CPL Nickelbaucher

Location: Harper’s Junction, Star Kingdom of Windsor

Mitch struggled against gravity and the terrain as he worked his way up the slope. It was slow-going up the hillside opposite the HI firing position. The loose shale had caused him to slip multiple times, and ricocheted down onto his fire team following his lead. More than one person was grumbling over TACCOM, but he ignored them as he pushed forward.

he thought after sliding down another few meters and almost knocking over the PFC behind him.

Mitch swung his rifle around his back and locked it into position. He bent down and started to use his hands and feet to crawl up the slope like a spider. It was much easier going, and the rest of his team followed his example.

He looked up and saw the HI trooper had already reached the ajar door. “Ok, here is the plan, everyone,” he relayed over TACCOM. “We’re going to get up this hill, stack beside the door, and do a textbook clearing of the inside space. Be prepared for anything. We don’t have any idea what the interior layout is like and I don’t want to…” he cut his mission prep short when the HI trooper slid inside the building.

“Or we’ll just follow him,” a PVT chuckled.

“Let’s move,” Mitch chomped down on the chatter and rushed forward. He didn’t slip again, but he waited for the rest of his team to reach the ledge before moving forward.

It was dark inside the cavern. The only light came from the open door, and his optics had trouble deciding whether to go to night vision or stay normal.

“It’s clear,” the HI trooper stated from the opposite side of the room. The big armored man was down on one knee and running his hand against the floor.

“What…oww!” One of the PVT’s exclaimed as he tripped and fell right on his face.

“Watch your footing,” Mitch chided as he followed the HI’s example.

The cavern was a big bunch of open nothing except for two tracks on the floor spaced a solid fifteen meters apart. “The energy cannon emerges from there,” the HI pointed over his shoulder at another well disguised door that looked like a rock face. “The outdoor opens, it fires, then moves back through the inner door to a lift that will shift its position.” The HI shifted his gaze along the wall. “There’s another door here we can take.”

“Breaching charges,” Mitch ordered, and a PVT ran up and pulled the device from his back. There was no panel to hack, so the electronic override bumper he was carrying was no good.

The PVT started to slap the cord onto the door. Once ignited, the cord would burn through the door and its’ hinges. It would then fall open on its own or they could kick it down.

“Stack up on the door,” Mitch reissued the order as the HI trooper stepped back. The door was too small for the LACS to get through without turning sideways and stooping, so the marines would go in first.

“Ready, Corporal,” the PVT informed as he stepped away from the door with a detonator in his hand.

“Engage tint,” everyone’s HUDs darkened to protect their eyes from the upcoming flash of light. “Blow it in three…two…”

The door opened and three men in smartcloth coveralls stopped dead in their tracks. The one on the right was the first to react. He dropped his bag of tools, turned to scream, and Mitch put a round in the side of his neck. The man died with a gurgle as one of the other men threw himself forward at Mitch, and the other turned to make a run for it.

Mitch pivoted away from the tackling man, throwing off the enemies’ attack. The man slipped around Mitch, fell to the floor, and Mitch put a pair of 1mm rounds in his chest. The man wasn’t wearing any armor, and blood splattered everywhere from the close range shots. Mitch turned to engage the third enemy, only to see the man’s body explode as one of the HI troopers 3mm plasma-tipped rounds impact him in the back. Gore splattered across the stairwell as the momentum carried what remained of the body forward and it fell down the stairs.

“We need to hurry,” the HI trooper ducked through the door and started down the stairs. His head brushed the ceiling as he took them half a flight at a time. “Someone had to have heard that.”

“Let’s move!” Mitch charged after the trooper and tried to shake from blood off the edge of his barrel.

***

Windsor Planetary Defensive Battery Seven

“Maintenance team, please give us a SITREP on the status of the door,” Ned asked for the fifth time. He got nothing but static. “There is a lot of energy discharge happening nearby. Maybe coms are being affected.” He guessed.

The SGT in charge of the battery pursed his lips and shook his head. “Corporal,” he turned to the second in command, “I want you to take half the security team and investigate. The other half of the team will get to their assigned defensive positions. We might have hostiles inbound.” His eyes scanned the control room and locked on several critical personnel, like Ned. “Whatever happens, we need to make this shot. I didn’t want to tell you the severity of the situation, but we’re providing cover fire for the Queen herself.”

People sat up straighter and chests puffed out a little farther at the news. They weren’t just shooting at the Commonwealth anymore. They were protecting their monarch. The news wasn’t as big a deal to Ned as the Windsor-born soldiers and civilians in the room, but he couldn’t help but feed off their energy.

“What’s our charge?” the SGT continued with operations as the CPL left with part of the security team.

“We’re nearing a fifty percent for our capacitors. Depending on how many shots we are going to get we can always overload them and achieve a more powerful shot,” Ned offered.

“Good thinking. We’ll keep that as a secondary option, but I plan to be able to put up more than a shot,” the SGT replied. “Cannon’s location?”

The giant cannon was still a little over two minutes from reaching its firing position. Diagnostics were run to ensure the inner and outer doors there were undamaged and would open and close. Those reports came back green. Now, all they had to do was wait for the charge to reach the desired level so it could threaten any ship that tried to endanger their Queen.

A working silence descended on the battery’s crew for a few minutes before a coms channel on the SGT’s station opened up.

“SERGEANT we’ve got…!” the transmission cut off, but the sound of weapon’s fire was unmistakable.

“Secure those doors!” The SGT yelled as the remainder of the security team slammed them closed and took up their fighting positions outside the command center. “Get ready to overload those capacitors,” he relayed to Ned.

Ned tried to ignore the fear in his gut, and a steadying hand from Martin helped. “Rerouting all power to cannon,” he acknowledged as the dial in front of him went from the green of one hundred percent into the red as numbers climbed higher.

he thought as gunfire sounded just outside the armored door.

***

Admiral Michael Ward

Location: Harper’s Junction, Star Kingdom of Windsor

Ward stood in the main hanger bay and watched as columns of marines boarded Spyder Assault Shuttles bound for the surface of Harper’s Junction. The round-robin drop process had been going on for hours with little sign of letting up anytime soon.

“Sir,” a marine LT, acting as his liaison, handed him a PAD with the latest casualty figures.

A handful of Spyders and their marine compliments had been lost in the first wave of drops. As a total portion of the brigade on Aggie it was only seven percent of their force, but that seven percent was seven hundred soldiers and Spyder crews. Even that was a drop in the bucket to the thousands and thousands of spacers lost in the battles to get the troops to the planet, and all those dead weighed on him as their commander.

He rubbed his tired eyes with his free hand, and when he looked back the number of marine casualties had jumped another two hundred. “What the hell?”

The light-speed communication relays between the ground and fleet transmitted the STRATNET data instantaneously, so commanders had the most up-to-date information on their troops.

“The 942nd is in heavy contact advancing on the capitol, sir,” the LT relayed. “One of the enemy orbital defense batteries was able to get a shot off. Shields can’t do much against that type of firepower.”

“Shit,” Ward exhaled as the numbers updated again. There wasn’t a big jump this time, but the numbers were climbing. Thankfully, the breakdown listed more injured than dead.

“Sir,” the Aggie’s skipper came over TACCOM. “We’re getting some weird readings from our drone scouts.”

“On my way,” Ward left the ground pounders to do their thing so he could return to his.

The bridge wasn’t nearly as chaotic as it had been a few hours ago, but there was still plenty of activity as search and rescue operations, the marines’ landing, and the constant monitoring of the enemy fleet’s remnants still poking around. Ward bypassed his command chair and went straight to the CAG.

The Carrier Air Group Commander was a Captain, same as the ship’s commander, and he was in charge of the thousands of drones packed into the belly of Aggie and other assault carriers like her. It was the CAG’s operations that made the assault carrier class of warships different from battleships.

“Talk to me CAG,” Ward wasn’t the only one with the other CAPT. Aggie’s skipper was there was well.

“Pull up the data,” the CAG, a tall woman with long, dexterous fingers, pointed into the section’s holo-tank. “Here, we’re getting slight fluctuations, but nothing we’ve seen before.”

“Do we have eyes on?” Ward looked at the confusing jumble of data in the tank.

“Drone Delta-Five-Two and Delta-Five-Three will be coming around the curve of the planet in thirty-one seconds.” The CAG informed.

“Any ships nearby to get a closer look?” Ward asked, and the CAG rolled her eyes. It was a constant battle between drone commanders and ship commanders about what the appropriate use of resources were.

Drones were mobile reconnaissance and fighting platforms. Currently, they were still limited by light-speed communications, but that was going to change with new QE tech. The CAG thought her drones were the best tool to do this type of recon, but Ward also knew that warships had better sensor suites, and were much sturdier than the easily destroyed drones. Something needed to be dealt with, the drones single missile launcher with five total missile compliment, and low-powered energy cannon wasn’t going to be able to put up much of a fight.

Thirty-one seconds passed and the two drones rounded the curvature of Harper’s Junction and saw nothing. The anomalous readings vanished from the scans and nothing could be seen in front of them.

“Hmmm,” the CAG leaned forward and looked into the tank like she was trying to discern its hidden secrets.

“Embers of Tomorrow is in route. She’ll have eyes on in just under three minutes,” Aggie’s CAPT informed.

“Then we’ll wait,” Ward decided. “But let’s look at that data again.”

Three minutes later they were no closer to knowing what the hell had been happening. Their closest guess was a solar flare that had happened previously was messing with the drone’s instruments. The CAG disagreed, but she wasn’t offering a better argument.

“Ember has eyes,” Ward barked at the bickering CAPTs as the destroyer came into range of the disturbances.

The more powerful sensor suite scanned the area where the anomalous reading originated and got…nothing.

“See,” the CAG’s face was full of confidence. “It was…”

A beam of energy ripped through the atmosphere and smashed into Embers of Tomorrow. The destroyer was an older model, unshielded, and the power from the energy cannon was outside the parameters of what the Commonwealth knew Harper’s Junction processed.

The force of the blast smashed Embers to the side as armor was ripped apart and flung into the void. Violent decompression ejected air, water, material, and crew from the tear in its side until the ship’s internal configuration shut off the compromised sections. Power flickered off as couplets from the main reactor melted and it went off line. Auxiliary power came on immediately, and saved the life of everyone on board, but the engines were out, and the rest of the crew was on a ticking clock to survive.

The bridge flew into a frenzy as the various sections handled the new casualty. Ward turned to the central holo-tank and saw a trio of cruisers dispatched from their makeshift anchorage to the damaged ship. The warship at the center was an upgraded battlecruiser, CWS Borodino. Ward scrolled through his PAD to find the CO’s information.

“Commander Berg,” he muttered to himself. He shot the CMDR with a familiar last name a TACCOM message containing the anomalous data and a warning to be careful. It looked like there was something there the Windsor’s on the surface didn’t want them to find in that seemingly-unimportant piece of space.