and they're a sixth her mass, but in the Bhutan system they patrol in groups of three. Some of these patrols include a Suppressor Class Carrier.” As she spoke the image of the three tiered ship appeared. It looked like a jagged group of misaligned triangles layered atop each other.
Captain Valent went on. Her hand unconsciously adjusting her eye patch before she jerked it away as though suddenly realizing that she was fidgeting. “These each carry a squadron of fighters, gunships, boarding vessels and heavier mission ready craft. They are not as heavily armed as their escorts and their shielding is made to repel long range attacks so we'd have them in no time if we were to get close, but they can launch as many fighters at a time as we can and most likely operate with better efficiency since the crews are most likely more seasoned and better trained than any of you. Our fighters are more powerful then theirs, better armed, but we will be outnumbered at least five to one if one of those carriers is in range. If we get lucky and we only see three destroyers, our fighters will be outnumbered three to one.”
The holographic display changed to a view of the satellite in orbit around a terraformed moon. The dark side glimmered with the lights of several cities and the traffic linking them. “The hypertransmitter is in a high orbit around the Asom moon. Most vessels stay away from it in case it has to generate an emergency departure wormhole for nearby ships. As most of you know such a wormhole appearing in the middle of an object would rip it apart so we're not going to risk the Triton by entering its effective range. The satellite is unmanned and armed only with its wormhole emitters, which are enough to cause a major problem considering it can generate several hundred micro wormholes per second. Triton will arrive at a range of ninety kilometres from the satellite, between it and the moon. The Samson will pick it up after disabling it. The Triton will be blocking defensive craft from interfering, repelling planetary weapons fire and shielding our smaller mission vessels while they defend us from anything else coming our way. Our main rail cannon batteries will be facing away from the moon, so you fighter pilots won't be without support. After the Samson has docked with the satellite we will enter hyperspace and rendezvous not far from the Bhutan system so we can pick up our fighters and get underway. More details including who you will be responsible for during this mission will be provided to you by your Chiefs and Commanders.
Before you all break up into briefing rooms I'd like to give all of you one last chance to wash out. After this you're on the hook and you'll be at the very least stuck on the ship while we take this mission on. If you speak up now there's an emergency shuttle with your name on it and you can take your chances on a nearby neutral system.”
Everyone's heads turned as three pilots near the rear of the auditorium stood and quietly left the room. They had arrived together and been chattering loudly before the Captain began the briefing and not many of the onlookers were surprised.
Alice gave the crowd a moment longer and nodded before going on. “We're in it now,” she grinned. “Triton!”
“Deploy! Dominate! Disappear!” The sound of the reply was deafening.
“Finally, we're going to do some damage,” Angela grinned at Finn.
He watched Chief Grady stand and start making his way over to them and the rest of the high ranking maintenance and engineering crew. His expression was almost grave. “Tearing the center out of their communications network will be a serious blow but I get the feeling we'll have our work cut out for us.”
The Hunted
“Three different encounters, six dead, twenty two casualties, not to mention all the inoperable bots he left behind,” reported the weary Sergeant. Her armour was scarred by close combat with one of the worst of the resistance, Alaka. The two and a half meter tall monster who wore half a ton of armour, carried a weapon made for a medium or heavy sized starfighter, and was caught flat footed just the day before, his ammunition expended. Sergeant Fiona Durges' squad was jumped while the unit was searching for him and his rebels.
He came from above, nearly tearing her entire squad to shreds with his big claws. It was a distraction. His men got away, he killed half her squad, the rest, including her were maimed. After that he got away. She watched him climb down the side of a building and leap across to a rooftop eight storeys down. Then he was gone.
That wasn't who she was tracking, the one who seemed to take what they were doing in Damshir personally. She ran her gloved hand over the deep claw marks across the breastplate of her armour as she considered the new monster. This one was different, he was quieter, practically waited until he was within a few centimetres until he disabled or killed you. All she had seen was his handiwork, the disembodied corpses. He attacked with his hands and some kind of super sharp, resilient blade.
“How, why,” her commander asked plainly as he looked over a diagram that detailed troop movements for the morning.
“Some cut to pieces, others shot up using their own rifles. A lot of them were taken out of action with improvised EMP and concussion grenades.”
“He couldn't rely on being able to rely on our weaponry because he couldn't drag whoever owned it around behind him to keep disabling the biometric safety so he used the parts to make explosives.”
“The first two attacks started when he got close enough to them to hold their hands on their weapons and force them to pull their own triggers.”
“Did you get any footage of him from their headsets?”
“I downloaded everything I could. Some was too badly damaged.”
“So, why?”
“Well, that's the easy part to figure on. Two of his targets were containment centers.”
“He likes to free slaves. How many got away?”
“Two hundred or so in the first site, over eleven hundred from the second. He took out the bots managing them with an EMP bomb and the prisoners did the rest, overtaking our men. I wanted to interfere but I was alone as per your orders.”
“Exactly. We can't spare the manpower to get him surrounded so we have to keep our eyes open. What about the other outpost?”
“A conflict was ongoing with the resistance and he managed to take a heavy weapons team from behind. It turned the tide and the rebels probably didn't even know he was there since he was six rooftops away. The bots there were overtaken by an EMP grenade made of five energy clips and this,” she tossed the head of a doll onto the badly used display table. The circuitry was visible through the breaks in its face, fused and charred.
“Improvised detonator. He has a sense of humour.”
“I couldn't keep up. At best I was twenty minutes behind any of the major instances. He's taken other soldiers and bots out. If he can't go around them to wherever he's going he disables or destroys them. I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to insist we send at least three squads after him. The cost in manpower and equipment is too high.”
“Like I said, we don't have the manpower and my request to assign specialists to his apprehension has been denied.”
“Sir-”
“Denied twice. The issue is dead. I suggest you tune into the upper command channels and activate your decryption chip. I'm putting you back in command. You're rejoining the bulk of our forces and we're moving on mount Elbrus. We have intelligence that suggests that the shield protecting the holdouts will be coming down tomorrow.”
She sighed and ran her hand down her face. The grime from the rotting, empty city and hot, dry air had coated her face even though she kept her armour sealed most of the time. She couldn't help but look around the improvised darkened command room. It was in the center of a high rise, several floors up from the lobby and it had already been under rebel attack once. The signs of that attack, broken tables, chairs, and holes melted in transparesteel windows were still all around. The attack had been repelled, but at a cost. The resistance fighters were ruthless, smart, organized and when they struck it happened fast. Victory wasn't always their goal, however. Striking hard, incurring a great cost upon allied forces and disappearing into the hollow buildings and tunnels under the streets was more common than any sustained attack. “Can I speak freely sir?”
“Go ahead.”
