Chapter 26: "Priority: Sadera"
-World building fact-
UNE ship doctrines use both kinetic and plasma beam weaponry. While the plasma beam is incredibly powerful, the kinetic turrets are also capable of inflicting great damage. These turrets, at full power, send 20kg 100mm solid tungsten rounds (500 rounds/min) to their target at the speed of light. And they could sustain the highest firing power easily. To put into the equation E=ƴmc^2 where y is Lorentz factor, m is mass in kg and c is the speed of light.
The total energy of the projectile would be: E=12243*(20)*(3.00*10^8)^2 = 22037400*10^15J = 22037.4EJ (approximately).
The nuclear bomb that detonated over Hiroshima was only 0.000015EJ to put into perspective. Once the rounds hit the enemy's ship shield, the impact would create billions of amps of electricity that will generate heat hotter than that of the core of the sun. On the basic level, E=mc^2 is energy equal mass times the speed of light squared, which means that the round's mass will be turned into energy, after the impact, by the heat and further harming the shield. That's why UNE's kinetic weapon is so effective against both shield and armor.
-D-20B, flying over Sadera-
Operation Sadera Downfall, named after the proposed operation by the ancient US military in the 20th century to invade the Imperial of Japan during World War 2. The massive formation of transports, D-20s and SD-20s, and GS-12s escorts begin to enter Sadera's perimeter. The first group of transports has already begun to lower their attitude to deploy the troops they're carrying at their designated location. Each division has its own designated area and objectives to secure in different parts of the city. Smoke columns are scattered across the city underneath.
"What the hell is happening here? They're already in chaos before we got here" Rob says as he checks TACNet for the aerial view of the city.
"Good, let them busy fighting among themselves, makes our job easier" David replies.
"Focus people, we have an unknown hostile element designated as highly dangerous by the GIA. Don't get cocky" Ava says.
"Yes, ma'am" the platoon replies.
The 5th SIF's D-20Bs are flying ahead of the formation and heading straight for the palace. The plan is for them to be dropped directly on top of the throne room, break through the roof as they land inside and secure the hostages. However, as they're entering the inner district area, a dark purple barrier dome appears out of nowhere that cuts the tail of Ava's D-20B and cuts Ashley's D-20B in half. The 2 transports, what's left of them, lose control and crash onto the ground. Such crash would usually kill the pilot and most of the transport occupants but thank to the TAC suit, no one died.
Ava gets out of the fuel leaking transport and order the SIFs as well as the pilot to secure the immediate area. She and Rob rush to the house that Ashley's transport crashes into to check on them. Before Ava could reach them, the transport explodes causing the buildings around it to collapse. A piece of debris is suddenly kicked flying up the air causing Ava and Rob point their assault rifle at the direct. However, Ashley appears from under the rubbles along with Jimmy, David and the pilot.
"Commander, most of my squad is on the other side of the barrier" Ashley says.
Ava looks down the street seeing the other half of Ashley's transport laying just right outside of the barrier. The SIFs are trying to help each other to get out of the burning wreckage, one of them lost an arm and a leg.
"Alfa actual, this is Sierra 5, our birds are down and we're on foot. Combat effectiveness is at 70%, we are going to proceed to the objective on foot. Over" Ava says over the radio but she doesn't get any reply at all. Pausing for a few second, she repeats but still nothing.
"The barrier must be blocking the signal, we're on our own" Ashley says.
"Alright, we continue with the mission and find a way to turn off this barrier" Ava says as she signal for the SIFs outside of the barrier to link up with the closest friendly unit and then continues "this barrier looks similar to the one in Icia, only larger. If we can find and neutralize the mages who are performing the spell, it should be taken down".
"So what's the plan, commander?" Ashley asks.
"We operate as 2 smaller squads. Once we're in the palace you'll lead yours to find the mages and neutralize them, I'll go for the hostages" Ava says as TACNet update her plan and her exact thoughts "We know the mages can be very lethal so pull back and wait for back up if you can't take them out, don't be heroes"
"Yes, commander" Ashley replies.
Ava temporarily reassigns 2 SIFs from her squad as well as the 2 pilots to the 2nd squad under Ashley's command. David as a heavy weapon expert is also going with Ashley as Ava knows they would need a lot of firepower going against the mages. The pilots are D-20Bs pilots meaning that they constantly flying special ops, which means that they also received extensive infantry tactics training. Jimmy as a field medic is going with Ava's squad so he could take care of the hostages once they've secured them. There's only 3 SAT8s on Ava's transport and 2 will be given to the 2nd squad to go after the mage, 1 will be going with Ava to secure the hostages.
From the crash site to the palace is a straight, wide-open path. The Imperial seems to not expecting enemy to be in the noble district so fast. It is clear that they haven't learnt anything from their previous battles with the UNE and still rely on ancient siege warfare tactics, which they will defend the walls then slowly fall back to bleed out the attacker's momentum. Although this time, Zoral allows his legionnaires to use the magic arrows.
The 5th SIF is making their way to the palace on the street. Each squad is advancing in loose single file on each side of the street, along the buildings. Other than occasional civilian, there's no sign of Imperial Army anywhere. Buildings in this area is larger and seems to be of higher quality than the houses on the outer edges of the city or anywhere they've been to before on Falmart. The civilians here are of noble houses, they are more well dresses and seem to support Zoral but none of them dare to confront the SIFs.
-Throne room, The Imperial Palace-
Zoral is sitting in on the throne starring at the door and then the UNE hostages are seemingly deep in thoughts. Ennius enters the throne room and kneels before Zoral.
"Your Majesty, the barrier is up. I've gathered a hundred slaves for Lynk and his students. He assured me that only our men could pass through the barrier, but it seems that some of the enemies had made it into the noble district before the barrier went up" Ennius reports.
"The same ones who went after me in Icia, aren't they?" Zoral says calmly.
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, to my great shame, I was not at Icia to fight along your side. Besides, all the enemy soldiers wear the same faceless armor. There's no way to tell" Ennius replies.
"I know it's them, I can feel it. That commander, whoever he is, I'm going to torture until he begs me to kill him" Zoral says with a rage in his eyes "Go slow them down, I have some preparation to do".
-Command APC, Sothern districts, Sadera-
"Enemies are retreating to inside the barrier, we can't get through. Over" An officer report through the radio.
"All units, hold your position 200 meters away from the barrier. Do not engage the barrier, I repeat, do not engage the barrier. Over" Lt. General Kerry giving orders to all units as he knows that if they try to force the barrier down, they might be killing their own people who might being used as life source to power this thing.
"Alfa actual, this is Sierra 5-2, Sierra lead and most of the platoon are on the other side of the barrier and proceeding with the original objective as well as attempting to shut down the barrier. We have 1 wounded and standing order to regroup with the 102th Marine division. A large mob of armed civilian is closing on our position, requesting CAS and evac. Over" one of the SIF of the 2nd squad from the 5th SIF reporting.
"Roger that Sierra 5-2, birds are on the way ETA 1 min. Over" Chris replies from the temporary command base in the Southern districts.
Civilian mobs from both side, supporters of Molt and Zoral, are fighting each other as well as Imperial Army units that were cut off from retreating to the base and UNE forces. However, with superior firepower and air superiority, UNE forces are rapidly gaining ground and securing large sections of the city one at a time. The wyvern legion from the nearby camp was quickly destroyed by the GS-12 gunships with the support of SF-40s giving the UNE complete control of the sky over Sadera.
The city is now even more chaotic than before. It's a 4-way battle between the 2 sides of civilian, the Imperial soldiers and UNE forces. The mobs are untrained, lack any sense of discipline and under armed suffer heavy casualties but there's so many of them. The legionnaires are holding up in civilian centers such as temples, inns, public bath houses where many peaceful civilians are hiding. The UNE could not destroy the building to avoid collateral damages, they have to go in and take them on foot. However, it still causes a lot of civilian casualties.
More collaterals are from collapsed buildings from air support and tank shells. A lot of civilians are trying to flee the city through the collapsed sections of the wall from the initial SF-40s strikes. Those who are more wealthy lives deeper in the city have a harder time of escaping than the poorer ones who live on the outskirt.
-The Princess Palace-
Viktor went back to his safehouse at Pina's palace to heal himself as well as restock on nanite for his armor. By the time he got back, the legionnaires are already attacking from all sides. The Rose order knights as well as the guards are fighting hard to keep them out. Viktor manages sneak pass the battle lines to his safe house and goes to find Pina after he's restocked.
"Pina, I thought I told you to leave?" Viktor asks as he found Pina and a few senators with their family in the main hall.
"I went to get as many pro-peace senators as possible so we could lead them to safety, but as we were leaving, Zoral's men surrounded the palace and started attacking" Pina says as she walks to a window and look down at the fight "I don't think we can hold them off for long".
"Tell your knight to hold as long as possible then retreat up the floors to the roof" Viktor says.
"But that's mean we're backing into a dead end, are you trying to get us all killed?" Philotheus Serapio, the leader of pro-peace faction, says.
"No, commander Ava's unit is inside the barrier and she's going to take that barrier down. I'll call in air evac and airlift us all out of here" Viktor says.
The door bursts open and Grey rushes in "Princess! The Eastern hallway is about to collapse, we're spreading too thin!" he reports.
"Divert your people to other fronts, I got this side" Viktor says as he materializes his helmet "I need someone to come with me to my room and help me bring as many sentry guns as possible to the Eastern hallway".
"I'll come with you" Grey replies.
"Let go" Viktor says as he starts to head back to his room.
-Front yard, The Imperial Palace-
The 5th SIFs is now at the front yard of the palace, it took them roughly 30 minutes to get here. Ava's plan is to break through to the second layer of the palace then they split up into 2 squads and head to their own objectives. However, the legionnaires have taken up positions in the windows and are trying to pin and slow the SIFs down. Although the legionnaires have high ground and good cover, the SIFs still manage to kill them effectively thank to TACNet intel display and the PAS-5 rifle can shoot through wall.
Once inside the palace, the SAT8s are sent ahead to clear a path while the SIFs follow and take out any leftover hostiles. The palace is filled with servants and slaves, some of them try to fight some others run or just shrink in fear. Needless to say, those that try to fight never stand a chance against the killing machines and the best soldiers that UNE have to offer.
It takes them almost an hour to get up to the 4th floor and fight their way to the inner yard. The SIFs move into the inner yard where Ennius and a cohort of legionnaires stand waiting. Ennius's intention was to challenge the leader of the attacking enemy to a hand-to-hand battle to buy as much time as possible and maybe kill whoever he is. It is tradition and honor that the enemy leader must accept.
Upon seeing the SIFs, Ennius steps in front of the formation "I am Ennius, one of the most decorated generals of Sadera here by challenge your leader to a sword battle to the death!".
Ennius drops dead right as he finishes his sentence by a clean headshot by Ava and the rest of the cohort standing in formation is mowed down in short order as the SIFs and the SAT8s unleash their weapons. Once the yard is cleared, Ava orders Ashley's squad to split up and start heading to the roof. As the SIFs activate their thrusters to jump up to the throne room, the darkling queen burst out of the window. She lands on the SAT8 mid air then grabs all 6 SIFs with her razor sharp tentacles and with a spin throw them in all directions.
Seeing that Ashley is about to return to help them, Ava tells her to continue with her objective
"Go Ash! Get that barrier down. We can handle this!" Ava says.
Ava rolls out of the queen's attack and throw a grenade at her. The grenade explodes leaving a large hole on her body and disfiguring her but she quickly returns to her previous form like she's made out of dark liquid.
"What the abomination shit is this?" Rob says as he tries to shoot the queen while she's dashing around fighting the SIFs.
Better trained in combat, having a more powerful armor than Viktor and there are 6 of them, the SIFs are putting up a better fighter but they still can't keep up with the darkling queens. However, considering they're fighting the queen to a stalemate while fighting legionnaires that are coming into the yard, it is impressive even for the darkling queen.
-Ashley squad-
Ashley leads her squad to the roof of the palace mostly uncontested because most of the attention is being focused on Ava's squad. However, the stair that leads up to the roof is guarded so there's no way for Ashley to sneak up on the mages. She stations the SAT8s outside of the palace, attach themselves to the side of the building, while the SIFs get into the position to strike.
Once all elements are in their positions, Ashley places a charge on the door and activates it. The explosion takes down the door killing the 2 guards standing guards while the SAT8s come up from the side and start killing the guards. There are only a few dozen legionnaires on the roof and they're being taken out fast. The slaves were stunned at first not knowing what is happening but once they're realized that their masters are being killed, some of them rise up and help the SIFs attack the legionnaires. However, without training and having no armor they are easy to be killed.
Seeing that they are being attacked, Lynk and his students stop performing the spell that keeps the barrier up in order to defend themselves. This allows UNE forces to start advancing on the palace again.
-Ava squad-
The fight between the darkling queen and the SIFs is starting to go bad. Ava is running out of options and still can't find a way to kill this creature. She looks around trying to figure out a way to disengage and get to the hostages somehow. Now that the barrier is down, she can call in air support but then suddenly the queen dashes at her and throw her at the wall. However, as the queen leaps forward to Ava for another attack, a small figure seemingly drops from the sky and hit the queen with a large halberd.
"Rory?" Ava says.
"Need some help, commander?" Rory replies with a giggle.
"What are you doing here?" Ava is surprised.
"Why, to help you of course" Rory replies giggling "General Nguyen asked me how to kill the darkling queen, the answer is by powerful magic or enchanted apostle weapon, so here I am. Oh and Lelei is also here".
As Rory turns to engage the darkling queen, a D-20 transport hovers over the yard and provides cover fire while a squad of marine jump down to assist the SIFs.
"Commander Ava, we got it here, go get the hostages" the squad leader says as he drops from the D-20 with Lelei on his back.
Another D-20 carry the rest of 2nd squad that was stuck outside of the barrier and drops them on the roof where the fight with the mages is happening.
Ava jumps up to the throne room with her squad where Zoral is waiting with Decimus and a few other legionnaires. Each of them is holding a knife against a hostage as the 2 sides stare at each other.
"Chris, sitrep" Ava say over the radio as she keeps her gun at Zoral who is holding her mother.
"Enemy element from the West has arrived and is being engaged by the 104th division, most of the city is being secured and the 102nd is closing in on the palace. The princess's palace is secured. The city is ours, commander" Chris reports over the radio.
"It's over Zoral, we took the city" Ava actives her suit speaker and talk to Zoral.
"A woman? How dare a woman talk to me like that? It's not over until I say so!" Zoral shouts as Decimus and a few of his men get to the flanks of the SIFs.
"Surrender and order your men to stand down or we will kill you" Ava says with a cold voice.
Zoral starts laughing "Kill me? You won't dare to make a move as long as I have the life of your people in my hand. That! Is the reason why you people is weak! It shall be your doom!".
As he finishes his sentence, the ceiling of the throne room collapse as Lynk destroy one of the SAT8s. Zoral sees the opportunity to get to Lynk and have him teleport away to live a fight another day. He pushes Ruby forward and run to climb up the rubbles to the top. The SIFs with deadly precision kill all the legionnaires that are holding the hostages by headshot and then quickly turn to kill Decimus and his men.
Ava runs after Zoral as he climbs to the rooftop of the palace. Once he's up, he sees Lynk grabs one of his students and use the student's life force to teleport away leaving the other student behind to be shot dead.
"No!" Zoral shouts.
Ava tackles him to the ground and punch his rib to break it. The broken rib makes it painful for Zoral to even breathe let alone fight. She pulls him up on his knees and dematerialize the armor around her right hand and then punches his face really hard. That punch breaks a tooth of Zoral and makes him spit out blood.
"Tsk, tsk, so violent" Rory says as she walks up with the darkling queen's head in her hand. She throws the head at Zoral's feet "what a shame to ruin such a pretty face" Rory says as she gets close to Zoral face.
"Rory" Ava says.
"What? I'm just having a little fun" Rory reply and then giggle.
At that moment, the ground starts to vibrate as a cloud of dust approaches from the horizon. Zoral instantly realizes that the horde of darklings has arrived.
He tries to laugh but stopped as he feels a pain in his chest "You are all dead, all of you!".
To his surprise, Ava just stands there calmingly staring at the approaching horde that would put fear in the very heart of every living thing on Falmart. He looks around and sees the other soldiers are also unfazed by the approaching horror.
"This is admiral Hackett from HSS Normandy to all UNE units, stand by for COBS" Admiral Hackett announces the close orbital bombardment support (COBS).
Some of the ships in orbit start firing their plasma beams, at the lowest setting, down on Imperial military targets while the HSS Normandy starts it descends with the bastions and transports waiting in orbit.
From Zoral's view, multiple blue beams from heaven strike down to the ground at various locations far away. One of them strikes at the approaching horde and sends a wave of 11 million Celsius (19,800,032 F) superheated plasma the swipe from the center outwards. In just seconds, the horde of millions got vaporized like they never existed, the ground turned to melt glass, and trees vaporized.
The beam that hit Dumas Mountain range is a setting higher. Tiberius escaped the onslaught and is riding away when the beam hit. The entire mountain range explode when the beam hit like a pile of sand got pounded by a hammer. Molten rocks are sent up in the air and fall down miles away from the center point.
In a short moment, while the people of Sadera are still in the state of shocked, the massive capital ship bigger than the city itself appears from the cloud and smoke. HSS Normandy descends and stops over Sadera's sky while the bastions and transports deploy their troops to help secure the city. A SAT8 legion is deployed on the Western front to clean up the rest of the Imperial legions.
Zoral now realizes the true power of the enemy that he has been calling "barbarian". He never stood a chance against an army that possesses the power of the gods themselves. Hopeless and broken, Zoral can only stare at the burning barren land that moment ago was green and alive.
President Liam's word full filled, a capital ship over the capital city of Saderan Empire, the land was glassed and the Empire lost the war. Now the UNE needs to focus its attention elsewhere, a threat that magnitude greater, not only to the UNE but to all of the galaxy.
Author's note: So, this marks the end of the war between the Saderan and the UNE, I could stop here and let your imagination take off. How will Pina rebuild the Empire? Are there more mysteries about the Prothean civilization to discover? How will the galaxy fight the Reaper? What important role that Spes and the people of Falmart play in the fight for the survival of the galaxy? What do you think? Do you want me to continue or just stop here?