Location: Sol, Low Earth Orbit

Time: 36y, 06m, 02d

ID: Kel’tsait

>Establish secure connection, “Erika.”

--Encrypting traffic…--

--Selecting closest entry guards…--

--Link aggregation service activated…--

--Connection established.--

--Select username.--

>Kel’tsait

--ERROR: Username cannot contain special characters.--

>Keltsait

--ERROR: Username cannot match any real names.--

Sigh.

>Fox

--Welcome user Fox.--

Weebinchief: Heya, Fox.

19thCenturyCapitalist: Ey fox.

Kongobongo: Welcome fluffy friend!

>Hey everyone, am I late?

Weebinchief: Yes, but so is most of everyone else

<--User hitlerdidnothignwrong has joined the chat→

<--Admin Weebinchief has renamed user ‘hitlerdidnothignwrong’ to dunce002→

>Is that who I think it was..?

Weebinchief: Yes, and he is still an idiot.

Weebinchief: That looks like everyone, so let’s get this started. I assume everyone is familiar with Project Thor from the US military?

Weebinchief: Good, we took that project and expanded on it for this mission. Insertion waves one and two will be mounted to the back end of kinetic bombardment rounds; that way, we can deploy them inside enemy formations.

Weebinchief: Wave two will be handled by Fox and Capitalist. You two will be landing just a little bit outside the bombardment range of any surviving guns with heavy armor and local command vehicles. I hope you studied up on mass assault tactics for infantry because we are landing about 300,000 assault droids with you.

Weebinchief: Once you have secured your landing zones, waves three through five will be landing rapidly. Unlike the previous waves, these will be landing by YCS 407A-2 Orbital landing craft, each of which will hold five multi-terrain transports (MTT) and one Mobile command tank.

Fox, Capitalist, you will both be getting YCG 12B-7 rapid deployment landing vehicles, which will hold a temporary command core. Both of your battle groups will contain 8000 ground infantry, 3000 mechanized infantry, 500 tanks, 100 artillery pieces...and supplies.

>No air cover?

19thCenturyCapitalist: Ha, you wish! Nothing we got can take the impact velocities from our landers. I don’t know ‘bout you, but I do not want to scrape air superiority fighter off my deck.

Weebinchief: More or less what Capitalist said. Air cover comes in the later waves and in force.

>What about our logistics situation? Rommel?

Weebinchief: Rommel.

>Fuck.

Dunce002: I can read, you know.

19thCenturyCapitalist: Known evidence suggests the contrary.

Kongobongo: Indeed~! Even the chosen name was based on a lack of reading~

Weebinchief: Please stop ragging on them. Drop in 10.

Well, That was an experience.

Anyway, time to start shifting into my command vehicle! I hope it’s cool~

<--Begining core transfer→

I felt a sensation of my environment rapidly compressing around me to the bare-minimums, promptly followed by various systems finishing their handshakes and linking to me, streaming sensor data from my pod and the pods of my command.

Right as the data net told me the fleet was descending to begin the engagement, we were notified of no less than 1400 enemy surface launch notifications, not to mention previously marked space debris suddenly moving to intercept us.

Not even a few dozen miles away, I detected an anti-satellite weapon come active and targeted it down with my CIWS, maneuvering my group to avoid the cloud of debris, letting it pass by mostly harmlessly. Just ahead, I saw the first group hitting the atmosphere, a quick query indicating that they were the groups tasked with taking out anti-air artillery.

I was notified of CIWS engaging a few more anti-satellite weapons before I got notifications from Erika to modify my formation. Unthinkingly, I passed the packets on, the small group of ships I was with instantly firing their RCS to move, only for a moment later a flurry of missiles to stream through the freshly created gap.

Not much caring about what the missiles were doing, I kept an eye on the ones Echo had launched at us, noting that a large number of them were attempting to intercept the first group’s delivery vehicles, with little success.

About an hour passed otherwise uneventfully, CIWS shredding the passing bit of debris in the fears it was a weapon and actually slicing weapons apart in a stream of kinetics. One of the anti-satellite weapons got close enough to trigger its detonation command; however, it was unlucky to spray its shrapnel across the armored fronts of the reentry vehicles cone-like structure, doing little more than damaging the finish.

We finally received our orders to start our descent into the atmosphere and proceeded as planned. We will be moving under my command once we hit the surface due to a relatively large amount of jamming from Echo. Laser and opticals only.

Erika beamed me something about counter-battery being a priority for me, so I guess I’m going to be doing that instead. I got to take a good look at the command vehicle I’m mounted in, and this is a chunky boi. It looks like somebody upgraded a P1000 to run on a closed-loop nuclear reactor, slapped in a computer core, and replaced the main turret with a plasma railgun.

I honestly think I’m in an experimental vehicle again, and I don’t like it. At least it’s not gonna expose me to some terror of the warp kinda fuckers. Anyway, time for the fun bit.

I retracted in my sensors and communication equipment as my pod hit the atmosphere and braced for the least comfortable five minutes of my life.

Oh boy.

It was uncomfortable.

The data output from my gyros wouldn’t have been all too bad if one of them didn’t escape its housing and start rolling around, spewing out junk data that almost gave me the closest thing to a panic attack I could have. After shutting it down, I enjoyed the last few seconds of the flight before the retros kicked in, slowing me enough to not embed too deep into the earth.

And finally, ground, sweet ground.

The chamber I was in started working to extract me, placing my stupidly heavy 1230-ton tank out onto the nearby ground, only for my treads to sink an uncomfortable amount into the mud. Thankfully, whatever Wehraboo designed this has actually put some thought into solving the ground pressure issue.

I fired a signal flare into the air and slowly started rolling forwards, trying my best not to just dig a hole in the mud and get this P1000 meets a crawler abomination stuck.

I wish I had read that unit briefing beforehand. I’m dumb.

Anyway, while pulling myself out of the mud hellhole, I got back to delightful snow and ice. My perimeter sensors notified me of allied units approaching, requesting syncing data networks.

Within a few moments, I knew this force’s strength, consisting mostly of infantry droids with an armored unit here and there. It wasn’t much, but they did inform me of spotting other likely allied companies en route, but conditions prevented communication linkups.

I internally cursed my previous shortsightedness and instructed them to bring whatever they had into my lower infantry bay, lowering a few boarding ramps for them to make use of.

The boarding process took twenty-some minutes, in which time the first units of the previously sighted allied forces entered my communications range. Their group seemed to be consisting of conventional SPA and some new kind of rocket artillery thing. It looks like little more than twenty guided missile pods and an autocannon suspended above two treads.

I’d complain more, but their lightweight construction meant they had no issues on our terrain, and they have a convenient multi-mission connector to let us use them as improvised infantry haulers.

Thankfully I didn’t need that yet, so I set them on a patrol route to link up with our remaining forces in the area and guide them in.

The good news:

Most of my combat forces survived the drops.

The bad news:

The majority of losses were my logistics divisions.

The worse news:

The majority of those losses were the ones with artillery rounds and missiles.

Greeeat.

Uncomfortably low on ammunition behind enemy lines with no air support and no resupply in sight. Guess we are gonna need to make do.

If my positioning data is correct, we are about 300 KM south of the target area. All the troops are loaded up, and my armored forces will follow my lead with the lighter missile vehicles holding 8 combat droids, all functioning as a screen.

And right as I was thinking, “Oh, this is nice, what can go wrong.” My air defense promptly lit up as we were getting swept with all kinds of active sensors. Before I could properly assess the threat, ten missiles were already flying.

Peeking in on the data streams, I found the targets were three recon drones and a ground base station.

I watched with interest as I slowly got up to speed, rotating my railgun to target the base station and begin charging a shot, waiting to see what happens with the missiles.

As expected, the missiles hit the drones with little issues. While they did pop flares, the onboard intelligence wasn’t fooled and spent a perfect one missile per aircraft. The remaining seven switched targets, two sweeping down at the station while the rest circled overhead, searching for more targets.

A small stream of autocannon fire reached up from the outpost, shredding the incoming missiles. In moments the remaining seven shot down to nap of earth flight, unfortunately cutting contact with me.

After waiting a minute, I detected some more autocannon fire, a single detonation, and a momentary lapse in radar, but it returned after a moment. I decreased the power per shot on my railgun. Proceeding on, my gun lobbed two high explosive rounds in the direction of the detection station, watching with satisfaction as it was replaced into a delightful rain of concrete and electronics.

Having an idea, I launched six of my cruise missiles ahead and liked up with them once they entered their glide phase, using them as a form of improvised air support.

It worked well enough, giving us a crude detection network to designate targets for us as we slowly advanced in the direction of Echo’s base.

Stopping just outside the base artillery’s supposed range, I positioned my railgun to prepare fire support. I don’t have accurate data on the area yet, but that’s why my ground forces are for.

Refueling and rearming came first, though.

Soon, Echo, I’ll show you what I can do! I might be the tester, but I can do plenty more!