Chapter 11

Sepia star system, inner system.

Capital city of Landing, Governor's Palace.

"That's not good."

As a report, it was useless, but....Sarah couldn't blame Elteria. The governor's palace was jammed in a valley, near Landing, the rather unimaginatively named capital city of Sepia, where, well, the first colony ship had landed. Due to that geographical quirk, orbital scans were impossible unless you were passing right over the residence. Since they didn't have the time to just hang out in orbit, Sarah had brought down the Eternal Seeker into the atmosphere, and initiated a combat approach to the palace, all weapons charged.

The visual they had just gotten, the first clear one since the beginning of their atmospheric entry, wasn't encouraging.

"Well, at least the guard went down fighting." Said Connie as she looked at the image, before going back to her console, to continue coordinating with the response force the planetary defence force was busy throwing together.

Sarah nodded as she looked at the devastation. The governor's palace looked like it had been on the wrong end of an artillery barrage, there were gaping holes throughout the building, some spewing smoke, others outright flames. Scattered throughout the compound were the armored bodies of the gubernatorial guard or various sepian special forces branches, with craters indicating where automated weapons emplacements had once been.

But the attackers had paid a terrible price for their victory. By her count, there were at least 6 APCs reduced to smouldering wrecks outside the compound, shot out of the sky by anti tank missiles and laser cannons, as well as a smattering of grav cars, helicopters, and even some damned light shuttles reduced to pieces trying to get to the governor's palace.

There were also bodies scattered throughout the courtyards, wearing fatigues and armor similar to the ones worn by the SLF's soldiers in their camps.

"Elteria? Anything?"

"No life signs on the surface. I think they didn't have the manpower to hold the surface. That, or they retreated when they realized we were coming for them."

"The latter is my assessment as well" Sarah smiled. "They probably realized that if a few hundred megatons worth of nukes didn't take us down, their guns sure as hell wouldn't. And since anyone they left on the surface would end up an easy target....they pulled them back. Give a deep scan of the whole installation, and tell Hector to get some boots on the ground, full red level. Oh, and tell him to wait for me."

Elteria frowned.

"Captain, that's not-"

"The enemy space based threat has been eliminated. Besides, my armor is keyed to me, and me alone. Given this-" She gestured at the scene of devastation on the hologram. "I think we need every edge we can get."

Elteria looked rebellious for second, then sighed. She was, after all, used to her captain's eccentricity. Besides, she was a mercenary captain, and that entailed a whole other set of traditions and expectation from a navy captain, who she knew the marines would just 'accidentally discharge' their stunners at and leave on the ship the second they made such a suggestion.

"Very well ma'am. But....please try to be careful, alright?"

Sarah smiled, bringing out the slightly off-color tone of her regenerated cheek.

"Don't worry, careful's my middle name."

"I thought it was Alexandra?"

"Shut it smart ass."

*****

"Alright. Suit integrity at 100%. All pieces in place. Running diagnostics..."

Sarah patiently waited as Turral went through the checklist, mentally going through her own as her implants interfaced with the systems and she checked on her ammo and weapon status. Everything looked fine, but she had learned the hard way to just triple check everything when heading into trouble.

Right now she was carrying her favourite weapon, one she'd acquired at great cost before she'd even made lieutenant-commander in the Alterian Directorate Navy: a AWI-FPGRL-EAP-16, or if you preferred without the acronym: a Alteria Weapons Industries - Fusion Pumped Gamma Ray Laser - Enhanced Armor Portable - 16. The gun didn't look all that menacing, if anything it resembled a blocky machine gun without the magazine or box to feed it bullets, but...

Well, it was a fusion pumped weapon. When the trigger was depressed, the laser arrays and gravity generators pressed around a tenth of a gram of deuterium and forced it to undergo nuclear fusion. That liberated the energy of about 9.5 kilograms of TNT. That energy was reflected and fed into a crystal rod that converted most of that energy into gamma rays, who where then thrown down the barrel at whatever unlucky bastard the gun was pointed at.

The weapons had drawbacks of course, for one the absurd quantities of energy and cooling involved meant that it could only fire 3 times per second at best, and that ate through coolant and the capacitors at a very high pace. A more sedate firing mode let it fire only once per second, but allowed the weapon to stay operational for longer.

"Diagnostics complete. All systems green. Captain? Take a step, if you would?"

Sarah nodded, the armor around her faithfully mimicking her movements, thankfully without the slight delay less advanced suits tended to have. After all, the suit was wired directly into her implants, and as long as she didn't use her cables to override her nervous system, the armor actually knew how she was going to move before her own limbs did.

She took a step forward, then another.

"Alright, everything looks good." Turral looked down at her tablet, and shook her head. "We don't have time for the full battery of tests, so this will have to do."

"We never do chief."

The chief engineer chuckled.

"Point taken. Alright, well I'm told Hector and his boys and girls are waiting for you."

"Thank you Turral. Hopefully I won't need you to fix it when I'm back."

"Like that has ever happened." Muttered the chief engineer as Sarah left the engineering workshop in the clang of armored feet hitting the deck.

The captain decided to pretend she hadn't heard her chief engineer, and continued on her way to the deployment hatch. Well, technically it was a cargo hatch for speedy loading, but they'd long ago converted it into a drop point for the marines, without having to land the gunship. Normally they'd have used a shuttle, but...the Eternal Seeker's assault shuttle had ended up on the wrong end of a frigate's heavy laser battery 30 years ago, and they'd never found a replacement small enough to fit and with enough armor and shields to make it worthwhile.

The few crewmembers she encountered on her way saluted her as she stomped past, and she nodded back to acknowledge them. It wasn't that she didn't want to salute back, but wide movements in heavy power armor in tight ship corridors was rarely a good idea.

Before long she ended up in the cargo bay, and stepped in next to Hector.

"So, ready to rumble sergeant?"

"Yes ma'am!" She could almost feel the man's smile behind his opaque helmet. "It's been too long since we took out the real stuff."

Sarah smiled back. 'Full red level' meant pull all the stops on the gear her marines could take.

Right now Hector and his two corporal wore the last 3 suits of Alterian Marine Corps power armor they possessed. With full mono mollecular armor plating, shield generators and integrated heavy weapons they were a force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately they no longer had enough of those armors to equip everyone with. She still had her own, custom fleet officer suit of power armor, which was keyed to her and her alone, but that was it in terms of Near Verge armor they had left. The last 6 marines were in the pitch black, High Verge heavy assault power armor they'd used to attack the SLF's supply hub with. It was significantly less durable, lacked shield generators or the whole panoply of features the AMC power armor had, but it was better than nothing.

As for weapons, Hector and his corporals carried the heavy pulsers -rifles using gravity generators to propel their projectiles- that were the Alterian Marine Corps' signature weapon in their hands, with one corporal carrying an array of drones and recon equipment, while the other was festooned with grenades and various explosives, while Hector himself carried a more meager collection, his armor compartments being dedicated to additional communication and tactical systems, to enhance his ability to command his troops. An additional 3 soldiers carried the same gauss rifles they'd taken in their previous operation against the SLF, and the last 3...were carrying the fusion gun and it's tripod. Why wasn't she even surprised?

What did surprise her however was the person in a suit of ill-fitting combat armor practically hiding behind the marines.

"Sergeant, what is she doing here?" Said Sarah as waved a heavily armored hand in Seria's general direction.

"She insisted to accompany us ma'am, and, well...as much as my marines love this weapon." He nodded towards the fusion gun. "None of us know how to properly use it. Too busy running maintenance on the suits. She does."

Sarah winced. The problem with the suits of power armor they currently used, and why she restricted their deployments, was that it took at least 6 hours of maintenance for every hour of deployment...and for the Near-Verge suits that maintenance could cost up to a 100 kilocreds and that wasn't counting repairing battle damage. But their client was in danger, and if nothing else she was fairly sure she could have the governor foot the bill if they pulled her out of this mess alive.

"Alright, she can come, if she stays behind the marines. Remote control on the gun only, and I assume it has enforced IFFs?"

Hector nodded, and Sarah nodded back. At least her marine sergeant still had his wits about him. Enforced IFFs meant the weapon simply couldn't fire if there was a friendly in the way. She didn't expect Seria to betray them, but she had seen some idiots crack under the pressure of battle and start blazing at anything that moved, friend or foe.

Of course, the IFFs were only for their own suits, and thus her men, but...well, the gubernatorial guard had already taken catastrophic casualties, and quite frankly she didn't really care if some of them got caught in the crossfire. She wouldn't like it per say, but she had bigger problems to worry about.

"Alright then, let's move!"

*****

The courtyard didn't look any better in person than it had through the ship's sensors. In fact, it looked even worse, but that was mainly because they'd slagged absolutely everything that looked like an active vehicle on the surface. They knew the SLF had abandoned them, but there was still the possibility they'd left turrets on automated controls, or rigged some of the cars to explode. The gauss turrets had to be toned down, as usual in atmosphere otherwise they'd level the entire palace in a single burst, and every single vehicle had been reduced to a shattered mess before Elteria had opened the deployment hatch.

"They didn't see the attackers coming..." Muttered one of the corporals on the coms.

"Sally?" Answered Hector.

"They didn't see them coming sarge. The way some of these guys are positioned...I mean, they're from a planet in the middle of nowhere, but I'd at least expect them to take cover. But a lot of these guys to taken out in the open. I think they didn't know what was happening, or that there was even a threat before the SLF opened fire."

"Isn't this place supposed to be covered in defensive systems and radars?"

Sarah winced, and slotted herself into the discussion.

"The SLF has stealth tech remember? But you're correct, the stuff we saw on our way in could have stripped the damned paint off the vehicles anyway, and none of them had radar absorption panels. No, if they achieved surprise they either thought they were friendly...or their defense systems were hacked. And I don't believe they'd be stupid enough to think a giant wave of incoming aircraft would be friendly, especially not at a time like this."

"That means an inside job ma'am." Said Hector, calmly.

"We knew her government was riddled with moles already. Wouldn't be too hard for one traitorous bastard with a data drive and a cable to slot into a secure terminal and unload enough Mid Verge malware to at least crash everything. Wouldn't be subtle, but it would work."

"That's...not a pleasant thought ma'am. Everyone, until further notice, consider all automated defence systems as hostile. I know the governor gave us IFFs that should mark us as friendly to her military's systems, but we can't trust those systems right now. If you see something...If you see something and it has a weapon pointed at you, shoot first, ask questions later. Understood?"

A chorus of 'yes sir!' answered him, and they went further into the corpse strewn wasteland that Sepia's gubernatorial palace had become.

*****

"General Razor, sir. We've detected multiple surface detonations, and we've lost contact with our surface vehicles. We think it's them."

The military man, now wearing a heavy suit of power armor, swore viciously, before regaining his composure.

"Alright major, I'm sorry to say this, but you're on your own. I can't spare enough troops to help you, the gubernatorial guard might be riddled with nepotism, but these bastards just aren't giving up! I need everything I have to get to the governor before it's too late. Take what's left of your unit, and buy us the time we need."

The major nodded. His eyes showed clearly that he knew this was suicide, and that none of his men would be coming back from that...But they all volunteered for operation couperet knowing they probably wouldn't make it back alive.

"Yes sir! We won't fail you."

"I know you won't son. Now go!"

The major nodded, and stomped back into the corridor he had come from in his suit of power armor. Then Razor sighed, and turned back towards his field command post. His time was running out, he needed to finish this now, or everything he'd done, every soldier he'd sacrificed, every innocent he'd killed, all of it would have been for nothing.