Chapter 12: Counter Operations

The Thermopylae left superlight, emerging in a cloud of technicolor gas in high orbit around Hades, the bridge crew coming to as the autopilot activated the ship’s point defense systems in order to protect the human occupants during the brief minutes that they were incapacitated.

Captain Stavros stood with his hands clasped firmly behind his back, the only indication of discomfort or disorientation a twitching in his right eye, he had completed so many jumps that the wracking energies barely phased him anymore. He stared intently at the red planet before them, waiting for his crew to recover. He wore a white captain’s hat and dress uniform that contrasted with his olive skin and dark beard, his chest emblazoned with badges and medals that denoted a slew of successful battles and campaigns.

An officer sitting at the pilot’s console cradled his head, examining his instrument panel.

“Successful superlight jump captain, we’ve emerged in high orbit above Hades. No sign of planetary defenses or interceptors on long range scans.” Around the man the other bridge crew members were stirring to life, shaking off their cramped muscles and splitting headaches, tending to their duties as a ship-wide alert blared. Stavros put a gloved hand to his ear, activating his microphone.

“Crew of the Thermopylae, this is your captain speaking. All hands prepare for combat. Repeat, this a ship-wide combat alert, man your stations and be ready for battle.” He turned his attention to the man sitting at the pilot’s console towards the front of the bridge, the wide window before them illuminating the expansive room in an orange glow from the desert planet. “Helmsman, bring us about. I want the railguns on our belly ready to strike ground targets, we’ve had reports that the enemy may have established SAM sites in order to bring down our landing craft.”

“Aye aye, Captain, bringing her about.”

“Hail from the ground, Captain,” a woman manning the communications console said. “Shall I put it through?”

“Put it on the intercom,” Stavros said, the comms officer hitting a button and a voice coming through on speakers embedded in the walls. It was a man’s voice, a little distorted by the planet’s atmosphere but clear enough to be understood.

“You are invading sovereign territory. Hades and the outlying system are under the authority of the Syndicate now, in accordance with the will of its people.”

Stavros’ eyes narrowed, he suspected that whoever was sending this transmission was also broadcasting to his men, this was an attempt to legitimize their seizure of the planet as some kind of revolution rather than the economic coup that it was.

“Attention criminal organizations currently in control of Hades, this is the captain of the UNN Thermopylae. I have a fully crewed Jump Carrier with a contingent of Marines in orbit around your planet. You have broken interstellar law and have taken control of a colony that does not belong to you. Under the UN’s declaration of frontier law I have full authority to restore order by force if necessary. I am fully prepared to do so, unless you surrender immediately and turn yourselves in. You will be treated fairly, but you cannot be allowed to go free. This situation has escalated too far.”

The man on the other end of the transmission hesitated for a moment, perhaps not the reply he had expected?

“Thermopylae, the UNN has no authority here, nor do the corporate investors who have exploited the people of Hades for their own profit. This is now a sovereign colony, beholden to no one, least of all to those who intrude on our territory and levy threats of violence against us for exercising our God-given right to self-determination.”

Stavros had to admit, it was well rehearsed, they had been given ample time to prepare and get their story straight due to the delay that traversing such distances incurred. It was all a lie though, the intelligence that had been gathered had made it clear that those who had wrested control of the colony from ExoCorp had done so out of greed, not revolutionary spirit. The crime bosses wanted control over the planet’s minerals and nothing was going to change for the miners living there besides who signed their paychecks. Assuming they were given any pay at all and not simply used as disposable slave labor, pirates and mobsters weren’t exactly renowned for their compassion.

“To those of you no doubt listening to this broadcast, citizens of Hades and UNN personnel alike, heed my words. Intelligence that was recently gathered by an undercover UNNI operative posing as a miner on Hades has provided evidence that the takeover of the planet was not for the purpose of liberating the population, but to take control of ExoCorp’s mineral rights and redirect that lucrative revenue stream into the bank accounts of criminals. These people are not your saviors. They intend to bleed this colony for every penny it’s worth. By siding with them you are only ensuring that they will line their pockets at your expense. We will give you one last opportunity to surrender, if you do so you have my word that nobody will be harmed. If you continue to revolt we will subdue any resistance with extreme prejudice.”

“Your threats of violence are hollow, Captain.” The Syndicate spokesman sneered. “The Syndicate possesses a number of surface to air planetary defense weapons that will bring down any dropships you attempt to land, if you try to take the colony by force you’ll be throwing away the lives of your men. Here is our ultimatum to you; leave this system and never return. Strike it from your star charts and leave us in peace.”

“I will not abandon the rule of law,” Stavros replied adamantly. “It’s the only thing that holds our colonies together, without it we are all defenseless and alone. You can plainly see that the UNN has not abandoned Hades as has been claimed. That we are here at all is ample proof of the organization’s commitment to order and security across human space, in this system as much as in any other.”

The mouthpiece on the other end of the line had no answer to that, and cut the feed. Stavros sighed and took a moment to compose himself, the bridge crew looking to him for instructions.

“Helmsman, bring us into low orbit over the main population center, set point defense to track and destroy any incoming projectiles. Program the firing computer to destroy launch sites with the railguns. Use the twenty millimeter tungsten rounds, no explosive warheads. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had set up those SAMs in the colony itself, so let’s try to minimize collateral damage as much as possible here.”

“Yes Captain.”

“Comms officer, track down the source of that transmission and send the coordinates to the ground teams, I want a Marine squad with auxiliaries on the surface ASAP. Our mission is to force the surrender of the PDF and any civilians who have allied with the Syndicate, but we don’t need the crime bosses alive. Have them storm the facility and cut the head off the snake. These PDF are weekend warriors, without centralized coordination they’ll be completely lost.”

“Roger that, forwarding your instructions now, Sir.”

“Oh, and make sure that the broadside batteries are tracking and ready to fire, load EMP missiles and establish a no-fly zone. Disable anything that tries to leave the atmosphere, we can pull them in with tug drones when this is all over. The colonists won’t have access to spacecraft on a backwater like this, and so it’s safe to assume that anything attempting to flee is under Syndicate control. These mobsters may try to escape the planet when they realize that their plan has failed. We can’t let that happen.”

Stavros walked over to the massive bridge window that took up for the forward wall, looking down at the arid planet, feeling a rumbling pass through the superstructure of the ship as the various weapons and turrets came to life and turned towards their targets.

“Send down the shuttles.”

Along recesses in the hull of the Jump Carrier, the landing craft powered up, the dropships leaving their mothership like the scales of a pine cone as they carried their occupants towards the planet. The swarm of a dozen vessels quickly hit the upper atmosphere, noses glowing orange as they breached Hades’ airspace, their stubby wings letting them glide towards the surface. On the ground the Syndicate-aligned PDF tracked the incoming vessels with the on-board computers of their stolen SAMs, hidden amongst the prefab structures of the colony’s only city, and spread out into the deserts and surrounding hills to conceal their locations. The weapons locked onto the incoming craft, fifteen missiles launched from fifteen hidden locations, plumes of white smoke trailing away from the shoulder-mounted launchers as the electromagnetic warheads zeroed in on their targets.

They intercepted the dropships in the upper atmosphere, too fast to be detected by any kind of point defense that the vessels might carry, and one by one the pillars of smoke trailing up from the planet’s surface exploded into a crackling blue aura. It looked like electrified mist, the warheads spraying clouds of electrically charged particles that fried every electronic system on the dropships as they passed through them, the shuttles immediately losing engine power and navigation. They listed and tumbled, losing computer flight control, their systems going haywire as they plummeted towards the ground.

The ships impacted with tremendous force, unable to slow themselves without navigation control, slamming into the dirt like meteors and exploding into balls of orange flame. They landed outside the city, cratering in the desert, digging deep channels in the sand and dust as their burning wreckages skidded to a dead stop.

The PDF and allied colonists cheered, waving their rifles in the air and baying their defiance.

The comms operator opened the channel as a new transmission came in, Stavros staring down at the planet with a stern expression on his grizzled features as the Syndicate’s mouthpiece gloated.

“As we promised, your landing force has been decimated, your entire payload of landing craft has been destroyed and all hands are lost. Turn back the way you came, you have failed.”

Stavros could hear cheering and revelry in the background, they were having a damned party down there.

“A well coordinated attack,” he admitted, the man on the radio going silent as he listened. “You shot down every one of our landing craft, from positions that were well hidden, exactly the way your PDF soldiers were trained to sabotage a potential enemy invasion force. Unfortunately you’ve just expended your entire arsenal of missiles on empty shuttles.”

“What? What are you-”

“The vessels anchored to our hull were remotely piloted, unmanned. The real landing force is currently idling in the hangar bay, be ready to receive them.”

The revelry in the background went quiet, no doubt trying to discern if he was bluffing or not, and Stavros turned to his bridge crew and nodded. They knew what to do.

The Thermopylae shook as the massive railgun turrets mounted along her belly fired in unison, the rows of magnetic rings that made up their long barrels accelerating twenty millimeter tungsten slugs at over ten thousand feet per second towards the SAM sites. It took a few seconds for them to reach their destinations, Stavros pulling up a display on the bridge window which doubled as a monitor, watching the splashes on the long-range telescopes as the relatively tiny projectiles hit the ground at tremendous speed and vaporized everything within a small radius. Surgical, that should take care of the launchers should they have any more missiles that the UNNI didn’t know about. They had exposed every hidden SAM site in their mass attack, the planet was defenseless now, all they had left were small arms that couldn’t scratch an armored landing craft. The Thermopylae only had six landers in her hangar bay, under normal circumstances the landing force would be housed in a far greater number of craft anchored to the hull, but it had been necessary to launch them all as part of his ploy. In believing that he had committed all of his craft to the attack, the Syndicate had similarly expended all of their defensive capabilities.

Six landers wasn’t many, but they were carrying mixed units, crack UNN Marines along with Borealan shock troops and Krell linebreakers. What resistance the PDF and the Syndicate mobsters could muster would be easily broken.

Stavros watched the landers as they appeared to the left of the bridge window, their main engines flaring orange as they powered towards Hades and quickly diminished, breaking off into two delta formations as one group headed towards the PDF barracks and the other towards the source of the Syndicate transmission. This rebellion would be quelled within hours, and then they could turn about and head back to the Pinwheel, this was an unwelcome diversion from their operations on the Betelgeusian front.

The atmosphere of the planet buffeted the dropship, Korza straining against his safety harness as he checked his XMR, configured as a submachine gun for close quarters gunfights with a savage bayonet attached to the short barrel. He wore black UNN body armor with a full-faced visor, his orange, furry ears protruding from the top of the helmet as they pressed flat against its surface in an attempt to block out the sound of the howling wind as it rushed past the ship.

Korza was blue all the way through, as the humans liked to say. He had risen rapidly through the ranks of the UNN’s integration program, learning human customs and language as he went, and now he was the acting Alpha of Gamma pack. He had six Borealans under his command, a shock trooper team trained for boarding actions and CQC. His pack were similarly dressed and armed, six of them occupying oversized seats in the troop bay of the vessel alongside a dozen smaller human Marines, and two massive Krell who gripped handholds in the roof with their many-fingered hands.

The gigantic reptiles looked like bipedal crocodiles, hunched over and covered in armored scales that ran from their long snouts all the way down to the tips of their thick tails, they were wearing armored ponchos in the same shade of black as their alien allies that hung about their broad shoulders. They carried heavy weapons and riot shields, designed to take the brunt of enemy fire as they shielded the more fragile, mammalian members of their team. They were known as linebreakers, juggernauts of natural armor and ballistic weave that could weather gunfire and assault defended positions that no other species could get near. It was their job to get the other occupants of the dropship to their objective safely, and while notoriously good-natured and friendly, the aliens were ruthless and implacable when tasked with defending their friends.

It was sometimes hard for his kin to accept that a Krell could break a Borealan in half if provoked, but while many of his fellows saw them as little more than walking tanks, they had done more to earn Korza’s trust and respect than many of the Alphas he had served under in his time. Today Patriarch Stavros had tasked them with taking out the rebellious human leadership on this colony, while Korza was usually stationed on the Pinwheel he had heard of the human’s exploits on the front, and desired his respect.

Back on Borealis the less experienced warriors often mocked the humans for their technological superiority, claiming that their love for orbital bombardments and long range gunfights was a sign of cowardice or weakness, but Korza knew better. As much as their spaceships protected them from harm, they were also used to carry warriors directly to the fight, and today Korza and his pack would be dropped into the thick of it. His long claws protruded from his gloves, tapping the gunmetal of his modular rifle as he waited impatiently for the drop.

His helmet radio hissed to life, the pilot advising that they prepare for a ‘hot drop’, a combat landing under enemy fire. His heart raced as his pack armed their weapons, the humans around them loading magazines and checking their armor. Their orders were to take the Syndicate leaders alive or dead, and to dispatch anyone who raised a weapon at them, but if the humans should discard their weapons or turn to flee then they should be spared. The concept was foreign to his people, but he would obey, such were his orders.

He was jolted back to reality by gunfire hitting the armored belly of the craft, the humans laughing amongst themselves as the conventional ammo was harmlessly deflected. The aliens were small, but they fought ferociously when the bloodlust took them, and they were oddly flippant when it came to war. Somehow that endeared them to him.

“Ten seconds,” the pilot called over the radio, “dropping the ramp! Go go go!”

Korza felt the impact as the shuttle’s landing gear hit the ground, the harnesses that held them in their seats disconnecting with a pop to release them. The Krell span around to face the landing ramp, raising their impossibly heavy shields on their right arms, holding XMRs configured for high magazine capacity and suppressing fire in their left. They lumbered down the ramp, the sound of bullets hitting their thick shields ringing out as they advanced, the Borealans and Marines taking up position behind them as they marched forward. The giant reptiles unloaded their weapons at their attackers, no doubt sending them scurrying for cover, though Korza could not see the enemy from this position as they crouched behind the Krell in single-file. Bullets hit the sand around their feet, but none got past the Krell, the conventional ammunition ricocheting against their heavy armor and riot shields.

The chatter of weapons fire was deafening, growing louder as they neared the target, a large compound with highs walls tipped with razor wire. This was where the enemy leaders had entrenched themselves, thinking themselves safe from orbital bombardment so close to the colony’s population center. They may have been right, but now rather than facing instant death by nuclear warheads, they would have to do battle with Borealan shock troopers. It was cowardly to use civilians as shields, and Korza intended to make them regret their choice.

The Krell parted as they reached the door of the compound, two large metal barriers that looked as if they had originally belonged to a warehouse, the humans and Borealan taking cover against the concrete walls out of view of the defenders. Korza could pick out voices on the inside, his sensitive ears hearing shouts of alarm, hurried requests for instructions.

“The defenders pile on the other side of these doors,” he announced over the radio. “Let the Krell break the barriers, Gamma will lead the assault. Cover us Marines.”

The leader of the humans confirmed the order, barking orders and getting his men into position beside the doors as they stacked up on either side, the Krell backing away with their shields raised above their heads as a few defenders who remained on the wall tried to fire down at them when they came into view. The giant reptiles charged forwards, using their shields as battering rams, the usually slow and methodical aliens capable of massive bursts of anabolic activity when necessary. They rammed into the doors, the metal vibrating and shaking them in their hinges, the reinforced concrete around them cracking under the force of the blows. They backed up again, one of the human Marines skipping backwards a few paces and loosing a well-placed shot at a defender, causing the human to grip his chest and fall forward to land in the dust. He wore a PDF uniform, now with a fist-sized exit wound in his back.

The Krell raced forwards again, the metal barrier ringing like a gong as they struck it, the concrete that held the hinges on the right side breaking loose. The door on the right fell, pulling the second with it, squashing one of the PDF soldiers who had been waiting on the other side with a sickening crunch. The Krell advanced into the compound, firing their heavy weapons as the defenders scattered, the more cautious human Marines peeking around the busted doorframe to take pot shots.

Korza loosed a battle cry, urging his pack forward as they darted through the breach. Borealans had faster reflexes than humans or Krell, they were more agile, and Korza charged towards a frightened human who raised a rifle in his direction. Before his finger had time to squeeze the trigger, Korza had cleared the ground between them, dropping his XMR to let it hang on its strap and taking off the human’s head with a heavy swipe of his claws. His pack spread out, weaving and darting to make themselves harder to hit, the inexperienced PDF completely overwhelmed as the Borealans pounced on them. Cries of surprise and terror were cut short by bursts of XMR fire and rending claws. They tore through the opposition, leaving dismembered and wounded humans in their wake, the Marines taking advantage of the chaos and confusion to file through the doorway and take out more of them with pinpoint rifle fire. They checked the corners and cleared the outlying structures that were spaced near the compound’s walls, storage sheds and other miscellaneous buildings, the Krell walking implacably towards the central structure.