"Money is not a problem, in this case. The problem is the effectiveness of the mercenaries. They're going to start to under-perform sooner or later. I hope that you're ready for that, and are preparing accordingly to shift gears, as agreed." - STG Intercept 07.12.2166
"The M84-T3, more colloquially known as the 'Atlantic Wall' is a tank capable of operating in extreme conditions and inhospitable locations. The 'Atlantic Wall' was named after an Old Earth fortification line, famous for the amount of weaponry it had before its destruction. Although designed to engage other tanks and fortified weapons emplacements, the 'Atlantic Wall' possesses eight separate Heavy Machine Gun emplacements with which it can defend itself against infantry wielding anti-tank weaponry. In the event of an EMP attack, the tank's backup combustion generator will activate if properly maintained, ensuring continued operation during combat conditions." - Hegemony Armoured Corps Manual
"...protests have intensified as members of the Church of Galactic Redemption, chief among them being archcurate Sophronia Jaspis, have begun propagating the idea that the Hegemony had been infiltrated by 'Molochian agents'. This is in response to the Hegemony's unwillingness to share the details of the reactivation of the Gates within their volume of territory and the appearance of extraterrestrials currently assisting them. In a shocking move not seen since the early days of the Hegemony, the state of martial law has been rescinded, and law enforcement agencies have been put back on the streets in place of the militarized police forces. Even more shockingly, police officers have begun terrorizing Luddic protesters and cracking down on their activities. Political commentators are baffled, with some even claiming that this is a sharp pivot towards the anti-religious policies of the pre-Collapse era." - Open Sector News, Nova Maxios, c.189.09.12
~{•••}~
She could feel the shot missing her ship by mere inches as the cruiser moved to get out of range of the enemy's guns.
The battle had been going for hours by now. Hours.
Her fleet's two-pronged assault on the carrier group worked as intended, distracting the main fleet and allowing Fletcher's own meager forces to wipe out the escorts, though not without casualties. The Dominator-class was, fortunately, not damaged, and served as a rallying point for Kandros' frigates when they became overwhelmed by enemy fighters.
The corporate carrier group was, by far, the most unassailable carrier group she had ever come across in her career.
Screened from all sides by fighters, interceptors and bombers of various make, most of which were Wasp Interceptor Drones. Unmanned, expendable and highly efficient interceptor wings, these small craft were the main reason why her ships couldn't approach unmolested. They fell apart with ease once the GARDIAN lasers came into play, but their replacement rates were abnormally fast. As a matter of fact, she had been absolutely certain that the carriers were too small for the amount of fighter craft they were carrying. She'd contacted Fletcher for more immediate and relevant information concerning carriers within the Persean Sector.
His answer had been... dreadful.
Limited Production Chips.
Blackboxed technology which allowed carriers to manufacture fighters, interceptors and bombers at will so long as the internal nanoforges could keep up with the demand, and so long as the carrier had actual replacement crew to send out should the craft be lost in combat.
She found that out two hours ago once she finally had a chance to raise the admiral.
No wonder that the carriers, especially the Astral-class, were so feared when paired with one another or with well-rounded fleets. They could sustain a fight for much longer than other ships normally would, which was the case now. Ordinarily, crew and ships alike would begin deteriorating in performance at this stage, but both fleets had brought their best today, it would seem. She was proud of her crew, both those on her personal ship and those on all others.
She'd taken casualties, as well. Five frigates destroyed and one cruiser critically damaged. The frigates had been systematically corralled close to the carrier group, and then slowed down by, according to data, two wings of Claw Fighters which possessed ion cannons. After that, four Cobra Bombers approached those ships and destroyed them in one single hit from their torpedoes.
One hit, and the entire ship was out.
Backing out now, even for a limited amount of time, was simply impossible. The carriers would continue pursuing them, and if they docked, which they needed to in order to perform necessary maintenance, they'd be vulnerable to those dreaded bombers. She'd seen what the Astral-class was capable of when it launched those six wings herself. Spirits damned teleportation technology.
The wings had returned right back to their home carrier, unharmed and ready to go for another round.
Now was the time to be bold, she surmised. Rubbing her eyes ever so lightly, Kandros blinked away the fatigue she began feeling. A plan began forming in her head, but she needed to survive long enough to put it to use. Ordering that the fleet temporarily disengage through a fighting retreat, the Turian admiral figured that she could buy herself some time.
The penultimate saving grace here was that the ships of the Persean Sector were far slower than theirs.
The officers assisting her with ordering the fleet into formation were invaluable. This galaxy did void warfare more differently than she'd realized.
"Analysis." She commanded, one of the officers already stepping up to begin. Turian discipline at its finest.
"Admiral," he began "we've cross-referenced what we found from the data given to us by the Hegemony and paired it with our observations. The primary threat armaments-wise is the Astral-class carrier. Its missile systems, that being two Squall MLRS systems, have been the source of major issues among the fleet, the primary one being their effect on our kinetic barriers." Kandros found herself nodding.
The Squall MLRS was nothing special, until one realized that it was meant to fire at shields native to this galaxy, and not kinetic barriers. "The kinetic force of each missile is large, at least for our kinetic barriers. A dreadnought might take two barrages, assuming every single missile hit, but more than that and it would start faltering. We don't have that same luxury. Every time a ship began approaching the carrier group, the Astral began firing a twenty missile salvo. While not all of them hit, our ships are too unwieldy to dodge them all, and thus have their kinetic barriers absorb the kinetic force as much as they can."
"Eliminating the Astral will throw the entire fleet into disarray, and deny Tri-Tachyon's forces their largest alpha strike potential." Another officer chipped in.
"A valid point. But we can't approach the Astral safely due to the defense net cast by the Herons. They have a significant amount of interceptors and fighters, as well as bombers of their own. Not to mention that we've detected transmissions from the Herons directly to their fighter wings." In other words, the carriers were feeding their people real-time targeting solutions.
Kandros remained quiet as the officers continued discussing and debating, while continuing to absorb their words. She stared at the tactical display, eyes squinting. The Herons had, by now, surrounded the Astral in a circle, which meant they couldn't be taken out in a single strike. Or...
"Effectiveness of a crescent formation?" She asked suddenly.
The officers mulled it in their heads. "If we can attack from the side, therefore outside the Squall's effective firing envelope, we wouldn't have to worry about our kinetic barriers dying on us as easily." One of them replied. "That said, we are still vulnerable to their fighters."
"Then speed is necessary." She paused. Bold. They needed to be bold.
"Order the fleet to power down all GARDIAN lasers. We need everything from the reactors into standard weapons and engine power." The command was swiftly being relayed. But then she got the word from their ally - the situation planetside had begun to deteriorate rapidly, necessitating Fletcher to deal with the invasion fleet alone. Problematic, but thankfully not integral to their plans.
With a few more adjustments made to the plan, the rest of the fleet was ready. Frigates would distract their interceptors and bombers while the cruisers, her own included, fired at the Herons. One by one, they'd be assaulted, destroyed, or routed. And once the Astral was all alone, it too would be routed.
Getting through its shield without taking unacceptable losses due to the bombers wouldn't be possible.
~{•••}~
"Ten centicredits that there's gonna be four Birds in there."
"I'll take that bet. Five or more." Juno answered, giving a grin to Saturn.
Tachy mercs were SLOW! Domino couldn't wrap his head around that, they were so painfully slow! And it certainly wasn't because of their bulky marine armour, which, he had to admit, did limit mobility somewhat unless you knew exactly how they worked inside and out. His outfit didn't quite master their marine suits yet, besides Raptor. Fitting that the medic was the most protected of the bunch.
That still failed to explain why they moved slower than snails. Corporate assholes probably grabbed some desk jockeys and gave them a crash course in infantry tactics and whatnot. Figures, all the good corporate troops would be elsewhere.
It made watching their suit cameras all the more boring. He, Radar and Raptor were observing the team of seven marines as they inched their way into the building, guns at the ready. Honestly, it was a little embarrassing watching them move that slowly. This wasn't even because they were cautious, they were just scared shitless despite the air or confidence they gave out less than five minutes ago.
"My late grandma can waddle faster than that, ladies! Pick it up!" He spoke into the radio, ignoring the groaning and curses coming from the marine team.
They were starting to fall behind schedule a little, which was partially why Domino had to metaphorically push them into harm's way. Push came to shove, he'd have the Atlantic Wall bring down the whole building and go back on his merry way - deductibles be damned.
If nothing, the marines began picking up the pace slightly, and were finally making their way to the next floor, the one where the Birds were. And in a display of actual competence, they created an opening for themselves to go through the door to the second floor by throwing flashbangs at both ends of the two-way hallway which they noticed.
Gunfire started shortly after. The trio watched attentively as the marines started shooting, and the Birds shot back. Domino, on the other hand, was more focused on the aliens themselves, and apparently, so was Raptor. The word 'bony' came to mind when describing the Birds - all skin and bones to his eyes, but very strong skin and bones nonetheless, with talons to boot and weird flanges on their mouths. Oh yes, they had normal mouths, too, but the flanges were a bit odd, in his opinion. Part of the jaw, maybe? Easier chewing? He didn't really know, nor did her particularly care besides base curiosity and the fact they didn't have helmets. They probably lost them, poor bastards.
The shootout was pretty standard stuff, though what infuriated him was the fact the marines didn't position themselves correctly - only two at a time could fire at any given point, while the rest sat on their asses doing fuck all.
In comparison, three of the Birds that he could see from one of the marines' cameras were doing a rather by-the-books sort of tactic. All three were firing and covering one another. When one was out, they moved deeper into cover for a while, he noticed. Other two usually laid down gunfire a bit more haphazardly, likely to get the marines to stop shooting for a moment or two.
One thing that bothered him was that he couldn't notice any magazines on either the guns or on the Birds' persons. Sure, the armour could've obscured it, but it still didn't sit right.
Whenever one of the Birds was hit, a blue, shimmering field stopped the bullet dead in its tracks. Kinetic barriers, if Tachy intel was correct - not true shielding, but when they lacked any energy weapons, it might as well have been shield tech.
Shields were bulky. Marine suits with shield generators tended to be on the bulkier side, and even then, they were still pieces of shit that were prone to malfunctions. No wonder the Domain never actually rolled them out and some bumpkins from pre-League Kazeron popularized its use, thinking it was the pinnacle of infantry tech.
One of the marines was actually flatlined. The marine whose camera they were watching the firefight through turned around to face his fallen comrade, revealing his shattered visor. "And that's why we never skimp out on COFFINs." Raptor murmured from behind.
This one death led to a cascade of additional deaths over a period of two minutes of gunfighting, which, finally, led to all seven marines dying.
The Birds approached the corpse with the broadcasting suit camera and checked it for signs of life like actual soldiers would, before turning around to speak to one another in their alien language. "Man, fuck this." He cursed, moving over to tap Peacock on the shoulder. "If the suits start bitching about us taking our sweet time, that's their problem for sending us shit troops! Give me the mic!" His command earned a grin from Peacock, who immediately started operating the HMG's already pointing at the building and handing Domino the microphone.
"Alright you alien bastards, listen up!" Domino yelled from the built-in speakers on the tank - a certified 'First Piece' modification made by their resident mechanic. "This ain't anything personal - hell, you're the single most exciting thing that's happened in the last eighty cycles! That said, our employer paid top credit to see you Birds hanging from lampposts. No clue why they're so hung up on killing as many of you poor bastards as possible, but they're paying per body, in one or more pieces, and that's got a lot of mercs like us interested."
There was no response, but he was sure they were listening. One look at the screen he was glued to a minute ago told him as much. Birds were paying attention, which meant they understood every single word. Good.
"So when we kill you and you go to whatever God or afterlife you believe in, tell 'im that Mike Domino and his pals sent you there! Peacock!"
"Light up the night, assholes!"
The HMG's whirred to life, and just as suddenly as they turned on, they started raining absolute hell on the building the Birds were hiding inside of. The walls lasted all of two seconds before fist-sized holes started being punched through them. Hell, he could already see the Birds scattering away through them.
Peacock swept the turret around both the first and second floors, making sure that they were either killed, incapacitated or otherwise heavily inconvenienced by the fusillade of gunfire.
He watched one of the Birds pop out of cover for all of a few seconds from just outside the gun's firing angle, before firing from what he assumed was a sniper rifle. The shot connected with one of the HMG's, and instead of the expected ping off of it, the entire damn gun broke in half down the middle.
"What the fuck?"
Yeah, that was an appropriate reaction.
"It broke!? What the fuck do you mean a sniper rifle broke the thing in half!? That thing is literally military-grade steel! No, I refuse to believe that a Bird managed to use a sniper of all things to DESTROY AN HMG!" Peacock fumed, already furiously moving the HMGs over to where the Bird that took the shot was. "Saturn!"
"No need to tell me, I got it. Loading HE!" The auto-loader went into action a second later, shoving in the shell with clinical precision as the fabricator in the back worked on replacing the shell.
"Target! 344 degrees! Raise turret by 2 degrees! Kill the bastard!"
"Firing!"
The shell left the barrel of the turret swiftly, impacting the wall as it punched right through and went deeper into the building, before finally detonating. There was, however, no time to even celebrate as five other Birds were seen exiting the building and already moving into more solid cover. "You owe me!" Juno grinned like a maniac, her attention going back to the fabricator as she made sure it kept pumping out ammunition.
"They've got an AT weapon, sir!"
"Radar-! Ludd damn it, kid, stop doing that!" He chastised, before blinking. Wait. AT?
"AT! AT!" Straitjacket hissed, already backing up the Atlantic Wall as they all braced for the inevitable impact. The Birds, two of them specifically, rose from their hiding place in the HMG's blind spot. Hoisting a disposable anti-tank launcher, they aimed it at the tank before finally firing.
Fortunately for Domino, the rocket didn't do as much damage as he feared. Unfortunately for Peacock, it destroyed all three HMG's on the front of the damn thing.
"Loading HE!"
"Target! 010 degrees! Return turret elevation to normal! Fire!"
"Firing!"
This time, unfortunately, the Birds had the bright idea to move out of their cover before the tank opened fire again. Eviscerating their cover, however, made it so that they were once more within the firing line of the remaining HMG's. Immediately opening fire, bullets flew wildly from one end of the street to the other, three other Birds laying down what suppressive fire they could on the guns. Not that it did them any good.
Until another HMG, this time on the left track armour, exploded mid-reload. Domino grimaced, already noticing that the bastard of a sniper was up and about again. Worse, he let out another shot. And another. And another. All of it in quick succession, too, as if these people genuinely didn't need to worry about ammunition.
With one final shot from the sniper, all hell broke loose inside the tank as a fresh new bullet hole was added to the roof. The armour-piercing rounds on that sniper were something else if they could bust through the, admittedly weak but still rather impressive, top armour. That, of course, made half the crew yell and curse and throw a ruckus where none was needed or even welcome!
"Y'know what!? Screw this! Saturn! Load cassette rounds!"
Saturn blinked in surprise at Domino's command, before promptly complying. "Sure thing, boss. Loading cassette shell!"
Cassette rounds were something very special. They were a terror weapon made by the Sindrian Diktat designed with the sole purpose of mowing down lightly armoured targets with as much area saturation as possible. Against actual soldiers wearing actual armour, however, that didn't really work, but in this specific case, it didn't need to. All it did have to do was give the Birds a massive scare, and have enough shrapnel hit their kinetic barriers so that they went down, which'd allow the remaining HMG's to finish the job. Though, perhaps someone would also have to pop up top to add some rifle fire into the mix.
Why didn't he order Saturn to just load an HE shell right after? Unfortunately, cassette rounds were designed by Diktat engineers, who were incompetent pieces of shit that needed Tachy technical support to stay relevant. It was arguably the worst kept secret in the entire Askonia system. The cassette rounds damaged the barrels too much from the inside, which meant that, unless you were firing even more of that type of shell, it was, to put it mildly, extremely inadvisable to fire anything else for fear of it exploding inside the barrel.
Combined with the fact that this was a tank that was over 200 cycles old, and it really didn't need any further elaboration.
"Dead ahead, fire when ready!"
"Firing!"
Instead of a boom, like last time, a mere thump was heard, the shell streaking through the air and past the Birds' positions...
...before exploding violently and scattering a thousand projectiles all over the area. Windows shattered, walls were chipped away, and he could hear a few muffled screams of terror and pain from that direction. Ah, fuck, there were civvies inside, weren't there? Deductibles were going to be a bitch to deal with.
That said, the terror weapon worked beautifully. He backed away from one of the monitors just in time to watch it receive a bullet hole straight through the display, circuitry sizzling and seizing up as that blasted sniper went at it again.
Wordlessly, and more importantly, without any prompting from Domino, Raptor stood up from her seated position, rifle hoisted and ready. "Going up top." She informed them flatly, seemingly not caring for the sniper that was hunting them like one hunted those Tachy Phase Ships that broke Bunker 58. No one raised any objections. She was known for exposing herself to danger, and she was already in her marine suit. She was practically married to it at this point.
Watching that bastard of a sniper like a hawk, Domino was only vaguely aware of Raptor opening up the hatch and popping out of the tank, rifle trained to what was up front. What rang out next were three shots, each from the sniper, and each hitting Raptor square in the chest. She answered with her own rifle fire, but not at the sniper. Rather, she aimed for his comrades down range, apparently. And as she was shooting at the Birds they incapacitated, he saw the most glorious sight of this whole little skirmish.
The rat bastard's gun jammed.
"Sir, news from tactical!" Radar suddenly chirped in again, earning a confused, but nonetheless curious expression from Domino. "Fleet's being engaged, they're giving the order to pull out. They're doubling our bonus for killing as many Birds as we did."
Well... there it was. Shit hit the fan as he predicted. Yanking Raptor's foot on instinct, she dropped back down into the tank just as a bullet whizzed past where her head used to be. "So what's the plan? We pulling out?" Surprisingly, it was Peacock who asked the question.
"Yep, no sense getting trapped planetside. Straitjacket!"
"Uh huh, getting us outta here!" He replied, putting the tank into a hard reverse as he started turning it around bit by bit. The sniper had moved out of position and was now moving over to where his comrades were, likely to see if any of them were still alive.
"So... how many did you bag?" Juno asked, wiping a bead of sweat off her forehead as she moseyed on past them all towards the engine block in the back.
"Four. Fifth was critical, probably won't make it." She answered plainly, hands fiddling with a thick syringe as she searched for an exposed joint in her armour to stick it through. Mike just sighed and rubbed his eyes. Yeah, he'd end up being the one cleaning up the blood from Raptor's on-site self surgery. Again.
At least they were getting the hell off this planet. Roaring success, given the bonus they were going to get.
That is a wrap, ladies and gentlemen! I would like to apologize in case this chapter feels a bit... rushed? It felt natural to me as of writing, but maybe I'll end up changing a few things here and there in the future. Regardless, I was hit with finals and haven't been able to write nearly as much as I wanted to, so once more, I apologize for that. I should be returning to my regular schedule either later this month or in July, depends on how busy I become due to my remaining finals this month. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Next one will conclude the Hanan Pacha trilogy and will be the last chapter before the timeskip I talked about earlier. If you've any critiques, recommendations or anything else, feel free to voice them. Now, onto the reviews.
Metal Slug - Yep, who doesn't love tanks?
Frankieu - They sure can be happy! When they're not being thrown into a meat grinder, at least.
Edward Cullen - I plan to elaborate on that in a chapter or two, don't worry. Between you and me, though, it's because the higher-ups don't really like the song.
Cobaltdrauscli - Sure you do, buddy, sure you do.
This chapter was brought to you by Pollux Armaments. Our motto: Tanks over mechs. Any day, all the time.