm grip, and the earth itself shook from the force of not just their explosives, but the synchronous, simultaneous explosions of hundreds of other similar bombs, all over the city. This was their one chance to push the aliens out of the city before they dug in and entrenched themselves, if they failed here, they would not get another one for days, perhaps even weeks.

"Enter!"

With those words, the BattleVector and his allies streamed into the building from beneath, whilst the Tyyrahn and Militia forces harassed it from outside. In mere seconds, the fire station's suppression system kicked in and water and fire-retardant foam started pouring from the ceiling, trying to deal with the fires and the smoke, the noise of the sprinklers and the alarms providing a great noise-screen to go along with the smoke-screen blinding everyone inside. The BattleVectors all went in in three-man groups, spread out so as to cover ground, but tails entwined in knots at the end so they wouldn't be separated, and so nothing slipped between them.

The aliens had no idea what had hit them - and were only just beginning to recover from the explosions when they were hammered upon from both sides, outside and in. Many of the sick-skinned batarians were blasted apart by high-caliber fire when they stumbled in front of open windows or destroyed sections of the building, and those that scrambled for cover in time were then burned to ash by the energy lances of the BattleVectors behind them. By the time the ringing noises had left everyone's ears, half of the small, compact building had already been taken back, and the other half was taking cover.

With the sections of the fire station that were exposed to the outside taken care of, the only places left were the ones deeper inside the building - sleeping quarters, washrooms, and offices. These rooms would likely prove deadly for the saltorians - as they all only had the one entrance and exit, meaning that the batarians were taking cover and training all weapons on these doors. The BattleVectors, more than everyone else, knew that they could take these rooms, but it would require bodies and would create corpses - a great many corpses, what with the veritable wall of focused gunfire. If this outcome was avoidable, the BattleVectors were honor-bound to take other routes.

So they sent in their Wraiths to clear out these problematic rooms.

Each Wraith operated differently, but they all had one commonality - first they entered these rooms, and then they waited. When on a mission where absolute stealth wasn't a priority, they preferred to sow the seeds of chaos and dissent. After several minutes would pass, the batarians would start whispering amongst themselves - were they still under attack? Had they won already? Why weren't they getting updated orders? Why weren't they being shot at? Weren't there more people in here? Where did that man go?

Before they knew it, they were terrified - they didn't know what was going on, but it was obvious that they were being hunted like animals. Eventually, one alien, in a panicked terror, would flee from the room - and be burned to ash by dozens of energy weapons the moment he stepped outside, leading to more panic inside, as the remaining aliens realized that they were stuck in a killzone, and the only way to escape was to enter another killzone. While they panicked and fired blindly, more of them would be picked apart, silently, efficiently. A few would perhaps get a lucky shot or a lucky graze in here or there, but the Wraiths were nothing if not disciplined - not a single grunt or hiss of pain would reveal their position. Being shot by one of the aliens' weapons was nothing compared to what they were conditioned to withstand - their pain tolerance was so high, and their discipline so good that they could have their very tails run over by a space shuttle, filled over capacity, and not even twitch an eye in pain.

In little more than a half of an hour, the Wraiths were finished, frustrated that they had taken so long to accomplish their tasks, but proud that they had at least finished their job - the fire station was theirs again, and this meant that they had access to, among other things, a great deal of medical supplies that would help keep their casualties to a minimum.

It took six hours for the gunfire to cease all over the city, and when all was said and done, every single building save for three had been recaptured. The aliens garrisoning these buildings would come to wish they hadn't been so hearty, because the assaults that came next were thrice as savage and brutal as the ones they repelled - and when one building even managed, through the grace of their non-existent, heretic gods, to survive a second wave of saltorians, they sent in two full squads - ten men in total - of Wraiths, and that building went silent in minutes.

By the time the moons were high in the sky, Jorban was receiving multiple reports - all buildings, even the problem ones, were theirs. Chairon was a saltorian city once again, and even though they hadn't brought peace, the BattleVectors had managed to push war out, even if it was temporary.

The dark-scaled BattleVector scanned the city with his rifle, proud to confirm that, as far as he could see, the city was, indeed, free of alien influence. Multiple BattleVector scouts squads were prowling the city now to confirm this with finality, whilst Lancers and Tyyrahn moved to the city's limits to reinforce the dividing line between alien and saltorian, whilst the Lancemen and lesser-ranked officers all conversed with Jorban. The Lanceman was soon ordering Wraiths to spread throughout the city and cover it with traps, easily found by saltorians but invisible to anyone else, and to hide themselves in plain sight - so if the enemy ever infiltrated the city again, they would be torn apart by their invisible assault. He ordered the BattleVectors and Tyyrahn to retreat back to the city and begin making living-walls, layered by the density of their men. The outermost wall had the fewest men, but best mixture of BattleVectors and Tyyrahn, whereas the innermost wall - which Jorban had eventually decided would be centered around his building, due to its close proximity to a still partially-standing Tyyrahn headquarters - had the most men and BattleVectors, but the fewest Tyyrahn. Granted, there were still - bare minimum - tens of thousands of men in each layer of their 'wall', but the idea was that the most skilled and the highest numbers would encircle the most important buildings - those being Jorban's, for its height and tactical advantage, and the Tyyrahn Headquarters, for its long and short-range communications equipment and above-ground weapons cache.

Jorban ran brief calculations in his mind, and came to the conclusion that, were this a Insurrectionist campaign, they would take somewhere around eight hours to break through the outermost wall through sheer weight of numbers, and add on another four hours for each successive wall until Jorban's final defensive line. With their total of six walls, that meant that it would take Insurrectionists - who were saltorians, and as such knew how to fight like them - twenty eight hours to break through all walls and make the city descend to chaos once again. Given that they were fighting aliens whose greatest strengths were air superiority, heavy weapons, and numbers, he felt that they would be far better than safe with their defensive plan, and would hold out long enough to either win the battle for their city, or get reinforcements and redeployments.

Before everyone went off to spread their orders and carry them out, Jorban sent out one final order. He knew well that psychological warfare could win battles faster than multiple squads of BattleVector Lanceman, so he decided it would be a worthy investment to take as many alien corpses as they could, string them up, and let them hang on poles and off of standing buildings around the outskirts of the city. It would either terrify or enrage the aliens, but the result would be the same - they would make rash decisions that would, in all likelihood, hand victory to the saltorians on a silver platter.

So, with his orders sent out, Jorban rolled over onto his back and laid there, on the stiff floor of the massive, lonely skyscraper. He looked up to the sky, his eyes attracted to Saltor's many moons. The smallest, Sil, was entirely on fire, casting an ominous red glow where it usually radiated a pale blue. Sil's population was small, barely seven million people, and the batarians had likely expected light resistance, but many who came from Sil, while weak in frame, were strong in mind; some of the greatest trap-artists of all BattleVectors came from Sil, so it was likely that their population was practicing a great deal of indirect, guerilla warfare. One thing probably led to another, and now the entire moon was on fire. Jorban doubted any of the seven million people on that small satellite would survive, what with the flames and the smoke choking out the already weak atmosphere. If he had to guess, by this time tomorrow, the moon would no longer be glowing a bright fire red, but instead hover a dark gray speck, almost invisible against the night sky.

On the other side of the sky, standing high and proud, was Mun. Only small parcels of its otherwise pristine white and gold surface were bearing the ugly red stains of war. Mun had upwards of seventy nine million people on its surface - and they were a unique middle ground between Saltor and planet Hoomanisire. They showed the tenacity and peace that they who were born on Hoomanisire flaunted each day, but they also knew personally war and battle like people born on Saltor, meaning that they would fight with the same savagery that saltorians down here would, but would also take as many casualties as saltorians on Hoomanisire would suffer. The result, if Jorban had to guess, would be a halved population by the end of the year.

Once we get this city secured, and get reinforcements, I will lead a team to find the Praetorian. We may be able to fight these people well on the ground, but they own the void, and only his genius will allow us to win such an impossible war. Thought the BattleVector, as he flipped back onto his stomach and retreated back into his nest at a crawl. I pray for the lives and the minds of the people in the cities in which we release the Dregs.

A/N:

Hey folks!

So, I bet you're trying to figure out: Gaseous Burger Man, where've you been?!

Well, if you've been following my twitter {at}ProfFartBurger, you'll have gotten the play-by-play as the fun went down.

For the full story, you'd do well to check out the 'State of Affairs: 5/28/16' entry over on my new blog on wordpress: proffartburger{dot}wordpress{dot}com, but the short version is: I finally decided to quit my job after one of my former coworkers threatened to lay me out, so I've been hunting for a new job and been doing some reinventing - thus explaining the sudden increase of my presence damn near everywhere on the internet.

Fortunately, I haven't been completely idle. I mentioned this on my FFN profile and made hints on my Twitter, and though the whole story can be found on Wordpress, I'll give you guys the short version:
Round One, the one-shot fight scene I wrote a few months ago, is doing well, and the friend who provided the basis for one of the main characters gave me his blessing to expand it into a full-blown series, so I've been outlining and making the beginning strokes on 'Oasis Phenom' this last month. Round One is the best proof of concept for it, but if you're looking for a less book-length explanation, I can safely say it's a sci-fi fantasy story taking place in a completely original setting, with original concepts, characters, and plots. I'm hoping this one will help put me on the map in the literary world, and pave the way for my future works, so I'd love it if, when I start putting it up, you all followed it.

But that's not all - I've also been collaborating with some of the readers of TNFW to get some science stuff down pat and understood, so I can turn it up to eleven and integrate it into the WarVerse. I won't spoil anything, but my all-consuming goal is currently to top those SIGMA vs SIGMA fist fights I had earlier, and then some.

And! For the increasing number of you that have been wondering, I've resumed work on The Hopeless War. In a perfect world, I'll get that updating again sometime this summer, but in a realistic one, it'll come by the end of the year.

Again, that's the short version. I'm hoping to start moving all news-related odds and ends to my new Wordpress blog and my Twitter, but given how long I've been using my FFN profile to fulfill the function, it will be a gradual process, so as to not leave anyone in the dust.

That's all for now, folks!

'till next time!

-PFB