Sphereberrant: Rules of War Part 5

Green Reef Base

Jason Maxim felt the juddering Impact as his Silverfish VARG landed with a thump. Immediately he ran forward towards the cover of a knocked out bunker up ahead. The base was walled, mostly concrete but some grass, with reinforced looking buildings of dark carbon laid out in a grid with wide open spaces between. The Frigates had destroyed the perimeter wall for them on their run in, and now Legion forces moved forward past the neutralized outer defences. Intense fire was coming from the buildings and emplacements deeper in the base. Other VARGs and smaller infantry, mostly clad in mini bioVARGs of their own ran forward for cover in the small buildings and among the rubble of the wall ruined by their insertion.

Extending a optical probe Jason could see several enemy tanks and some kind of giant humanoid VARG sheltering in the lee of buildings ahead, spitting out rail gun fire and some kind of pinkish beams of energy that burned straight through cover. Other pink beams were spitting out from infantry positions in the heavily built base buildings, along with heavy infantry rail gun fire and missiles.

Enemy infantry and heavy, VARG like armours were moving quickly to flank his position, advancing in rushes, firing on the move.

"Leaves, this is Atlas-6. Could use some fire support down here." He raised out of his position, exposing himself monetarily to lay down fire, and properly designate the buildings he wanted. The psychokinetic shield he'd woven round himself shuddered as rounds slammed into him and he quickly began to reposition.

"Copy, shot over."

"Shot out."

"Splash over." One of the base buildings from which the heaviest fire was coming from blew apart as a conventional missile hit it, laser and coil gun fire following quickly behind. The frigate pair and their escorting fighters hurtled over, lasers blasting away at the enemy on the outbound path.

"Nice job. All units! Move up!" The legion forces surged forward, the natives popping smoke and falling back, covering one another as they fell back to secondary positions, their surviving armour firing to cover them. To Jason's left two silverfish went down, burned by the pinkish enemy weapons. Legion fire converged on the source and the giant VARG dropped back behind the building it was using for cover, the facade shredding as a dozen coil guns and particle cannons ate into it.

Legion units moved forward again, then checked as a dozen big multi-purpose launchers opened up on them from one of the wall towers. Artillery and mortar fire started to drop in on them. Jason swore as he saw an infantry squad vanish entirely under an a bursting artillery round. They were pinned under the barrage by fire from ahead.

"Concentrate fire on the tower." Jason reached out with his mind, even as his guns struck the building, feeling other legion psions doing the same, and ripped the habitation block apart, Fire gushed out as pyrokinetics added to the destruction, conventional munitions detonating inside it completing the work.

Firing died back again and the legion troops stormed forward to new cover. Then the first gunships appeared.

Pane Pan pulled her armour on hastily, yanking closed the clam shell and sealing the helmet, making sure her smart gun was well secured. The rest of her platoon were doing the same. "Alright, the command net's gone to hell up there, we'll work our way up topside and try to flank around the enemy push." Pane decided "Everyone ready?"

There were nods, then an intruder alarm blared from the bunker below, followed by the sound of rapid gunfire. "Apple-Two-One to any unit! There's something down here! We need immedate..." The transmission cut off.

Pane blinked, then frowned "Alright, new plan. We go down. Tan-Xuan, can you make that thing work?" She pointed at the big, New Mercian produced infantry mega-particle drone standing at one corner of the armoury.

"Yes sir." Tan-Xuan said earnestly.

Chiriban

Chiriban dodged left, a round detonating close enough to sting him. He landed on the native trooper, claws slicing through her armour, grabbing her gun arm with one hand and snapping it. To his surprise she didn't collapse, but instead managed to complete the movement she'd been making, her close combat blade stabbing towards him. He side stepped and then decapitated her. The body collapsed.

Behind her, her partner was still up, backpeddling as she tried to bring her gun on line, Chiriban leapt high, his arm extending like a whip, the claw smashing her helmet to one side and sending her spinning head over heels. Her body fired by reflex anyway, and Chiriban dodged to one side, knocked down by the flash of a the explosion.

Chiriban winced slightly and pulled himself up, blood dripping from several wounds. He was glad of the narrow space of the corridor. With range they might actually have hurt him. He stepped to the door of the medical unit and pulled it open.

Near Orbit

The two Frigates were still at high altitude, providing top cover for the operation. Native aircraft were starting to appear in numbers now, and the four fighters escorting them had been drawn off to a fierce dogfight lower down, attempting to stop the sudden swarm of native craft from attacking their ground forces.

The frigates lasers and coil guns spoke almost constantly, shooting at satellites that their ISRA seers designated as military. Much lower in the atmosphere, another pair of Scarabs circled the base, firing constantly at Harawayan ground positions and supporting gunships.

The ISRA operatives on all four frigates called out the warning at the same instant, giving the crews just long enough to go evasive as the hammer fell. Warning aside, the strike was unexpected, as a sudden storm of coherent X-rays lashed out at the pair. The left hand Frigate the Justice of Angels took the brunt of it, and began to lose speed, super fast atmosphere, even thin as it was at this level doing more damage. The other Scarab, Darkness of Days to Come pulled into lead position and pointed it's nose up at the attacking ship that had just jumped in on top of them.

The Concord Class cruiser Scythia shuddered as its flash fields absorbed the first salvo, lasers deflecting harmlessly off the unreal field of force. The Scarab's coil guns did better, the heavy cruiser shuddering under the pounding. Then the Scythia's gunners broke through the screen of electrokinetic jamming the Aeon ship was putting out and crimson energy linked the two vessels.

The Scarab's armour held for a moment then the coherent matter beam ripped straight through it, and it began to dive towards the sea. The Justice teleported out just ahead of the second salvo.

Frigate River of Dead Leaves

Silvia cursed as the Darkness went into its nose dive. "Raise the bow one twenty, uncase the remaining red-caps and get them in the tubes." Beside the River It's wing mate, Sea of Winter's Rising rose too, lighting its booster as it hurtled up towards the distant enemy star ship. The ravening energy guns spoke again, just missing the River's right wing.

The ISRA operative at sensors looked up "Captain, we're about to be ambushed again. A sub I think. Here it comes... Vampire Vampire!" There were sub launched missiles in the air and heading rapidly towards the two climbing frigates.

"Switch PD to the ASATs, launch red-caps at that cruiser as soon as we're in range!" Silvia called out. She felt sorry for the Legion troops on the ground now, but they'd have to survive on their own. The ship shuddered suddenly as something blasted it from another directions. A massive humanoid shape, holding a huge energy launcher was dropping past the two frigates, lighting them up even as it passed. The anti-aberrant turrets fired back at the dropping super-VARG but it's point defence picked the missiles out of the air, and lasers seemed unable to break through its shield.

"Missile away!" The weapon station called.

"Wait! Teleport us out now!" The ISRA operative yelled. The Upeo was just fast enough and the River vanished, just before one of the dropping combat frames hit the nuclear warhead it had just launched with a mega-particle beam strike which ate through the antimatter fusing, and a rather smaller than intended nuclear explosion marked the Frigate's course.

Green Reef Base

Jason cursed. The enemy were well coordinated, and well armed. They'd pulled off the Legion team's air support, and now their ground forces outside the base were launching a savage counter attack. The Legion force package had included a blocking force to interdict the enemy patrols from returning but apparently it hadn't been quite up to the job, as dozens of armoured vehicles: tanks, LAVs and walkers were pushing out of the woods, and attacking his unit from the flank. Enemy CAS was beginning to appear in numbers now.

A heavy rail gun round screamed over and struck one of the heavy Kraken VARGs supporting Jason's push, knocking it sprawling. More rounds followed, enemy vehicles charging out across the mud-flats, smoke bursting around them to cover their unit. Legion psions concentrating, repelling the smoke and the missiles and particle beams lashed out into the smoke, turning several of the APCs into pyres. Covering fire drove the Legion back and the enemy units accelerated up the bank and disgorged their infantry into cover.

"Atlas to Cronus, need you right now." Cronus was the last reserve he had, but if they didn't stop this counter attack they were finished. The second legion unit began to teleport in along the enemy flanks, VARGs dropping into cover in the deep channels that linked the mud, using them for cover as the enemy recoiled from this new threat, repositioning to avoid getting flanked. The enemy reserves began to arrive, attacking Cronus in turn... and four more of the giant VARGs dropped into the defenders positions on the base, pink beams lashing out at the legion units all across it. The fight was beginning to bog down here. Unpalatable as it was to admit it, Jason didn't think he was going to be able to take this base.

"All Atlas Elements this is Atlas-6 Move to defensive positions and prepare to rapidly extract. We can't break through here, but we can stop them from breaking in too." Jason moved his silver fish to better cover and began to fire at the incoming armoured vehicles in earnest.

Pane

Pane looked down through the two way mirror then whispered "Get that MPB in here now!" The clawed man had just torn through an entire security team and Pane had no desire to get into close combat with him. Arianne was alone in there,

"I knew you'd come." She pulled back against one wall "They can't live without their tamed demons, no matter what they say."

The clawed man didn't seem to want to talk, but suddenly surged forward. Arianne opened her mouth, far too wide for a human and spat out a bolt of power. The assassin dodged, his body shifting form to avoid the bolt but it airburst, knocking him to one side. He rose then moved forward again.

The MPB stepped into the room and Pane slaved it to her own weapon, put the sight on clawed man and fired. The rest of the team followed her, and more importantly the MPB. The assassin swung around, dodging at the last instant but he couldn't dodge the coherrent matter beam. There was a bright flash and he fell, a massive hole burned through him.

Pane kicked out the glass and dropped down, landing on the ground and aiming her payload gun forward. "Arianne?" The girl had vanished.

"I'm in the medical room. Is he dead?"

"Yeah, he's dead." Pane motioned the rest forward. She wasn't sure he was dead dead actually, but he was certainly not moving. "Watch him." she motioned Sergeant Jan to the corpse "but don't get too close."

Pane and the rest moved to the medical room door and Pane slid it open, looking into the darkness inside "Arianne?" The lights flickered on, revealing at least a dozen medical staff cocooned in silk, hanging from the ceiling. Arianne was sitting next to a pretty nurse, her mouth open, four long tentacles pushed into the woman's face, moving under the skin.

Pane's gun came up and she aimed it at the girl "Wait!" Arianne cried "I'm helping. I'll make you all strong." She smiled "Isn't that what you all want? To be more than human. I can do that for you. With a kiss, I can make you like me. I know it's different but"

That... did make sense. Pane blinked, then Tan-Xuan fired. The Round hit the girl and knocked her sideways. Pane was about to scream at her when she realized what the other had seen. At least half of the cocooned bodies were dead, and from their IR patterns, they looked partly eaten too. Her own fingers closed on the trigger reflexively and Arianne's body slammed into the wall, rounds hammering into her. "Cease fire! Cease fire! She's dead."

Tan-Xuan moved up to the nurse "she needs a medic right now." The trooper began to apply first aid as best she could.

"Yeah... good eyes Tan-Xuan." Pane began to turn then there was a bright flash and Tan-Xuan yelled. Turning she saw the blue knocked back, armour smoking, from the remains of the Nurse's body. Something fast and inhuman dropped out of the ceiling, not the clawed man, no... Pane recognized the armour. She fired off a burst and then he was on her, faster than Pane had ever seen someone move. Her close combat blade slashed across him them his hands slammed down into her armour and Pane felt a pain like she'd never felt before. Her body jerked and then blood gushed out of her armours joints on the arms. Pane collapsed over, nervous system paralyzed as she realized her arms had exploded.

Manual

The Woman's slumped over jerking as her nerves fired randomly. Manual was briefly stunned she was still alive after that, then moved over to check on the burned body of the infected medic, before turning his plasma gun on the remaining cocoons. Emma stepped from the room behind, bleeding from a gash on her head "Rest of them are neutralized too. We've got the Proteus... operative." She made the word a sneer. Manual wasn't particularly happy about it either.

"Destroy any cell samples you can find. Lora, wipe their computers." Manual knelt down beside the paralyzed trooper "We just saved your world. That aberrant." He nodded to the smoking remains across the room "She's infectious. If her cells infect you, she can control you, force your body to erupt like her, under her control. You got lucky." He rose, wincing at the long cut running down his side.

Pane glared impotently at him from the floor, and silently swore she was going to one day kill him.

Crown Hill's Defence Research

"This is all we still have?" The PSD representative looked at the gleaming containment vessel with a frown.

"Yes. Though given the reports from the rangers at Green Reef that's probably a blessing. It seems our new enemy, whoever they are, have some justification to be scarred of this stuff." Doctor Sarah Blak, lead biotech researcher adjusted her glasses. They were a bit of an affectation, but did at least allow her to leave her work at work the way additional neural mounted cognitive implants wouldn't have.

"I'd like you to make cell samples available to other bases, so research can continue even in the event of an attack here. We won't be able to keep this secret for long and we can't guarantee they don't have agents here." the PSD woman said.

"Do you think the military can defeat them next time?" Blak asked.

"That's one reason we want this research." The PSD agent frowned "If they really do come from another universe, we need to be able to get there."

Blak nodded. Haraway would have its revenge.