Back Home – The Dual War
by Warringer
Chapter 56 (Cobalt Greywalker over at the Maximum Addventure)
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The pirate fleet in Earth-Luna space drifted, or at least the remains of it. Two ships out of the 113 had managed to surrender, and three more were intact enough to have atmosphere. Other than that there wasn't a piece larger than the average car floating around. All that debris hid who knew how many life pods. And than there were the pair of ships that somehow made it through all layers of defenses and were now inside of Earth's atmosphere, floating over two cities where GDI couldn't simply shoot them down from orbit.
The sweeper ships were having a field day with this mess. The still living pirates counted themselves lucky.
They didn't know how lucky they were.
Seconds after the blast at the Juraian Embassy, protection details sprang into their principles offices/homes and immediately started moving them to secure locations. Extraterrestrial Embassies sealed themselves as power armoured troops arrived by dropship to secure the perimeter. GDI forces roared into life even as five Monsoons from Home Guard dropped as incandescent fireballs towards Geneva.
Deep in Shabazza, pirates started pleading for their lives and calling for their mothers as the alarms went off. Given that the two weeks of talks between the GP and GDI about their final disposition got interrupted, it will never be known whether the negotiators were annoyed or glad they were delayed.
Admiral Dubinin was actively swearing as he rushed into the command centre, uniform askew.
"What the HELL is going on?!?" He bellowed, his Russian accent very evident.
A holo-screen popped up, showing Surien Yamada.
"A type 4 implosion device has just detonated in the grounds of the Juraian Embassy Admiral. Our scanners indicate they are heavy four life signs. Wait while I get the guestbook...Senshi?" Surien was rather puzzled as she didn't recognise the term.
The Admiral did, having been briefed.
"They are allies, technomages I think you call them."
"Technomages? Here?" Amane asked in surprise and she entered the bridge of the Kamidake II. A quick glance at the situation and she nodded. "Admiral, this is an attack on Juraian soil and technically..."
"Agreed." The admiral nodded. "I'll pass this on to GDI Command. Set up a liaison and send a couple of officers down. Shabazza out."
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"This be a right mess, this be." Venus muttered in English to herself. That was something of an understatement. The National Police Agency had taken control of the local police and were co-operating with Interpol, GDI Intelligence, the Juraian Diplomatic Security Group, and the GP officers available. That wasn't much of a problem, as the Shadows had started dissolving as soon as they died, and they would not get anything from any remains that survived in the shield they and the guardians had put up.
No, the problem was Mercury had teleported in with Washuu. SHE might be able to find something.
Sighing, Venus surveyed the scene. Mercury was examining Princess Ayeka with Mars standing guard. Washuu was examining the ground where the Shadows had died, with Scene Of Crime officers and GP officer Kiriko Masaki-Yamada. Jupiter was down the hill at the explosion site helping the explosives experts and GP officer Ryoko Balta-Yamada. Saturn was giving her statement to Mihoshi whilst guarding Princess Sasami. And then there was...
"Lady High Mage?"
Venus turned to see GP Officer Amane Kaunaq-Yamada standing there. That was the other thing, all the aliens looked at them with outright awe (and more than a little fear).
"Yes Officer? And there's no need to be formal, Venus will be fine." And they were damn respectful too.
"Lady Venus." Amane nodded. "Can you tell us just how you detected them? Given what Lady Mercury told us, they must have been here months."
"Mars discovered them. She has the better spiritual senses of us. From what she and Mercury have told me, the princess was fighting the Keeper. That usually leads to a noticeable degree of mental unbalance."
"Indeed." Yosho noted, appearing by them and causing Amane to jump in surprise. Venus made a small gesture, putting up a privacy field.
"Your Highness." She nodded. "It depends how emotional the princess is, but close associates should easily be able to tell something is wrong in such cases. That's why I'm quite surprised they hadn't been discovered already."
"It seems I will have to have a long talk with my Aide."
"When he gets cleaned up." Venus agreed. Yosho and Amane had faintly disgusted expressions on their faces as they nodded.
"Well, this is certainly not how I expected things to go when we came to visit the shrine." Amane sighed.
"I would not be surprised." Yosho smiled. "How are you coping with the others?"
"It took a while, but the eight of us sorted things out. It allows us to gang up on Seina, and he needs it at times."
"Eight of you? With one guy?" Venus asked, surprised. "Bedtimes must be fun."
Amane just smiled a secretive smile.
"As long as everyone loves each other it's fine with me." Venus shrugged and smiled, then became serious. "I'd keep that quiet if I were you. Monogamy is the accepted norm on this world. I can hear the cries of indignation from the religious groups already."
"Will my sister recover?" Yosho asked, moving the subject back.
Mercury? Venus asked, sending the question.
Removing the Keeper will be tricky, I've not done this in this life, but doable. It's the psychological damage I'm afraid of. She'll probably need serious help.
"Physically? That's highly likely, but it's been a while since Mercury has done something like this. Psychologically? I'd bring in some help but make sure they do their jobs. The sort of trauma involved could easily be used to 'fix' someone the way 'they' want."
Yosho nodded, face grave.
"I requested some psychiatrists earlier, as I worried about Ayeka not handling the stress of her first serious diplomatic assignment. One more thing to discuss with both my Aide and my Father."
Both women knew those wouldn't be enjoyable conversations.
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A brown paper bag was placed on the small wooden table in front of Oberleutnant Marek Bosorevski.
"There you go."
Marek grinned at his driver and slowly opened the bag, pulling out a box. Than he proceeded to open the box and took out the piece of junkfood inside.
He was just about to take a bit out of the McRib as a loud explosion rocketed the trainwagon and the surrounding area, managing to blow out one of the windows, showering him and his subordinates with glass. More smaller explosions followed in quick succession.
"What the..."
Dropping the burger he quickly turned around to look out of burst train window. Only to look at a scene that could have come from a cheap scifi movie, as he saw how the tall building that stood next to the Main Train Station of Dortmund.
A large spaceship formed like a shark hovered above the core of Dortmund using its smaller dorsal weapons to simply destroy random buildings while smaller craft rained down.
Marek let go of a number of hard Russian curses he had learned from his Russian father.
He stared as he saw how people began to run away from the center of attention and turned around for a moment looking at the back of the wagon, where he knew their tank was. Normally they would be on their way to a test area in Eastern Germany for life ammo tests and going against a few Leos, but a damaged train engine had held them here in Dortmund.
"Okay, guys," he slowly said." We're going to see if our little tank lives up to its name. Thorsten, fire up the reactor, I'm going and help Alex to load the mags."
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Captain David Goldmann stared in shock as the massive golden dome of the Kipat Hasela collapsed, cased by massive damage of the area beneath, where the Kotel used to be. Than he stared at the massive shark shaped ship that hovered above Jerusalem and randomly fired its weapons at the city.
Two additional torrents of light hit the Kipat Hasela making the muslim holy place collapse even faster.
Years ago, Goldmann might have cheered for its destruction, but back than he had been just a kid.
He wasn't religious but as he closed his eyes, he spoke a quick prayer for the men and women who were dying because of that ship above them.
Than smaller vessels detached from the large ships and smaller figures rained down into the streets. Human-like and completely alien beings started to run through the streets, firing their beam weapons and even dismembering people with swords and other weapons.
Goldmann breathed in deep as he looked towards Lieutenant Levi. The nearly orthodox Jew was pale and gripped his M4. He was nearly shaking and Goldmann had the feeling that he needed to slap the other soldier to get him back into the real world.
"Levi," he said, but the other man didn't react.
"Levi," he tried again, putting his hand on Levis shoulder.
The Lieutenant jerkerd, pulling up his M4. At first Goldmann thought that he was about to shoot at him, but as Levis gun began to fire he had his weapon pointed to an area behind Goldmann.
Goldmann whirled around, his own M4 pointing in the same direction only to see how the bullets from the M4 bounced of on some sort of armor.
"Oh shit."
The armored being laughed loudly and slowly made its way towards the two Israeli soldiers.
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"Bored..."
There was a loud grumbling behind Lieutenant Marcel 'Weasel' Hammer, as he said that.
"Bo-ored..."
Than space lit up again as another Doranian cruiser detonated in a short lived nuclear sun.
"Booooooring..."
"Shut up, Weasel and fly."
"I just wanna pull the trigger," Weasel whined." I hate 'Wild Weasel' operations. Nothing to shoot at."
Behind Weasel, Lieutenant Dan 'Eyes' Spitz rolled his eyes before turning to his displays again.
"Trigger happy as you are, I wonder who let you into the Navy."
His fingers danced over the touchscreen as he adapted the setting of the powerful electronic warfare package of their Thunderbolt. It was powerful enough to jam and emulate several small Narn vessels and let the First Narn Attack Task Force seem to be bigger than it was. The other Thunderbolts of their squadron and a single AWACS Monsoon did the same.
As it was, even as they were inside the battle, they were not seeing much action.
"Booooored..."
Spitz closed his eyes for a moment, and tried to count to ten. But he knew in the end he would bop Weasel over the back of his helmet again, like a good number of times before.
"Bored, bored, bored, bored, boredy bored..."
"Thats it," Spitz exclaimed and bopped Weasel over the helmet.
Weasel jerked, sending the Thunderboilt into a light spin.
"What did ya do that for?"
Spitz groaned again.
"I'm going to request to be relieved of this post..."
"Don't go... I will only be more bored..."
"Argh..."