Darkk stared up into the sky until the last embers of the explosion, crying.
TS22 had been a nice guy. One more grievance to lay at the feet of the Salrilians.

He would handle all of them.

But first, he had to finish the task at hand.

The UEC prisoners taken from the vessels disabled by Wind of Blades and Spamo's forces needed to be processed.

Darkk turned to Nerec. "Let me know if we can be of assistance. I'd like you to authorize us to handle all the UEC prisoners."

"I'm not sure..."

"C'mon. You wouldn't even know it was coming if I wasn't there."

"If you insist. I'll authorize the necessary paperwork."

"What's this I hear about the Greccha?"

"They're sort of taking advantage of this, attacking at the boarder."

"I can assist you in repelling them. The DEF specializes in guerrilla operations.
We can delay their arrival quite considerably, enabling you to marshal remaining forces."

"Does that have a catch?"

"A small one. When we retake our space, we will require fixed defenses. Your government has a surplus of planetary fixed defenses. Although you will need orbital ones to repair this system, planetary ones are what we really need."

"You, sir, have a deal. The info indicates the Greccha are coming in hard and fast."

Darkk flipped out his communicator and fired off a message to the DEF forces back at the base, and another to the nearest gateship.

"Help is now on the way. Sign here."

------------------
"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

Spamo surveyed the wreckage of his glorious battleship as it lay like a beached whale upon the surface of Dominus. Salvage operations were well underway, and the Phylydion engineers were an extremely competent crew. However, the reports were that the majority of dorsal systems were irrevocably damaged in the crash. Luckily the main engine core remained intact, but a large rock had penetrated the front end and ripped like a knife down the length of the ship. The prognosis was that the mighty battleship would never fly again. Instead, there was some talk amongst the Phylydion leadership of commissioning a memorial out of the hull of the Mariposa , to remember those that had died in defense of Dominus, both Phylydion as well as UNS/DEF forces. Spamo hailed a final salute to the ship that had served him for so many years and moved to leave the crash site. The blinding light of the explosion bathed the landscape in golden light as he turned to go.

<><><><>

Spamo spied William Darkk and Drion Nerec chatting away across the courtyard. He waved to catch their attention and strolled over.

"Greetings Octicate Nerec. It's good to finally greet you under friendlier terms today. And Will, it is good to see you safe and sound."

Nerec tipped his head in a slight bow. "Indeed, it is good to see you again Admiral Spann. I wish that so many need not have died as part of the circumstance of our reaquaintance."

"The souls of all those that have died in defense of Phylydion space will be remembered." replied Spamo.

"You are an honorable man. But I think that we can address each other as friends now. May I call you Spann, or 'Spamo' as your friend Darkk here is apt to refer to you as."

Darkk, who had been listening somewhat disdainfully at the verbal fencing going on in front of him started a bit at the jab directed at him.
"Oh..ah yes. Spamo...Admiral Spann and I have been through a great deal of stuff together so we are a bit informal sometimes. I can be just as pithy as he can, so don't get me wrong." Darkk coughed slightly as he finished his sentence. Sometimes he really really hated politicians. Give me a barroom brawl any day. Beats the word worrying. he thought with a silent smirk.

Nerec went on, "Anyway Spamo, if I may call you that, Darkk and I had just closed a deal that is mutually beneficial."

"Let me guess...Phylydion support of UNS operations and reconstruction in exchange for... assistance with the unknown assaults taking place on your borders?"

"Actually Spamo, the assailants are no longer unknown." interjected Darkk. "Nerec and I have discussed the matter. DEF forces will be dispatched to combat the Greccha guerilla war that is now fomenting on Phylydion borders."

"The Greccha have a history of violence towards the Phylydion people. Their history is available to you at any time." said Nerec. "This most recent attack happens to come at a very inopportune time."

"Yes, very. Will, the DEF will be needed for the push towards Sol that will be taking place in the very near future. Their absence will be felt."

"The DEF are my people, and under my command."

"The DEF is part of the UNS now, as well are you." replied Spamo. Darkk and Spamo glared at each other, searching the eyes of the other for a sign of the next move. Spamo broke the stalemate. "Don't worry Darkk. You made the right decision. The DEF is the best force for aiding the Phylydions now, and they are most definitly very valuable and welcome friends now."
Darkk relaxed his tensed muscles. "I wasn't exactly worried about the correctness of my decision. In any case, the DEF won't be gone for long, and the rest of the UNS forces have lots to do to prepare for the homeward push."
Spamo clapped a hand on Darkk's shoulder. "I trust you more than anyone Darkk. I know you'll take care of it." he then turned to Nerec who was watching the exchange with interest. "Well. Since there's plenty of amity between the UNS and the Phylydion empire, I would guess that your diplomats are just as antsy as mine are to start mingling their paperwork."
Nerec laughed out loud. "Appropriatly put! If neither of you mind, there's lots to be done still. Some skirmishes are still taking place, and the system itself is cut off from the rest of the galaxy. I need to go see to duties."

"As do we" said Darkk. "Spamo, let's see about getting out to the fleet."
"Aye."

<><><><>
(I don't know the rank that Nerec holds, but I think I addressed him as Octicate. I THINK that's what he is, but please correct me if I'm wrong.)

------------------
"That was quick."
"Well you know, when you don't do it right it doesn't take as long."

(He is, but he's more military than political.)

Darkk surveyed the Mariposa. He'd been fascinated with the ability of dolphins to build a 3D internal picture of fish with sound waves. He reached out to the ship with his new abilities. The hideous cacophany that bounced from it indicated microfractures everywhere. It wouldn't be able to take the jerk of its own main thruster.

"Don't worry about her, Spamo. She put up an honorable fight, and now has an honorable rest. I'm sure we can find something for you. Our station has a fully functional shipyard, we can build you a..."

"Darkk, that ship was special to me. Always will be."

"I understand, but we've got to move on. There's a whole sector out there that's ours by right that a bunch of worms are beating on."

"Alright. What's going on with getting a fleet together for the Phylydian boarder?"

"Sarah is marshalling the DEF. The Escapade has been upgraded an is now almost on the level of a Q-ship of its hull-type without sacrificing internal hangers. We've got a whole bunch of nifty new fighters. Run rings around even the newest Salrilian designs. They're remarkably similar to something being developed by Seynta Spaceworks for the Ishiman military, but a case of parallel development occured."

"Remind me to thank Wizr."

"Hey, what did I just say?" Darkk shot back with a grin.

"Heh. I've contacted the gateship, and they're putting back the UNS vessels they took. The Phylydian ones too. We've got a ride off."

"I've got some stuff to work on. I've got to go back to the base and begin a small recruitment drive."

"What, training refugees to fight?"

"Something like that. You'll have to trust me on this one."

"Of course."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sarah Darkk eyed the needles, which had recently cleaned her brother's blood off themselves. The Wind had brought back the converter frame, and she had promised to do it when her brother had first suggested it. All those needles looked painful. Espeically when she considered that some would pierce her eyes.

She took the maximum dose of pain medication and closed her eyes as the needs swung towards her, giving her skin a brilliant red cast from the blood leaking through thousands of tiny pockmarks.

4 hours later, Sarah Darkk emerged, taller and thinner and with the odd ears Darkk had.

"Time to lay some smack down. We'll show the Greccha how to fight."

------------------
"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

Drion Nerec shifted his weight between his left and right feet, and his hands danced behind his back. He gazed out of the bridge portal of the Phylydia II, which had barely escaped the Dominus system in time. Now it cruised through that system, surveying the wreckage. Over a dozen ships had been caught in the blast that ended the battle. Only the frameworks, looking like streaks of rust painted onto space, remained.

The system's outer defensive stations had been crippled or destroyed. It would take nearly a year to repair the damage. Both the home defense fleet and the primary armada had been reduced to a fraction of their numbers. The haze of radioactivity and shroud of energy still hung over the system and prevented travel or communications until nearly the end of the day, when the communications officer looked up at him. "Sir, we're receiving a transmission from interstellar space, just beyond the edge of the system!"
"Patch it through to me." The small comm screen in front of Nerec buzzed and a bleary image gradually took shape: That of Admiral Dinial Bedein.

"Dinny!" Nerec exclaimed with delight, a smile filling his face for the first time in weeks.

"Drion, my friend," said Bedein, also grinning. "We've been trying to get into the system for days. What the hell's gone on in there?"

"Much, much. Our defense fleets got licked pretty badly, but we, with much-needed help from our allies, managed to fight off the ground assault. What enemy ships weren't destroyed fled into deep space." Nerec paused. "When you said 'we'..."

"I'm in command of three standard attack fleets that were dispatched from Derres to aid you."

"Good! That's a decent force. Go with those fleets to fight the Greccha wherever they attack us."

"They've been hitting us pretty hard, sir. We've lost two border worlds already. However, their progress is slow. Now that I know the homeworld is safe I'll take my command to the borderlands. Probably the Kildor system. It's under seige, and the fourth planet's already been occupied."

"I'll scrape together a fleet under the Phylydia II and meet you there in four days. The DEF has offered its assistance."

"Good! We'll need it."

"Head to Kildor, then. Good hunting, and I'll rendezvous in four days. Nerec out."
He yawned a collosal yawn, and stretched his muscular arms behind his back. He felt extremely tight spots in his back unwork themselves, and he sighed with comfort. The battles never ended.

Traek Cicion flicked his wrist elegantly, and a long stream of fresh blood arced off the end of his blade. He sheathed it in his sleeve. The deathtrooper slid down the wall, a deep wound having been drawn from his abdomen to his larynx. Cicion let himself relax, and the shock of having his constantly working muscles suddenly untense almost wracked his body with convulsion. As far as intel knew this was the last cell of deathtroopers still fighting, and that with his thrust he had ended the life of the final threat on Dominus.

But the fighting was not over. He chuckled to himself. When was the fighting ever over? Soon he would gather together a team of Taeskors to go with Nerec and fight the Greccha.

------------------
-Traek Cicion, barkeep extraordinaire
"PS: If nothing's working around here, it's because I'm laughing so hard."
-Durandal

The Grecchan fleet approached the Phylydian orbital platform as per normal procedure for an abandoned platform. The troop transport docked on using its Phylydian style docking ports, installed for just this purpose.

The pressure was equal on both sides, more or less, so as soon as air was in the tube the hatch opened. Suddenly the boarding party felt their heads snap back, and then nothing much at all.

Before any of the Greccha could react, Sarah had gotten to a control panel and hacked it. In seconds the internal defenses had irrevocably been set to kill all Greccha aboard. Sarah was soon the only living sentient on the ship. She sprinted for the bridge.

"Trao, respond damit! What's wrong?"

Sarah cleared her thoughts, and focused on the Grecchan language lessons. Damn sals trying to make her head explode did do her some good. She didn't know much, but language structure was a rhythmic system, and she was good with those.

"There were some problems. We must pull away and meet for repairs and meet in the asteroid belt."

"Why the belt?"

"Protection. Enemies are nearby, but asteroids will make our vulnerability less easily spotted."

"If you insist."

The ships moved into the belt. Sarah pulled up alongside a large asteroid. The Grecchans escorting her fanned out so that they covered all the points of approach to the transport.
They were using the asteroid to protect them from attacks to the rear, enabling them to concentrate their firepower into a hemisphere.

But they should have covered the asteroid. With a sudden flash of light, some promenances on the asteroid exploded into missile contrails. The Grecchans, caught off guard, spun desperately in evasion and shock. Then a mass of blured lines appeared, ending right behind the Grecchan ships.

The DEF had not lost its touch at precision hyperspace. Pulses, LRPK, and missiles flashed out. The fight was over almost before it had begun. Sarah changed the ident codes on the transport, and sent it on autopilot to her home base station.

Then she spacewalked down to the asteroid. Half of it unwrinkled. The solar sail of the Escapade had been painted to look like an asteroid, and then braced with some smart plastic rods to make it asteroid-shaped. A few patches later, it was folded up and the group proceded to the next objective on the list.

------------------
"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

(This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-30-2003).)

Three little Greccha, manning their gun.
Down came a Taeskor, and then there were none.

Traek Cicion wiped the clear blood from his blade as the three Greccha gunners slumped in their seats, more of the stuff seeping out of cracks in their carapaces. He'd been covertly inserted into the Greccha orbiting base three hours ago, and had been collecting data on their forces in the Kildor system ever since. Apparently PhylSec had inserted Garrion Retoe into another the system as well, but he wasn't sure. Phylydion infiltration groups rarely communicated with each other unless out of necessity. No point in taking undue risk of word getting out.

The small military space station was big enough for ten crewers, and its purpose was to provide intelligence and light space-surface bombardment for the Greccha ground forces slugging it out with Phylydion defenders on the planet below. The little station wasn't equipped with much in terms of computers or information terminals, but just from its sensors Cicion had seen that the Greccha had devoted a massive force to taking the system. It was a supply and transit link between the outer edges of Phylydion space and the more industrialized middle worlds. Hundreds of battleships and heavy cruisers patrolled the system and orbited the planet, grinding down the heavy surface defenses. The Phylydion fleet currently in Kildor had no chance against the forces amassed. Cicion dug up whatever more scraps of info he could find, then set the computer to send out a distress message with a message of an engine malfunction. By that time the sabotage he'd commited should send the base plummeting into the atmosphere. He climbed back into his tiny stealth ship just as the base started to glow faintly from upper-atmosphere contact.

Admiral Bedein's three fleets jumped into the system just as his ship was reaching its outer edge, and picked him up. Even with this additional force the Phyls were at a disadvantage. Hopefully Nerec's fleet and the DEF would offset things a bit. Cicion exited his ship and strode to a lift that whisked him up to the bridge. He stepped out, his dull blue cloak swirling around his ankles. Admiral Bedien was there to greet him, in his red high-admiral's belted tunic. They greeted each other with smiles and the customary wrist-crossing of friends. "What intel've you got for us, Traek?"
"The Greccha have deviated from their standard tactics of widespread, uniform attack," responded Cicion. "They're concentrating a much larger force on this system than I've ever seen them focus on one place. I think they plan to take this system, then rout all their incoming ships through it and use it as a jump-off point to about ten of our worlds. " He made a gesture that looked like a greater-than sign back-to-back with a less-than sign.
Nerec thought for a moment. "They have most of their forces amassed here. That gives us an opportunity. If we can defeat them here and keep their ships from escaping, we can attack their space with relative ease. With all their ships bottled up here, they will have few defenses."
"A trap, is it? Good idea. We'll probably need the DEF to keep them from escaping."
"Right."

------------------
-Traek Cicion, barkeep extraordinaire
"PS: If nothing's working around here, it's because I'm laughing so hard."
-Durandal

Sarah leaned back in her seat. "So you need someone to block their escape route."

Nerec leaned back as well. "That's the short of it."

Sarah considered briefly. "I have just the thing."

"I'd love to see it."

Sarah reached into her pocket. "Catch" She promptly tossed Nerec an almost invisible wire. Nerec grabbed it out of the air. Electricity arced from his body as he began to twitch. The Taeskors at his side went for their knives, but the arcing stopped.

"Calm down, it's not nearly a dangerous dose."

Nerec shook his head. "That was pretty tricky, but how does it relate to this?"

"This about a 10^-10 % of maximum charge. A full charge could crack a starship-grade shield if it got too close."

"Impressive. But how are you going to get it close enough?"

"This is the same material that's used to make solar sail control threads. A ship can carry a couple AU of that. When it's charged up, it will try to spread. So we anchor it in a center, and it spreads in circular pattern. If a thread is cut, it will be forced out and de-charge in the solar wind, and the others will shift to equalize the field."

"Impressive."

"It's a Salrilian tactic. They haven't used it recently, as most of their opponents have seen it and they blow the centroid. But the Greccha haven't seen this yet. If we work it right, they won't see me and the Escapade until it's far too late."

"Impressive. Can you implement this?"

"It's just solar sail cable thread. It's designed to be manufactured onboard ships. This type of thread was abandoned after it was discovered how much charge it would hold, but I learned that trick a while ago. Not hard to make at all. I can be ready soon. It's also trivial to deploy."

------------------
"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

Omni-trails were carved into space as the rest of Drion Nerec's cobbled together fleet entered the system. It hung on the edge, and closed with Bedein's force. It merged with Nerec's forces that had arrived earlier.

Back aboard the Phylydia II, Nerec told Bedein of the specifics that the DEF had cooked up to trap the Greccha fleet.
"Do we have enough of that netting to spread over a wide area?" Asked Bedein.
"More than enough to ensphere all the Greccha forces if they're concentrated in a small enough area," said Nerec.
"In that case, we'll need some bait. We also need to secure the planet and get them away from it. We don't want that stuff too near it, or it might be caught by gravity and burn up."
"What do you suggest?"
"That we disperse them from the planet, then lead a spearhead force into the middle of their formation so that they all shift down and close in on us. Then we can net them."
"What about our ships in the middle?"
"If we time it right, ours should be able to spring out of the circle just before it's closed up."
"Right. I'll start working on the specifics." Bedein got up and walked out of the room. He quickly took the lift to the tactical room.

A Phylydion fleet clashed with a quarter of the Greccha space forces over the skies of Kildor IV. The Phylydion ships, deftly maneuvered, quickly had the Greccha with their backs to the planet. Several ships were driven down into the atmosphere to burn up and crash among their own ground forces. The Greccha fleet retreated to the far side of the planet.

A heavily armed troop transport escorted by heavy fighters screamed down through the atmosphere toward Phylydion lines. The ship struck the ground and three long files of heavily armored Taeskor Commandos, with full body armor and helmets, flare pulse rifles, burst pistols and Keukio short swords, double-timed out of it, followed by the Phylydion renaissance man: Diplomat, covert agent, fleet commander and ground commander Garrion Retoe. He strutted down the landing ramp and surveyed the scene: A large Phylydion communications base flanked by heavy artillery that was constantly pounding positions dozens of miles away. Fighters roared overhead, and distant booms were constant.

Garrion reported in to the base's commander and took a look at the map. The Greccha held a small town several miles to the southeast. They had a full slew of heavy and light infantry and light combat support vehicles, but few heavy vehicles and almost no air support. It would be the next target now that the Phyls had gained air superiority.

Immense hovertanks preceded large columns of advancing infantry over the rocky ground as fighters strafed the small town. The Greccha had fortified positions in large outlying buildings, and the tanks poured heavy compression shells into the buildings, ripping them from their foundations. As the tanks kept the Greccha front lines occupied, heavy infantry flanked them from both sides. Retoe's personal force slipped in under heavy covering fire and stormed local HQ. Several dozen prisoners were taken and the town was declared under Phylydion control by midday.

------------------
-Traek Cicion, barkeep extraordinaire
"PS: If nothing's working around here, it's because I'm laughing so hard."
-Durandal

(This message has been edited by Taeskor Cicion (edited 02-07-2003).)

The DEF trooper looked at the needles. "How much does it hurt?"
"It doesn't actually hurt a bit. The first thing the tendrils consume are your nerve clusters. The entire front of your body goes numb at once."
"Charming."
"You want to do this or not."
"I wanna."

With that, the device shut on the man. Darkk folded his body into a meditative pose. His success had inspired his men to follow him. As had been the pattern since the DEF was formed.

Darkk knew that the weakest type of Hialee was the convert. First-gen were stronger, and Star-gen were stronger still. Darkk hoped he would soon learn to master manipulation, but was willing to accept it might be beyond him. At least he could beat the crud out of Salrilian drone troopers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The cloaked figure stood under the window. The window was closed and heavily barred, but a TEMPEST scanner could still see the faint electromagnetic radiation of the computer screen. And a sonar scanner could see the fingers in the Salrilian's hands tap the keyboard.

Of course, the salrilian security sweep couldn't find either a sonar device or a TEMPEST scanner as it went by.

Becuase they were looking for electronics, not a biological system.

The salrilian in the building finished tapping in his login and password. He then began to access the Oracular Network. He typed in a question on Grecchans.

The cloaked figure moved on. He had the information needed. And it had already passed on to his superior, so his life was unimportant. He would make it out if he could, but if not, he would self destruct.

Hundreds of light years away, Darkk pointed a long range commo array at what should have been empty space. "Audemed, I have something you might want."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sarah positioned her ship slighly off to the side of a line drawn between the Grecchan fleet and their nearest secured base.

The sensor masking should protect it from all non-visual scans, and the black paint would make it hard to spot even then. The only systems running onboard would be life support and RCS thrusters, making it extremely difficult to spot, and raising the effectiveness of the sensor masking to a level sufficient for the task to come. The web had its own power core. Grecchan ships might spot the core and try to destroy it, but getting close to it would fry them.

A long boom connected the web to the ship, and only the maassive superinsulators in it prevented arcs to the ship. That would be bad, to say the least.

The Phylydian forces entered the system. One of the Grecchan ships - probably carrying a Military Governor - accelerated out as soon as they entered. As it built up the speed for its omnispace jump, it slammed directly into one of the threads of the web. Massive bolts of electricity lashed in every direction from the ship. Shields collapsed. Throughout the ship, bolts of electricity arced through anything and everything. In seconds the antimatter containment had blown. Systems that should have dumped it were fused solid.

Rather than become a floating tomb of tumbling corpses, the ship simply blew up.

Sarah gave a grim smile and sat back. Traps were a specialty she had learned from the Salrilians. How ironic when it would be turned on them.

She hoped that the Grecchans would be distracted by the Phylydian forces. In any case, they'd go after the web powerplant, as its energy signature would overshadow hers by several orders of magnitude.

------------------
"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois
Onii7/Frinkruds and his funky forums
macgamer.net

"The web has been deployed! The web has been deployed!" The message spread like wildfire through the Phylydion fleet, and cheers went up from the crews.

Bedein's three small fleets attacked the three weakest points along the Greccha line, forcing the whalelike ships to assume a tighter formation. The battle raged fiercely as both sides took losses.

Nerec, with his small fleet, hung back slightly. "All right, Admiral," he said, "We're ready to spear them."

"As soon as you can, Octicate, you've got my clearance."

Planetside, Garrion Retoe led his elite team through one of the main Greccha installations. When the fleets engaged, the Greccha had withdrawn all space support from the planet, and Retoe radioed coordinates up to orbiting Phylydion ships, which pounded surface installations constantly. The battle for the surface was nearly over.

------------------
-Traek Cicion, barkeep extraordinaire
"PS: If nothing's working around here, it's because I'm laughing so hard."
-Durandal

"So what's the new on our airlift?"

Roberts turned around. "Hey Spears. I don't know for sure yet. Their infrastructure is maxed by the returning civilian population, but It looks like we've got a slot on a ride tonight."

"So should we wake up the men?"
Spears offerred his Captain a cigarette, Roberts turned it down.

"Oh, no, not now, tonight. After sundown local time, 7700 Phylidion Universal Time, whatever that means."

"Oh I get it. Where is the lift from?"
Spears turned away from the breeze to light his smoke.

"There's an airstrip 20 miles from here, and I don't think we're getting a ride to it, so I'm going to wake everyone up in a few hours to get ready, and we're going to leg it. The hiways are packed, but we're going against traffic. On the plus side, they've offered us a truck, which we can load up with the empty suits and weapons. No reason to drain charge on the suits if we're walking. Moreover, Spann and his men are going to hoof it with us, and we don't want to leave them in the dust."

"Sounds good to me, Captain. I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight, Lieutenant."

They saluted, and Lieutenant Spears dissapeared into the early morning dark around the tent-city that had been erected to house the Humans.

Roberts looked around, then went back to studying his map. In another two hours it would be daybreak, and then he'd wake up his men and get them ready for the march. Already, two camps over, he could hear the cooks rising to prepare food. He would be glad when they were safely aboard the Transport that had been dispatched to meet them in orbit.

--------------

Ten hours later, he and his men were marching along the highway, singing cadances. It was a huge, ten-lane affair that cut through open country. Underneath it, four parallel maglev tracks ran, and the gentle vibrations of the trains passing at mach 2 was almost constant. the far side of the hiway was jammed, and two lanes of the near side had been closed for emergency vehicle acess. The men were altogether pleased to be leaving, and even though the Marines had to stop several times to wait for the Crew of the Mariposa to catch up. they were all in high spirits, and they were ahead of schedule. Ambulances were carrying the wounded, and trucks were carrying equipment, and the men walked in step, singing as they did.

Seven hours after that, the men had all boarded the massive spaceplane that took them to low orbit, and their rendez-vous with the transport Argyle. The transfer went smoothly, and a Jumpstream took them back to the fleet HQ. Roberts was already in briefings about the Marine's involvement in the next few steps towards Earth.

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

"Keep that balence up!" Sarah shouted to the men in the bridge pits, managing the complex system of thrusters that held the ship perfectly still. The computer settings would become obsolete every so often, and the program wasn't smart enough to correct them. She could make a better one, but there was no point when it was just for this occasion.

A group of Grecchan ships, sensing the wind of fate turn against them, began heeling hard around and powering up their drives. Their omnispace entry corridors carried them right into the net, where they summarily vanished in arcs of energy. Sarah monitored the web strand count. Less than 1/2000th depleted, good old astrostructures - to dang big and redundant to hurt.

Another group cautiously appproached the web area, firing weapons ahead. They still had trouble seeing the strings, as their sensors were primarily active radar, not the magnetic field sensors more useful in this case. The ships fired torpedos forward, damaging a great many strands, but the charge in the strands balenced them out again and the ships sailed forward into the familiar sparking oblivion.

"Stupid Greccha. The Gaitori didn't fall for this nearly as bad," thought Sarah.

The highly demoralized remaineder of the Greccha fleet turned back to the Phylydions, believing escape impossible. The battle from there was all to predictable.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I believe this system is secure, Octicate Nerec."

"Correct, Ms. Darkk."

"I'm afraid that our services are needed by our people. You can handle the remaining Greccha fleets. After this, they'll be quite terrified."

"I understand. Thank you for your assisstence. We have sent the freighters with the equipment you requested to the specified coordinates."

"Thank you."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lalende Beta. Until the Salrilian occupation, this had been a human colony. It had resisted the Cantharans rather well.

William Darkk looked down at it from the airlock of the transport. The planet was growing rapidly in the opening. He looked at the distance counter. Almost time. He took several deep breaths, as did those around him.

"GO!" shouted the transport dropmaster. Darkk and the men and women of the "DEF special services team" were ejected from the transport by the decompression when the forcefield holding in the air dropped.

Human beings turned into superhumans, capable of surviving reentry without suits or 'chutes.

Darkk could feel the atmosphere beginning to rush past him. As soon as he could, he oriented his position to optimize heat verses deceleration. Around him, his team did the same. The friction hurt. He and the team flopped over on their backs to protect their faces. Darkk waited until he reached terminal velocity, then oriented himself face-down to better guage distance.

The designers of this modification long ago had realized the trick. All the reentring organism has to do is hold its breath, survive the heat, and survive an impact at terminal velocity. They really don't hit the ground that fast at all.

Darkk could see the ground rushing up to meet him, and rotated feet down and rolled forward as he hit. His team did likewise. The salrilian civilians who had been tracking the "meteors" were quickly subdued, and the team threw on human slave rags over their battle clothes.

The first objective was the governor's house, not too far away. In the event of invasion, the governor would be in charge of the military defense of his planet.
Darkk would not let him have that chance. The governor's mansion was heavily guarded, and had all sorts of sensors in place all around the area.

Darkk and his team projected electromagnetic interference. The sensors themselves were shielded, but they still had to have lenses. The sensors would be blind for one crucial second. The team took a running leap, and jumped to the roof.

Darkk knocked a hole in the glass of a skylight, and dropped down right in front of the governor and some visiting dignitaries. The team prompltly subdued them. Darkk searched the computers until he had what he needed.

While Darkk was looking, the majority of the team filed out to slay and/or subdue the bypassed guards, just in case.

Darkk found what he needed. The planetary defense batteries could be fired remotely and manually in an emergency. Darkk wouldn't be firing them in an emergency, but he sure would create one.

_> LockIn "SNS Sr'then"
Warning: SNS Sr'then is designated friendly - do you wish to designate it as hostile y/n?

Y
Beginning firing sequence.... Destroyed.
Alert! Ships are firing on this array. Return fire? List Ships? Do nothing? r/l/n?
r
Beginning firing sequence.... SNS Thy'te Destroyed.... SNS Re'ne Destroyed.... SNS Y'll Destroyed..
Error: Gunnery Array has timed out. Bring backup online? y/n
y
Resume firing queue? y/n
y
Beginning firing sequence.... SNS Ur'nan Destroyed.... SNS We'ner Destroyed... SNS Li'seth Destroyed..._

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Darkk looked at his datapad. The second wave was coming in now, with the 76th and a full planetary liberation force of regulars. He turned to the cowering Salrilians.

"You will not get away with this, human-like!"

"I don't need to get away. Your forces are tied up with Audemed. You cannot retaliate."

"We will retaliate later. We are patient."

"If there is a later. By the time this is over, there won't even be an Oracular Net."

"You blasphemous psychotic desulional fool. The net is forever."

"You hope. I doubt that highly."

"The Net predicts that it will last forever."

"A prediction of a highly flawed system cannot be relied upon."

"The Net is perfect."

"Or it would be, if it had all the data in the universe. But that's too big an if. It's just going to get blindsided by what it doesn't know."

"It knows enough!"

"It thinks it knows enough. We will have to see on that one. Does it predict you can beat us, AND the Auds, AND the Gaitori?"

"I have not asked it."

"Because you know the answer - that you cannot."

"I do not know what I have not asked the network on."

"Of course not. You're just a dumb slug."

Darkk turned to the dignitary.

"Now you're a prize. We meet again, eh Srith'nama?"

"DARKK..."

"How nice to see you. You've been slipping a lot lately. Like at the third battle of sol, and at the 3rd engagement with Audemed's forces last tertiary time part."

"Those were beyond my control..."

"Like when we turn off the Net for good?"

"You can't!"

"Well, it's very hard to prove a negative. For now, let's watch the specticle. You're completely helpless, your planetary defenses and orbital defense just finished annihilating each other, and this planet is about to be liberated. I have no idea what they'll do with you, but I doubt it's pleasent. I had my own ideas, but we'll save them for later. Oh, and I checked the governor's account. The Net thinks this is a virus, and has no idea an invasion is going down."

"No..."

"YES!"

(Spamo, get planet-invading ;))

------------------
"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois
Onii7/Frinkruds and his funky forums
macgamer.net

(This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 02-19-2003).)

Roberts crouched in the middle of the transport, just behind the open cockpit door, watching land speed by. He pulled a cord from his suit and plugged into the intercom to be heard over the engine noise.

"What's our ETA?"

"Six minutes till we're on station, then a minute or two once you pick a drop point."

"Good. Is that it up ahead?"

"No, it's the next town. Here."

The pilot pointed to the map readout. Roberts compared it to his suitmap.

"Got it. Give me two orbits once we get on station. I'll point out the LZ then. I'll be back."

He pulled the plug and let it reel back into it's holder. He turned around and addressed the squad.

"Gentlemen, we are dropping in to relieve the 102nd Spaceborne. There are seven companies spread out through the city, and they're all encountering harsh resistance, so we're going to be spread out. You will do what you need to do to break these men out. Get your maps up. They're in three pincers, attacking from the North, Northeast, and Southwest. These happen to be the main roads out of the town. I company is leading the attack from the southwest, but the going is slow. I need Davies' squad to get them moving. Caulfield, you take your boys and keep the pressure up with G and H company on the north, I'm taking what's left of you with me to help E and B companies on the northeast. We need to get these men moving, and we need to link them up so we can secure and clear the town. Be gentle with these men, they are not as experienced, and they are not armored. Don't set a bad example, and don't leave them in the dust, we can't win this one without them. Good luck men, I'll be back when I've got us a drop order. We are going on station any second now."

The Pilot yelled back from the cockpit. Roberts nodded. The two crew chiefs were strapping on body armor and powering up their guns. The chiefs opened first their weapon ports, then the large sliding doors on the side of the rotorcraft. As it slowed, it's engine nacelles rotated to vertical and it began to fly like a helocopter. The Roberts watched the city slide by with Caulfield and Davies looking with him. The men arranged themselves in the doors by squad, ready to drop into the city, trying to get an idea for the lay of the land, and the positions of the troops below. The crew chiefs' chainguns began blasting out fire at any exposed units. Roberts could see the 102nd's airlift circling, and up above he could see contrails from the drop-fighters running combat air patrol.

After two orbits, the officers had a pretty good idea of the city layout and the locations of the men. Roberts plugged into the intercom again and talked the pilot onto the LZs. He then went to his men again.

"Davies, you're leading chalk one. Get in the door and standby for drop. Caulfield, you're two. I'm three. Get in line, gentlemen. Good luck."

The transport hovered low over a rooftop as the squad jumped out, taking the twenty foot drop with relative ease. It lifted up again and moved to the next drop zone, hovering again for just long enough for the men to leap. Caulfield and Davies were separated by three miles, while Roberts and his men would be roughly a thousand yards from Caulfield and Chalk 2. Roberts leaped out of the door first, immediately followed by his men, and they quickly moved for cover, scanning for threats. Roberts heard gunfire on the streets below. He had to move cautiously until he had linked up with the commander of the infantry on the ground.

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

Roberts moved down the stairwell. Most of the buildings were over ten stories, so it was a long walk. The men moved to the ground floor then moved cautiously into the lobby of the building. Roberts crept forward towards the smashed glass entryway. He crept along the wall and snaked his optic probe around the corner to look down the street. He could see two spaceborne troopers crouched behind an overturned truck, taking cover from fire. He waved his squad up, and they stacked up on the corner behind him.

"The street is hot. Harrison, you're with me, we're going to link up with a fire team down that way about a hundred yards. Keep an eye open for enemy positions. Standby to go on my mark."

He leaned over to look once more.

------------

Corporal Hicks had not volunteered for this. He knew it was his duty, and that he had to fight for Earth, but he had hated every minute of his training, and combat made the training seem like a cakewalk. Worse off, he and private Lansing were separated from their unit, which was strung out over six or seven blocks of this god-forsaken rubblepile. Suddenly, he heard someone yell the from behind him "Thunder".He automatically yelled back the code "Flash" and turned around to see two gigantic mechanical men run towards his position. One would pause to fire while the other would move, and then they'd switch. Their movements were quick and measured. They moved fast, but without any hint of hurriedness, and they covered the distance in seconds. They stopped under cover. One moved into position and began putting fire on the enemy positions. Hicks recognized the captains bars on the helmet of the one who crouched down next to him. He couldn't see his face through the reflective glass on the front of his helmet, and the thing's voice was flattened out by the speaker system. Moreover, even crouching for cover, the man-machine loomed over him, huge and powerful.

"Captain Roberts, 76th Space-Mobile. Where is your company commander?"

"I don't know. Down that way a few blocks, I think" Hicks stammered.

"Ok. I'm going to go link up with your squad leader. This is Sergeant Harrison. He's going to stay here and lend you two boys a hand. Now give me your squad encryption key. I need to get my men moving."

"There are more of you?"

"Don't you worry, corporal, my entire company is here to bail this city out. Now give me the key."

The drop-trooper opened his interface. Roberts pulled a cable out from his reel and plugged in. The two units synchronized ciphers and maps, and then Roberts disconnected.

"Thank you, trooper. Good luck, and stay with Harrison."

Roberts tapped Harrison on the shoulder and synchronized ciphers. He then motioned back towards his men. Harrison nodded and started laying down suppressing fire as Roberts ran back to the waiting squad.

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

"Sector 12, please report status!" Darkk was, funny enough, getting data from both sides. The calls of the guard had been cut short, and most Salrilian units were unaware of the slight leadership change. The Governor, his family, and Sirthis were hostages, and Darkk was recieving info from the sals using their own encrypted channels.

And the invasion was going beautifully. The landing troops, green as they were, were certainly eager to fight. Large-scale programs had trained over 7 million infantry for the planet-hopping campaign, and a good bit of that trooper power was coming down on the sals.

"Sector 12 reports decreased Salrilian resistance. No aid is necissary at this time."

"Roger that, I'll check back with you in 5 minutes." Darkk studied the holomap, flipping through each of the major cities. The Sals just couldn't hold urban territory propperly, and non-urban territory would be bombed into nothingness. Darkk gave a grim smile. The Sal troopers were already operating on backup-backup communications, and had no data feeds left from many major areas, including the spaceports and the governor's complex, now both overrun with human troops.

"Darkk to sector 13. Report status."

"Sals are holding ground. We'll need a bit of air support."

"Roger that." "Darkk to sector 14. Report status."

"Sals here are toasted and know it. We've begun taking prisoners."

"Good job. Don't hurt them once they give in, remember." "Darkk to sector 15. Report Status."

"Bit of a stalemate. They're in the waterworks and we can't seem to get in after them. We can't blow it up, or there's going to be a lot of nasty stuff."

Darkk smiled. It was only a matter of a few days. With the bulk of their forces on a furious hunt for Audemed, naval reinforcements would never come.

"Wait it out. They don't like to be holed up, and they really hate uncertainty." "Darkk to sector..."

------------------
"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois
Onii7/Frinkruds and his funky forums
macgamer.net

A five-pronged attack slammed into the Greccha Empire's outer worlds. Phylydion retribution was swift and furious.

"Fleet: Assume formation. Launch fighter screen. All long-range weapons fire at will. Disable and capture non-military craft; we can sort them out after the battle's over." Bedein paused briefly as he stood on the bridge of a brand-new Phylydion heavy cruiser that featured a new design incorporating some aspects of Greccha technology to give it more resilient armor. It had a more flowing, aquatic look than most Phylydion warships, and it was due to replace the old heavy cruisers and take up its place alongside the Kiojea battlecruiser as the new generation of weaponry. "Forward fighter squadrons, engage." Several dozen fighercraft sped from the main formation and engaged the small Greccha fleet at close range. The heavy cruiser's long-range cannons blasted away at the Greccha ships.

The same battle was being repeated in four other star systems. In one, it was nearly over. "Pinpoint bombardment, commence," said Garrion Retoe in his landing craft, and three battlecruisers launched cruise missiles and fired precision energy blasts that flattened ground defenses. The transport plunged into the atmosphere, firing as it twirled and spun and picking off any more targets it saw. It landed unceremoniously and Retoe and his elite heavy commando team jogged into the fray. The base was secured in minutes.

------------------
-Traek Cicion, barkeep extraordinaire
"PS: If nothing's working around here, it's because I'm laughing so hard."
-Durandal

(Post removed until I get something straightened out.)

(This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 04-07-2003).)