Author's note: Had to do some last minute changes. It took a few days to go through the whole chapter.
Thanks to my beta, and hope you'll like reading this chapter too.
"I'm telling you, it would be better if the Terran Congress were filled with slimy, backstabbing politicians instead of what we have right now," Captain Philips, Terran Army, said while walking on the grassy ground of Quiril. He had to say it. If it weren't for the monstrosities presently crawling all over the planet, it wouldn't be such a bad place to live on.
"You don't mean that," Doctor Jennifer Keller responded while busily checking some crates with some medical equipment that had just arrived.
"I'm sorry, Doc, but one of the jobs of the Congress must be to slow down progress to a crawl. This ensures stability. Instead, that bunch of workaholic overachievers currently comprising both our Congress and Council - with all their ideas, improvements, plans and whatever else they can think of doing next - are going to make the Terran Federation change so much on an almost daily basis that nobody will know what is what or what laws or policies are in effect," Philips explained further while shaking his head in disapproval.
"Hey! I am one of those workaholic overachievers in the Congress that you're speaking of and my husband is also a member of the Council!" Keller shouted, but there was no real anger in her voice.
"I rest my case," Philips replied while giving her a meaningful glare. "To me, it looks like you and your husband are trying to save the universe on your own in different ways… while making policies for the Terran Federation as a side job; just to not get bored too much or something. Frankly, it freaks me out. You should enjoy life more instead of working 24/7."
"But we are enjoying life. And now that we have a much, much longer lifespan, such way of living our lives is something more people should adopt," Keller replied.
"I don't get it. Why is it so important to break your back by working so much instead of simply enjoying yourself?"
"Because devoting your life to enjoying oneself, promoting oneself, getting reach by oneself and plainly behaving selfishly could be fun for a handful of decades. However, there is a limit on how long you can do those things with yourself always at the center before they become repetitive and boring. Instead, if you devote your life to others, then you can spend the next three hundred years and it still wouldn't be enough, I assure you. And if in the process you start enjoying what you're doing for your society or other individuals, then I think you will survive most of your now very long life that is still ahead of you with a smile daily present on your face."
This made Philips think. It was true that doing things for oneself would eventually become boring. On the other hand, while doing different things for others, as McKay and Keller were doing, could be fulfilling for much longer. A lifespan of three hundred years - as it was now the new normal among the Terrans who went through the Genesis Project - wasn't easy to fill with interesting things to do. However, if you spend your life going around the galaxy meeting people, helping people, or discovering the wonders of the universe like McKay was doing while progressing your society through your work, could be a path to a very long but also very fulfilling life. He was also having thoughts about his own future in the military. Was he going to be a soldier a hundred years from now? Maybe he should start thinking on how to broaden his horizons. How to become something more than just a soldier. He liked being one, and he wasn't planning to leave the Army, but maybe he could be other things, too, like the Kellers were.
He was never going into politics, though. No matter what.
"Okay, Doc, you have a point there. Still, the Federal government should adopt some of the attitudes of the average down to Earth politician. Too many changes, too many revolutionary ideas, all applied too quickly could destabilize our newly formed, unified nation. Anyway, that's something I wouldn't like to see happen anytime soon, or ever," He said, just as a hammerhead flew over the encampment, quickly going for a landing not all that far from where they were. It was probably bringing more refugees found elsewhere on the planet. The ship could easily pick hundreds at a time and bring them back here where it was safer and where they could be treated, mostly for injuries but also malnutrition and other maladies.
Philips looked around. The encampment was roughly a thousand acres and formed such a perfect square that he thought they had resurrected Pythagoras just for the job. Pylons ten meters tall and placed every hundred meters apart were casting a plasma force field between them, effectively surrounding and isolating the encampment. In the beginning, he didn't understand why the use of a force field for protection instead of a shield. They told him it was because, as opposed to a shield, a plasma force field used minute amounts of energy to work. One pylon would cast the forcefield while the other pylon would receive it and recast it back only a few microns apart from the first plane. It was an endless loop that created two layers with almost no energy loss except for when hit by something. In addition, the top side was open, which allowed landing inside the encampment for ships much easier than having to deal with an energy bubble. For possible hostiles that could attack them from the sky, there were SAM batteries inside the perimeter and the swarm of F-302 constantly patrolling the skies to take care of them. Of course, that wasn't all. Outside of the perimeter, every fifteen meters on average there was a Cylon on patrol ready to intervene if a Crab or a Hunter came inside its sensor range. Farther out, the TT-X4 tanks were creating an outer perimeter needed if some reaper decided to come by. The TT-X4 was only a minor improvement over the already very advanced TT-X3 tank. It was less heavy than its predecessor and in conjunction with an antigravity unit it allowed the tank to levitate and even leap across slopes with ease if and when needed. The tank couldn't fly, but if somebody saw it leap from a ledge while moving at 75 miles per hour with its antigravity unit active and easily landing a mile away, they would think that maybe it could after all.
Only the strong shield, capable of being deployed only while the tank was stationary, overshadowed the main dual plasma pulse cannons, the two grav-miniguns capable of working independently and spitting six thousand 10mm bullets per minute each, or the modest reserve of 40 Mark I drones. After taking Asura from the replicators, the Terrans had built several millions of the Asuran drones before the Mark II version with McKay's energy transfer system came by. The surplus of Asuran drones, those that were only partially successful in mimicking the original ancient version, were used to supply the Terran Army and their ground units until reserves were depleted. The only possible negative attribute of the powerful tank was that, while moving, it needed to rely on its cloak because all Terran devised shields when hitting solid obstacles while moving created overloads in its generator, with very bad outcomes.
Philips didn't know what his exact job was as of late, except maybe to make sure that no one from the Peace Corps decided to wander in the woods without telling anyone. There were those in the Peace Corps who wanted to find as many survivors as possible, even if it meant getting lost themselves. They were simply that kind of people and arguing with them that they should leave that job to the military fell on deaf ears most times. He knew that his light infantry wasn't needed right now, not with the many other types of units present on the planet. Besides the tanks, soldiers in their new TPA-X1 bulky power armor were also out seeking hostiles. After a lengthy debate, it was decided that soldiers wearing power armor would be categorized as armored units instead of infantry like he was. The main reason for that was because in the infantry a squad was the smallest deployable unit and was comprised of nine people, including a squad leader and two four-man fire teams. Nine Terrans in power armor were almost like having nine walking tanks, which was overkill in ninety-nine percent of the cases. Power armored (PA) units often worked independently or in pairs.
The Army's power armor unit was second only to the TPA-X2 power armor developed specifically for the Terran Space Marine Corp (TSMC). Since their motto went something in the general direction of 'beam in fast, leave nothing standing, and beam out even faster', they wanted a power armor unit on steroids. The TPA-X2 looked even bulkier, it had high energy capacitors embedded deep inside the suit and was capable of generating an amazing amount of raw power. The armor could create a strengthening field that made the material seem ten times denser – thanks to tech reverse engineered from Jack's wristband coming straight from an unknown number of years into the future - it could cloak, it could do short range teleportation, and it could feed high power weapons like plasma torches or high-speed 3mm flechette miniguns capable of cutting down everything in front of them with a fire rate of 15.000 flechettes per minute. The armor could have an extra backpack attached that allowed it to leap and bounce like a mad kangaroo because of the antigravity unit and the small thrusters in it. Just like the tank, the power armored unit couldn't fly, but sometimes it could fool people into thinking that it could.
All this was great, but things like cloaking, teleportation, a strengthening field, and powerful weapons all were strong drains on the suit's finite energy reserves. That was why the marines used the high-power capacitors capable of delivering the needed massive power output. The negative side of using them - to a lot of people, a very controversial choice - was that the crystals could be depleted very quickly since they couldn't hold as much energy as the Marine Corps would have liked. Under max usage, the TPA-X2 could end up completely drained of energy in under half an hour. Of course, under normal usage, it lasted for hours, but it was still too little for some other branches of the Terran military, if not for the TSMC too.
It was true, though, that with the right weapon a marine in a power armor could be almost as deadly as a TT-X4, but much more flexible in their movement.
On the other hand, the Terran Army wanted a unit that could last for days at the very least instead of mere hours, even if it meant limiting the unit's overall strength. It was the difference between the two branches of the military. The Army needed units that when deployed could guard or canvas a large area for days on end, with the people inside the heavy suits sleeping if necessary without ever needing to taking it off. Because of it, their version of the Power Armor was a little less intimidating and used a Naquadah mini-generator located on the back of the suit instead of the high capacity crystals of its TSMC's counterpart. The generator was capable of providing power for days even under strain and with the help of a teammate, the cylinder containing Naquadah could be cooled down, extracted and replace with a new one, all without the need for the wearer to remove the armored suit in less than twenty minutes. The suit needed to be disengaged and opened from behind, unlike the Combat Suit he currently wore, hence not easy to do while surrounded by hostiles and certainly not something been done every five minutes. The army version could not create a strengthening field that made the armor ten times stronger. Their field could create a Material Density Enhancement Factor (MDEF) of 2.7 at the most. In addition, no Army unit used the power-hungry plasma torches the marines liked so much using, as they would certainly suck the life out of their more modest power source. The 3mm flechette minigun was all right, but most soldiers preferred the Terran Heavy Rifle THR-X1 as their choice of weapon. The heavy grav-rifle used 10mm bullets coming in three flavors. Standard, armor-piercing and explosive rounds. A few scientists wanted to make incendiary ammo as well simply because they saw it in some video game. However, smarter people above them quickly let them know that being needlessly cruel to your enemy for no good reason wasn't a good trait, much less having seen it in a video game and using it as the main if not only deciding factor. An explosive round propelled at 1,200 meters per second would do the job just fine against most foes. It was well known that the speed of the bullet was such that many would die from the shock of the impact even if hit in non-vital areas like a hand or maybe even a toe.
As a second choice, some soldiers were choosing the newly developed, high caliber rifle that fired smart bullets. The mini drones the Atlantis expedition had witnessed once on a planet in the Pegasus galaxy had given them the idea of building something similar, yet, still conform with the overall Terran doctrine of creating weapons and ammo that could easily be mass produced in great quantities. The 20mm smart bullet was a relatively slow mover capable of achieving 400 meters per second speed, a similar velocity as that of bullets fired from handheld guns. The bullet was still a far cry from a mini drone, not worth being compared even. While homing in on its designated target, it could make only small corrections on its initial trajectory as it had no dedicated propulsion system. Yet, it was much cheaper to build than the mini-drones, it didn't need a complex fire & control system unlike the mini-drones, and when fired, most soldiers could be certain the bullet would land where it was supposed to if they at least fired it in the general direction of the intended target. The only negative side of the weapon was the limited amount of ammo a soldier could carry compared to the much smaller 10mm bullet. With a five times smaller volume, it meant carrying ten instead o fifty bullets per clip.
The TPA-X1 Power Armor had a cloaking device, the ability to temporarily cast a forward shield from its hand emitter, similar to what was used by the Vanir, but there was no teleportation system installed, which again needed to suck a lot of power in order to teleport the 600 pounds combined weight of the heavy armor and soldier. It was something his standard third generation light combat suit had while the Army's power armored suit didn't. Since the combat suit he wore was a little under 40 pounds heavy - as opposed to the much heavier Power Armor - his embedded energy capacitors were enough to fully charge the teleportation device in five minutes flat. The device could then be used three or four times depending on the distance, which was up to a hundred meters max.
Besides all these relatively new goodies that were coming out from the Terran R&D department as if they were candies, planet Quiril was also the testing bed for the Terran first gunship. The flier could not leave the planet's atmosphere and did not have any passenger seats. In order to make it as small as possible, the gunship has only one seat for the pilot who, through a helmet that incorporated some Ancient technology, partially operated the vehicle by mental control, just like the puddle jumper. The gunship was light, small, and capable of going through the gate when folded. It also had an antigravity unit, state of the art inertial dampeners and turbines to make it move quickly and with incredible agility. The gunship was so fast and nimble that it got it the name of GS-351 Hummingbird.
As weapons went, the gunship was very versatile. It could have two 10mm grav-miniguns or two plasma cannons mounted on the sides. As the secondary arsenal, it had 36 micro-missiles or up to 24 drones. With its speed, nimble nature, and especially while combined with a cloak, the gunship was the perfect aerial unit to seek ground targets. During the one month since Daniel and Vala's rescue, the Hummingbird had been responsible for the killing of almost 70% of the Crabs and Hunters found on the planet. The F-302B bombers carrying cluster or napalm bombs killed most of the rest. The infantry had to deal with the rest, mostly in the form of Crab stragglers. An infantry squad was comprised of nine people, two four-people fire teams lead by a sergeant. A corporal, who also doubled as a controller of two Cylons - just like the sergeant did - led each fire team. It meant that a squad was comprised of nine soldiers and six controlled Cylons. Quiril's theater was the perfect testbed for the Cylons to be utilized more as they were easily programmed to seek Crabs and Hunters, while all humans were simply flagged as friendlies and hence not to be fired upon under any circumstances. With the additional instructions given by the corporal or sergeant, their controllers, they could easily be employed to great effect. They were always ahead of the soldiers, with their sensors scanning and notifying if hostiles or stragglers were detected. In many occasions when faced against Crabs, the soldiers did nothing while the Cylons systematically killed all hostiles in sight. In fact, some soldiers had started complaining that they had turned into nothing more than mules, as their role had changed into that of carrying additional munition for the Cylons. Philips, as the company's CO, had told them to shut up and enjoy the nice walk through the prairie.
They were being paid anyway.
The last enemy on the planet were the Reapers, which the Hummingbird could easily deal with, especially when loaded with drones. When it ran out of drones, the Hummingbird would simply cloak and return to base for rearmament. Although, most Reapers were taken care of by the F-302c Vipers, always on patrol everywhere they were needed on the planet.
"Give them some time and they will. I mean, it's been less than three years since inception and everyone is still excited and wants to make big changes. Another decade and everything will calm down, especially once the war is over," Keller responded as she finished with the inspection of the new medical cargo.
Philips had almost forgotten that they were talking about the Congress and the overachievers in it. He was now more interested in the situation on Quiril anyhow. "Tell me straight, Doc. You've been in other encampments we set up on this planet. Is there as bad as it is here or..."
The good Doctor looked at him, giving a long sigh. "Maybe even worse than here, I can't be certain without checking some specific data that we are still in the process of collecting. From what we have gathered, the Quirilian population has gone below one percent. It is difficult to believe that what it took thousands of years was eliminated in mere months."
"From what I remember, Quiril had almost a billion people on the planet. Then the Ori came, and even though they weren't here to commit genocide, they still managed to kill around 50 million people. And now this. Bellow one percent means there couldn't be more than ten million Quirilians on the planet now.
"Less. I think there are around seven million. Those are the predictions my team is dealing with when we are deciding on how many medical supplies we'll need," Keller looked around the camp. Around five hundred meters from their position, a prefabricated medical center stood with people being ushered inside. It must be those that had just been brought by the Hammerhead no more than ten minutes ago. "Who knows what's going to happen to these people?"
"I heard they are gonna enact the Omega Protocol, Doc. Level five or maybe even five-plus," Philips responded. It was only rumored, but he wouldn't be surprised if they really did it, just like with the Langarans. The Omega Protocol meant uplifting a society to a certain level. Five was pretty high and if they were really serious about it, they were going to provide the Quirilians with both the knowledge and the infrastructure needed. It meant the planet built completely anew with free energy coming from fusion reactors, antigravity units, energy capacitors, and of course shipyards and the knowledge on how to build ships at the level of the other space-faring human races like the Langarans, Optricans, Galarans and other. Once the basic needs were returned to the Quirilians, big changes would come on Quiril, and knowing the people on this planet, most would choose to board the newly built ships and go in search for the Crabs and Hunters for some target practice. A time will certainly come when even the Hunters will understand the mistake they've made in targeting the human race, as he was sure no human from this planet and many others would rest until every last Hunter or Crab were eradicated.
Philips also knew that it wasn't purely altruistic what the Terrans were thinking of doing. They knew the time would come when most of the Terran forces, together with the Asgard and Edenians, would have to leave on an offensive campaign against the Vargas. A campaign that could last for a very long time and lead them to a very faraway place. Having human worlds capable of cleaning up the mess the Vargas left behind on who knows how many planets was something they need to take into consideration while making their long-term predictions and plans.
"I would be happy to hear that the Terran Federation is trying to uplift these people if I didn't know how 30 percent of the population will end up in the military," Keller said shaking her head. "From seven million people, I expect two will join the war and the rest won't only because there are those who'll still need to stay and work to feed their people and fuel the military apparatus."
"Don't think many will spend time producing food, Doc. With how pissed off they are, I'm sure they'll survive with the machines we are gifting them, those capable of making proteins bar at no cost, albeit disgusting. The Quirilians are so bent on making the aliens pay that I don't think they'd care," Philips Explained. He was predicting that at least fifty percent, in one way or another, would join the military. The worst part was that what the Quirilians were doing was actually healthy, as the alternative instead of anger was for the survivors to fall into a state of deep depression at the thought of their ruined civilization.
"It's possible… and sad at the same time," Keller said. "Anyway, do you have any idea when you'll be done with the cleanup job around here so that my people can go around searching for survivors and for the rest of the Corps to try to rebuild at least a few cities?"
As cleanup went, this one went better than predicted. Two weeks ago they had a big operation in seven of the largest cities in the area. Also, the last time he had participated in any real action. Aerial surveillance of the city that concerned him the most had confirmed the presence of a large number of Crabs, but also Hunters and Reapers. They were starting to hide, as they must have understood that taking the Terrans head on and without support from space was tantamount to suicide, and they were not about to make things easier for them, no matter how desperate their situation was. Holed up in the largest cities, they must be thinking that rooting them out would be much bloodier for the Terrans. However, that wasn't what he had witnessed firsthand.
…a few days after the initial assault on the city Zara
Philips was the commander of one of the light infantry companies on the planet, with 330 soldiers under his command, spread in six platoons, each with six squads made of nine soldiers and six Cylons controlled by the two corporals and the squads' sergeant, their leader. Operation Levant had begun on July 28, 2014, in which the objective was the elimination of any hostile combatants in the seven largest cities in the Northern region on the only continent on the entire planet. The plan was for these seven cities to be freed in order to provide enough housing for the Quirilians still alive, for them to slowly begin rebuilding their society – or what was left of it – with aid received by the Terrans, and as a staging area for follow-up operations oriented toward the south. From his battalion, his and another light infantry company had been tasked to take the city of Zara with the support of one Tank company comprised of four platoons with four tanks each, a power armor (PA) company comprised of four platoons, each comprised of six squads with two Power Armored units and four Mark II Cylons in each, and an aerial company comprised of six squadrons with six Hummingbirds in each. In total, they had six-hundred-and-sixty infantry soldiers in third generation combat suits and two-hundred-and-sixteen Mark I Cylons from the infantry companies, sixteen TT-X4 tanks, forty-eight Power Armor units and 96 Mark II Cylons from the two armored companies, and for last, thirty-six Hummingbirds to watch over them from above. If in the Second World War somebody said that they were trying to take an entire city that at some point had held one hundred thousand people with that minute number of soldiers, everyone would have laughed to the point of agony. However, in this case, it was not only doable, but he'd also thought they could do it with relative ease. One reason for his confidence was, of course, the kind of firepower and protection every single unit in the Terran Army had at their disposal, even down to the individual soldier. Even their light infantry in their combat suits would have wreaked havoc in WWII even against a two order of magnitude larger opponents. However, the true reason why he thought the enemy stood no chance whatsoever was something else.
All hostile ground units had no ranged weapons whatsoever. And the modest number of flying Reapers simply could not compensate for that.
The devised plan was simple. The major threat were the Reapers and they needed to be neutralized first. To achieve that, the tanks and the PA units would, under the cover of the Hummingbirds, dash into the city and occupy strategic locations. They would take large intersections or other places in the city on higher grounds from where the tanks could target a larger area with their heavier plasma cannons or their drones while deploying their heavy shield for protection, deemed impenetrable by any hostile unit present on the planet.
After that, his company's job would finally begin. The infantry wouldn't have such an easy job, though, as they would have to crawl through the city, alley by alley, building by building in an attempt to flush out all hostiles. Of course, if they were to sweep every single building, they would still be at it a year later. Thankfully, they had recon drones - oval and no bigger than a fist - that had great sensors and a laser capable of cutting through doors. The latter allowed them to slip inside rooms to check if maybe there were Hunters hiding inside by any chance. The probability of that being the case was small since Hunters weren't really the hiding type, but they couldn't take the chance of assuming this was always the case. Once the infantry finished with their sweep and joined the tanks and PA units at the front, the dash into the next section of the city would commence. The process would be repeated until they went through the entire city. The predictions were talking about cleaning more than 99.9 percent of enemy combatants in less than two weeks. They were only worried that a few Hunters could slip between the cracks and lay low, hidden in the sewer or some other dark place.
These orders and instructions on how to proceed had been passed down from HQ by his direct superior and battalion commander, Major Sergei Kharkov, and he had passed them down to the individual lieutenants in charge of the platoons. After that, he spent the next seven days during the operation in a mobile command unit where he had monitored everything that was happening down to the individual camera placed on a soldier, tank, or aerial unit in the entire theater. He, of course, mostly focused on his own company and what the individuals in it were doing.
During the initial dash of the armored units, many hostiles had come out of the woodwork rushing at them and it didn't take long for them to meet groups of Crabs crawling down the streets. They were also the easiest to succumb to the heavy tanks' fire because, against their ultra-mega advanced targeting system, there simply wasn't escape. The operator inside the crawler only needed to squeeze the trigger when the system identified an enemy and the Crab would instantly explode in a shower of blood and gore caused by the too many fired bullets from the swiveling miniguns. Engagements against the PA units weren't any better - or fairer - as the Crabs could not harm any of them while the PA units easily took out the Crabs with the explosive ammo they utilized. It was one sided, and Philips had begun taking longer and longer breaks outside of the vehicle because of it. It also seemed that the enemy was retreating, especially the Hunters. They certainly were smarter than the Crabs or even the Reapers. Or maybe it wasn't even that. Maybe it was that the Hunters were the only sentient species of the three, as the Reapers and the Crabs seemed to not have any survival instinct.
While eliminating enemies, as they went, the heavies were grabbing key positions in large squares and other places where there was a good vintage point. There, the tanks would stop and deploy their heavy shield. They could not move with their shield deployed, but a tank had just turned into a fortress that even a swarm of a hundred of the smallest Reapers would have difficulties breaking through its defenses. With the tanks in position, now it was time for the trailing soldiers in power armor and their Cylon companion to finish with their sweep of the main roads while the light infantry was to check smaller alleys and buildings for the remote possibility of a Hunter hiding in them. This was actually the most dangerous part of the entire operation, as inside the buildings the Hunters were very dangerous. This was also the reason why the Cylons went first. Even if cut in half, they could later rebuild it anew.
People were not so easy to patch up.
However, what left him the strongest impression during the entire operation was when he had watched a video feed from one of the flying Hummingbirds. The pilot was a pro, with thousands of hours spent practicing in virtual reality as well as while flying the real thing until he honed his skills close to perfection. He remembered watching as the Hummingbird was quickly moving between buildings, organically strafing aside every time it needed to enter another alley so that it could immediately point its weapons at any hostile it might find there. Then it would dive to ground level, turn to point its nose toward building entrances to see if somebody was maybe hiding there, only to make a quick 180 degree turn to check the same thing on the other side, the whole time strafing down the street. Then it would regain altitude and continue flying in search for the next street to search. What the pilot was doing seemed unbelievably easy. The level of dexterity he was showing reminded him of kids when they practice on their skateboards so much that they could do whatever they wanted with the board as if it had become an extension of their own body.
Suddenly, a plasma bolt was seen, which the pilot barely evaded, only to turn the bird and hastily give chase. He didn't know when the pilot had fired a drone, but he could now see it on the camera quickly gaining on the fleeing Reaper. In the beginning, Reapers seemed pretty dumb. However, after a few situations in which the Terrans had lured a great number of Reapers into a trap, they had eventually learned their lesson. The Reapers were now exclusively performing hit and run tactics, which in some rare occasions had allowed them to take out a few of our soldiers on patrol unfortunate enough to be found without any support while in the open. However, now a Reaper was against a Hummingbird and worse even, against a freshly fired drone.
Only seconds later, the drone hit the Reaper, both turning into a small fireball. However, it seemed that this too was part of a more elaborate trap set by the Reapers. There were two more Reapers in a side alley firing at the gunship as the bird crossed the intersection. Again, the pilot quickly changed altitude and angle, but to no avail. A few plasma bolts hit the light shield that surrounded the gunship. When it came to shields, the Terran had mastered them, as long as they could form a closed bubble, which meant that all aerial units now had them. Still, the Hummingbird was small and it had a limited power supply. Therefore, its shield fell in the category of light shielding.
The pilot must have somehow fired another drone, even though from the camera he could barely understand how was the man flying that bird, much less know where the hostiles were. Suddenly, the gunship leveled out, with the last Reaper straight ahead. It was the last one because Philips could now see the burning husk of the second Reaper having been hit by the second drone. Today, the gunship was loaded with fast firing plasma repeaters instead of the standard 10mm-miniguns since its main role on this mission, above all, was to take care of Reapers. The mounted plasma repeaters barked bolts at a rate of four hundred per minute each, which was far above any known plasma weapon developed by the Goa'uld or anyone else. The weapon's strength wasn't negligible either since four hits were enough to cripple the Reaper. The following few hits blew the thing out of the sky.
Somebody would think that with the newly attained fire rate of the plasma repeater, there was no need to use the grav-miniguns since they couldn't match in any way such a firepower. That was maybe true against the Reapers, as even with armor piercing rounds the plasma repeaters would still perform far better. Still, Philips had seen one of their tanks coming across a herd of Crabs. It must have been at least five thousand of them, all evenly spread out on a green, grassy plain, moving lazily as if they were a herd of buffalos that had just found a new and much greener pasture. At that moment, Philips had thought that the best course of action would be to call a flight of the new F-302d Bumblebee bombers that would fly over and drop cluster bombs or napalm. The Bumblebees were the latest of the F-302s, and they had the Wraith beaming system that would materialize large ordinance below the craft when needed. Unfortunately, they still didn't have many of them and they were in high demand on Quiril, which meant, if possible, an alternate solution was preferable. Probably because of it, Philips had witnessed the commander of the tank solve the problem in a different way. The commander had switched its two grav-minigun to fire explosive ammunition. Then, it began spraying 6,000 bullets per minute from each gun. The firing solution the onboard targeting system had decided was to swivel the miniguns as fast as possible. From the camera placed outside, it looked as if the strong electric motors were making the miniguns vibrate so fast that they were becoming a blur of motion. As a result, the fired bullets were sprayed on a wider area instead of a steady and narrow stream.
At 12,000 bullets per minute, with each bullet having an explosive tip, the entire plain in front of the tank exploded with pieces of Crabs everywhere. Calling it a massacre could not depict what happened in the two minutes it took the miniguns to spray more than 20,000 explosive bullets. There were, of course, a few remaining Crabs, it was more of a spray-and-pray solution based on a lot of bullets fired and a quite large number of targets. Turning back to standard bullets, the tank spent the next ten minutes picking them up until nothing was left standing. The thousands of Crabs were turning the green pasture beneath them into a purple one with their blood, and everybody was happy about it.
After three days of fighting, roughly a third of the city was cleaned. There was also a bit of unexpected good news, as on many occasions the drones were able to detect life signs inside buildings. Human life signs to be more precise. He liked the idea that they were not only killing those that didn't belong on this planet but that they were finding more people that would otherwise die at the hands of the enemy or simply because of starvation. As he was sipping his first coffee of the day, Philips was switching the view from different cameras placed on a private's combat suit. In particular, he was watching one squad that was moving down a small alley. A drone has detected a human life sign in one of the buildings up ahead on the third floor and since he didn't follow what they had been doing from the very beginning, he didn't know why they were moving through the small alley instead of going inside the building through the main entrance located on the other street. It seemed such a waste of time, but thus far all of his people had done a very good job, thus he wasn't about to start judging before knowing all the details.
The display had the name Jennings written in its corner, the name of the private which camera he was using to view what was going on. The camera was showing that the private was behind the two leading Cylons controlled by his corporal. The private turned right, but there was nothing there as a barrier made of wooden planks blocked access to the adjacent alley. The private turned to look forward once again, with only the two Cylons ahead. It was then that he heard the breaking sound and the private awkwardly flying sideways to the left. There was also a clicking sound he had heard before. It was the sound the Crabs sometimes made. The next thing he heard was shots. He turned to look through another camera just in time to see one of the Cylons putting an explosive bullet in the Crab's head, which exploded, spilling gore on every soldier in a five-meter radius.
Regrettably, all soldiers in the squad had been in a five-meter radius. It was only a question of who received how much of the disgusting substance.
He then heard talk over private Jennings comm.
"What the fuck was that? Since when do Crabs move so fast?" Jennings cursed, but he was already back on his feet and the sensors in the suit were showing that he wasn't injured.
"You good, Jennings?" the corporal said. His camera was showing Jennings in front of him. He was inspecting the unfortunate private who had taken a full charge from a Crab when the private gave a thumbs-up as his response.
"This was fast for them. It moved much faster than what I ever saw those things move," another private added.
"I heard others reporting the Crabs behaving out of character a few times. Usually, they are slow and methodical, uncaring for their lives but also never stopping in front of anything. Like an unstoppable grinding machine," the Corporal said to his teammates. "This was different."
"I heard this is because they are going berserk. Hunger is making them," another private joined in.
The private was correct, more than he knew. The Crabs laid their eggs inside corpses, and the eggs would hatch and eat whatever corpse they were inside. It was the only way for them to grow so quickly. Although, in his opinion, even this was totally disgusting, what happened when there was no corpse to lay eggs inside when the time came was even more disturbing. The eggs would hatch and start eating the Crab that carried them. Even worse, somehow the Crabs were instinctively keeping the eggs inside their own body until they would find a corpse, or until eaten alive. That was the reason why the Crabs were going berserk. There was no more food for them to eat and to place their eggs into.
Which meant, they were being eaten alive by the freshly hatched monsters inside them.
"This discussion is over," the corporal barked. Then he pointed at a balcony on the third floor. It was the apartment where the drone has detected life signs. "Jennings and Barkley. Go up there and see if you can find some survivors."
Both answered with 'yes, sir' and then first Barkley teleported on the ledge, followed by quickly dropping down on the balcony, only to be mimicked by Jennings who did the same. It was smart. Instead of going through the building's main entrance and up three flight of stairs, they were taking advantage of the teleportation devices every infantry soldier now had. It was one advantage the infantry in their combat suits had over the much heavier power armored units. He again began looking through Jennings' camera as it was showing Barkley currently in the process of breaking through the balcony's glass doors. While slowly moving inside, a sound coming from one of the other rooms in the apartment was heard. Moving more slowly now and clearly on alert, they turned into a corridor on the left. It had three doors. They didn't make two steps towards the closest when a gunshot rang through the apartment. There was a hole now in the wall on the left, and smaller bullet holes on the right one as well, most certainly caused by a shotgun. Fortunately, whoever fired had missed for almost two meters.
"We are Terrans! We are from Earth and we are here to rescue you! Stop shooting and come out!" Barkley shouted over the suit's external speakers. The combat suit was hermetically sealed, hence soundproof.
There was no more shooting, which was a good sign. Then, someone peeked through the closest doors further down the corridor. He must have noticed them, instantly knowing that they were not Crabs, nor Hunters, and not Reapers either. In the man's book, it seemed that everybody else was welcomed, which he demonstrated by boldly coming out with a broad smile on his face.
Another happy story that would make Philips sleep a little easier tonight. Now that the man had been reached, he began looking at other monitors. One caught his attention as the swiveling cupola of one of their tanks zeroed in on a flying reaper. The massive bolt of plasma flew at supersonic speed, hitting and pulverizing the left side of the smallest Reaper, the only ones that ventured inside a planet's atmosphere. It was always nice to see such a city-wide cleanup where the number of casualties on the enemy's side was mounting quickly, while their side was only sustaining a few scrapes and bruises.
This opponent was simply not at their level.
His XO, Lieutenant Ramirez entered the command vehicle. "Sir, there's something you should see. A recording from a few hours ago taken by a squad from the other company."
Philips noticed Ramirez expression conveying that whatever he was about to show him it wouldn't be trivial. "Show away, XO."
The Lt. worked on the console and on the largest display in the mobile command station. The view from a camera of a soldier was displayed. The timer in the corner did inform him that it was something that had happened almost two hours ago. "As you can see, this is recording taken from Corporal Maverick. He and his team were detached from the rest of the squad in order to converge on a specific location from two separate directions."
"What was so important about that location, XO?" he asked.
"A drone noticed a life sign, but it was registered only for a fleeting moment. The interesting part and the reason why a squad was dispatched to that location with instructions to approach with caution, was because the drone determined a 90 percent likelihood that what it detected wasn't a human."
"Wasn't a human? A Crab then, or a Hunter maybe."
"That was a possibility, but the problem was that the probe didn't give any percentage on what it was, only that it most probably wasn't human, hence flagged as not friendly," the XO explained.
It was true that drones had detailed data on both Crabs and Hunters, which meant even a short moment of detection should have been enough for a drone to give the likelihood of it being a Crab or otherwise a Hunter. If it didn't, it could mean that they were using some method of concealment they didn't know anything about. The fact that it quickly disappeared from sensors was another indication of the same fact. The camera was showing as the corporal, the other three teammates, and two Cylons at the front of the formation were moving down an alley with a few garbage containers blocking the otherwise clear view in front of them. He then heard the corporal say how they had reached the place where the drone had seen something. They were just entering what was looking like a modest courtyard, with many things in it, but mostly one type of garbage or another. However, what was missing was what they were looking for. The courtyard had three sides blocked by tall buildings with no fire escape. Only the way they came could have been used if it were a crab. On the other hand, a Hunter could have easily gone over the building and have disappeared that way. However, if it had done that, other drones or even a Hummingbird should have been in a position to pick it up on their sensors and optics.
The other option, escaping through the only opening in the courtyard should have been impossible since the drone came that way. The team was spreading in the courtyard, clearer by the minute there was no one there except for them.
"There's nothing here," a private voiced what everyone was thinking.
"A sensor ghost then?" another added quickly.
"Nothing to see here. Let's get back to our designated route," the corporal said.
The corporal was moving to exit the courtyard. It was then when the camera showed clear as day the private standing in front of him being hit from the alley by a blast. His teammates rushed towards him. A private was pulling him to cover while another was crouching behind a wall hastily trying to pinpoint from where the blast had come from.
"He's hit!" another private said.
"I know I'm hit, the suit's still hot as hell!" the one who'd been shot said.
The corporal was now in front of the soldier, looking at the hole in his chest plate. It almost went through all the layers of the armor. It appeared that it stopped at the last one, a carbon composite laminate just above the internal, soft fabric completely useless in stopping plasma blasts.
Philips saw on the main screen that the corporal was sending instructions to the Cylons to move in the alley and if fired upon to immediately return fire. What Philips didn't understand in those instructions was that the corporal had mentally instructed the Cylons to calculate from where the shot came even if their sensors didn't detect anyone, and to spray the general area with as many bullets as their guns would allow.
As they stepped into the alley, one of the two Cylons received a green energy blast straight in the chest, staggering backward from the strong impact. Another impact hit the Cylon again and this time the heavy machine went down. However, the other Cylon opened with its gun in the general direction from where the blasts had come from. It lasted maybe five or six seconds, no more, and after the Cylon stopped firing, no return fire was coming back anymore.
The corporal moved, noticing the Cylon on the ground was ready for a nice day spent offline and in the repair shop. He turned around to look into the alley. There was nothing there. Nothing that he could see anyway.
"Since when did this bunch start using ranged weapons?" he asked the XO. In this whole theater, only the enemy's aerial units, the Reapers, had plasma weapons. The Crabs and Hunters didn't use any.
"A good question, sir, but there's more from the recording of the Cylon that fired back," the XO stated, changing the view for the corporal, into the recording from before the Cylon fired in the alley.
Philips watched as the first and the second blast came, apparently, from thin air before it fired from its minigun in the general direction from where the shooter must be firing. Again, it lasted five seconds and then it stopped. No more weapon exchange to be seen. "I don't get it. Wasn't there something more you wanted to show me?"
"I did, sir. Please watch again but this time with the sound of the minigun removed," the XO explained.
Philips watched. This time there was no sound of the Cylon minigun. Suddenly he heard it. It was not a human sound, that was for certain, but he also knew that it was the sound of someone being hurt. It was a short-lived scream of pain. "So, we are dealing with someone or something invisible that we managed to hurt."
"Yes, sir. After the audio has been enhanced and we learned that the Cylons had managed to harm whoever fired back, another squad was sent to inspect the place again. They found what we believe to be blood, sir. Green blood."
The enemy was using cloaking technology and it was using ranged weapons. It was difficult to know which of these two bits of info more off-putting - probably the cloak, in his humble opinion at least - but the biggest revelation wasn't that. The fact that the XO mentioned green blood meant that they were, unfortunately, dealing with yet another alien race, as not the Vargas, not the Crabs, and not the Hunters either had green blood flowing through their veins.
…Back from memory lane
The operation that had cleaned an entire nearby city had resulted in the extermination of many Crabs, Hunters, and Reapers. There were casualties in the ranks of the Terran Army, but they were few and with having suffered only one fatality throughout the duration of the entire operation. The brunt of the hostiles' attacks had been taken in stride by the cheap version of Cylons that were always at the forefront, and those could easily be repaired if damaged. Reapers and Hunters were those that from time to time would be able to score a hit. The Reapers were lurking between buildings, while the Hunters would attack while hidden inside them. The Crabs had done exactly nothing, except dying in the thousands.
Philips was beginning to understand what was going on. He had to ask himself a few times what was this all about. The enemy they were facing was incredibly weak. However, he then understood the reality of the situation. It wasn't that they were weak, but that the Terrans were incredibly strong, in both technologies utilized and tactics.
Not the Crabs, not the Hunters, and not the Reapers were created to face a foe such as the Terrans. They were more like cleaners who were here in the Milky Way galaxy to hunt down unarmed or lightly armed opponents at best, just as the people on Quiril were after their world had been demolished by orbital bombardment. Then it dawned on him. This campaign was going easy because their enemy was missing one important component. The Vargas. They had been decimated on the battle that took place above Earth and suddenly the invasion force was missing the strongest piece in their arsenal. Now, if they could only find a way to deal with the constantly increasing number of those cheap Reapers that in small numbers provided no resistance at all against the Terran might, but in large enough numbers could still become troublesome, the cleaning of the galaxy could be left to other races easily enough. The Terrans could then begin preparation for any kind of offensive actions they deem appropriate.
Philips snapped back into the here and now. It happened now and then to him to time-travel through his own memories, ever since he had gone through Genesis. Since he was young and full of stamina, the process didn't give him the pleasure of experiencing a 'Second Youth' as some people were referring to the aftereffect of a sudden return of vitality they didn't even know they had lost as they had aged. He felt more or less the same as he did before. He did start noticing increased strength since he began training more, but nothing spectacular as some people were reporting. On the other hand, his ability to remember things skyrocketed. He knew that before Genesis, he would remember past events well enough but they were always missing many details. He knew that when describing people he met for the first time only moments earlier he would forget things about them, even by forgetting what color their eyes were. Much less some other even less significant details about them. However, now he could retrieve an almost photo-realistic image of a person he'd met or a place he'd visited. It was why he would sometimes almost lose himself inside his own memories of days past as if rewatching a movie in his own head.
That wasn't important right now because the good Doctor was staring at him again with an expression of amusement on her face. After all, she'd asked him a question and instead of responding he spaced out again. "Sorry, Doc. You wanted to know when you'll be able to go around the planet and do your part freely. Well, the answer is, not anytime soon."
Keller's face was conveying her dissatisfaction in regard to his answer clearly enough. "Why? I thought the cleaning was going well."
"Doc, let me ask you something. Did you or someone on your team get a rush order to analyze something?"
"You mean the green blood?" Keller responded.
"The green blood," he repeated while taking a deep breath.
"You're saying that the blood is the reason for the delay?"
"I do, Doc. It is a new species we didn't even know we have to deal with."
The Doctor smiled. "But you're so strong. I'm sure you can deal with this new nuisance easy enough. Am I wrong?"
She was good at flattery and in normal circumstances, he would confirm their readiness to deal with any and all threats. However, this situation was different. "The problem, Doc, is that these new aliens are using ranged weapons and a cloaking device, which means that we have no way of knowing how many there are on the planet. We could spend the next six months chasing ghosts."
"Why haven't we seen these aliens before?" Keller asked. "No pun intended."
"Not sure myself on that one. There are theories, though. One is that these aliens serve the Vargas in a different role. The Crabs are the lowest level that serves to clear a large number of weak opponents. They don't need any resupplying since they eat what they hunt and do not use any kind of weapons that would need some kind of ammo. The hunters serve to hunt those quick and smart enough to slip away from the horde of Crabs. They too don't need resupplying since their weapon of choice is a very sharp knife. The Reapers are there to hit an opponent that has some technology left to aid them. The Reapers will home in on the energy signature and turn defenders into defenseless opponents for the Crabs and Hunter to eventually finish off. With ships in orbit capable of performing bombardment of fortified locations, the Vargas have everything needed to clear entire planets. This new cloaked enemy that uses ranged weapons is then superfluous for achieving their goal. There's a theory that they serve for scouting, intelligence gathering and sabotage operations, though. Their cloak would give them such an ability easy enough. It is possible that there's only a few of them on the planet. Those that were dropped to perform any of these tasks. Why they haven't left, though, is a complete mystery to me."
"I'm sorry, Captain, but postponing the work of the Peace Corps doesn't make any sense. There will always be fear that such aliens are on the planet. That's the problem when you're fighting an invisible opponent," Keller said, frustrated.
"I agree, Doc, and I'm not the only one. What the people in charge are thinking is that they should see if we can catch at least one of them and see if we can find out what kind of cloaking technology they are using and what's the best way to detect them. They are also deploying a satellite grid that will cast a dense curtain of lepton particles all around the planet, the same as is the case with Earth and our other colonies. That should be enough to defeat any cloaking technology these aliens are using to come near the planet or leave it. I assure you, if we catch one of them and learn how their tech works, you'll be allowed to continue with your work."
"Well, it's better than what my fears were. Waiting for months with nothing to do. Any timeline you could give me?"
"I wouldn't make any major plans for the next month or so," he explained.
The Doc looked deflated. "Maybe I should go back to Earth with the next ship available then and spend Christmas with Rodney."
"Doc, forgive me for saying this but that should be a joyous thought and not something to feel down about."
"You're right, and I am, but I was also looking forward to starting to rebuild at least one hospital in one of the cities you've freed. This temporary settlement is starting to be inadequate as more people come in and the makeshift hospital we built here has its limits too on how many patients it can take care of," Keller explained. "But you're right. Who knows when I'll be able to go back on Earth once we start working on the hospitals in the freed cities? I may as well take the opportunity and go now. The thing that bothers me, though, is that we have so many worlds that need our help and not enough people to do it," Keller said.
"Not enough people?" Philips asked puzzled. "Doc, isn't it true that the Peace Corps employs more than five million people in one capacity or another?"
"Yeah, so?" Keller asked.
"Well, Doc, there are more of you than people in the entire Terran Army, which under normal circumstances maybe wouldn't mean much, but since we are at war, it seems to me weird that your organization isn't smaller than mine," Philips reported.
"Maybe, but it is in times of war when the number of people active in the Peace Corps rises, the same as for the military," Keller explained her view on things. "Besides, isn't the Terran Army a smaller branch now, as opposed to how it was before space travel?"
"True, Doc, the Terran Army has so much less recruitment than the Terran Space Navy. If we take all the people in the Terran Space Marine Corps (TSMC) and the Terran Space Navy (TSN), the total number is around 17 million people against 4 million in the Terran Army (TA). They actually have more people than they have assets for those people to use."
It was to be expected. After the attack that had cost millions of lives on Earth, many people wanted to join the TSN and TSMC in order to contribute to the fight. There was also a difference between the old Earth navies and the TSN. People in the military were the ones building the needed equipment and infrastructure, ranging from space stations, shipyards and the ships in those shipyards, as opposed to having contractors doing the construction jobs. Those people were referred to as Support Non-commissioned Officers who, except for a crash course in the ways of the military of only three months, a few hours a day, were not to participate directly in any military operation. They were the backbone of the TSN and were responsible for the entire building process of everything the Navy had. It did not matter if it was a torpedo casing or a Dreadnought class warship. SNCOs were responsible for whatever it was to be built. Even with all the warships, construction ships, support ships, space stations, planetary outposts, shipyards, and planetary factories, there was still more people wanting to join the TSN or TSMC than there were actual jobs waiting for them. The ratio of SNCOs to NCOs to COs was 6:5:1, where most NCOs were soldiers in the TSMC, as the marines were mostly infantry.
He knew the plans were for the TSN, TSMC, and TA to have between 0.5 to 1% of the Terran population, which meant between 40 and 80 million people. The buildup was big, but contrary to popular belief, it was happening rather quickly. The Terran infrastructure was almost completely built, with the last largest batch of the newly built installations, stations, shipyards, and whatnot coming fully online in the next few months. Ships were also being built in droves as if they were mere cars, all of them only waiting for the last few technologies to be incorporated before they could leave their berths. As the final goal set by the TSN, the Terran fleet - comprised of everything from support ships to the largest dreadnoughts - would eventually number in around ten thousand ships. And they had done it smartly too since the first part had been to build as many of the Defiant class ships that were perfect to give young captains and other officers the needed experience. They would then be transferred to larger ships as they came out of the shipyards. Combined with the virtual reality technology the Terrans possessed, officers in the Navy were quickly becoming experienced and ready for when the offensive finally began.
"Well, Doc, I know you like helping others, but sometimes, enjoying life and being a little selfish isn't as bad as you make it sound to be. You can go and spend Christmas with your husband and still have a clear conscience," Philips explained, suddenly remembering that he had other obligations as well. "Well, Doc. I have to go back and see what those no good in my company are doing. See ya, Doc."
"Good day, Captain Philips."
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