Post by ingen on Aug 25, 2021 1:29:18 GMT
JUSTICARS - Marshmello (Neo)
JADE EMPIRE - Beef (Ingen)
Under the guise of international mining firms and the constant influx of travelers, tourists, and visaed workers, Enforcers of the Akyrios Brood took root. The Justicars had returned to the galactic scene after a series of skirmishes in the Veronis Cascade. The intent of the parasite was to return to relevance in this new age of disorder, where the galactic powerhouses were so divided and bickering that they could no longer mount pan-galactic military campaigns.
They would do as they had done for the decades prior; assume their place in the dark and ferment until the time was right. In this initial phase, Whitewharf was repossessed just a few individuals at a time. Miners, workers, criminals, hunters, minor officials, and various societal outcasts were disappearing without a trace. Their fate: the dark reaches of the planet’s vast subterrain, where even the most adventurous rescue crews and survey teams would hesitate delving.
The chamber was carved out of smooth stone, chiseled with intricate designs and laden with golden glyphs. Dim amber light washed over every crack and crevice in the room, accentuating the shadows cast by the large entryways and various constructed monuments. In the center of the room was a raised platform, bearing a stone pillar with chains running to its sides. Restrained to the slab of stone and chained to the ground was a Yokari; a noble, by his manner of dress. The effects of light deprivation were visible on him, being subjected to abject darkness and dim light for quite some time.
Against the long wall of the room was an ornate bench, seated behind it was a panel of hulking individuals in golden armor. Each was unmoving, distinguished by their helmets in the design of various animals; a sullen jackal, a screeching hawk, a bug-eyed toad, a fierce hound, and others. Seated above the others in the center was the Judge, adorned with the helmet of a stoic bear. The Judge had been introduced to all of the prisoners as Bomani, and the panel flanking him were his Bailiffs.
“Your accomplices were much more forthcoming,” Bomani spoke, his deep voice distorted by the speaker system of his equipment. This statement visibly disturbed the Yokari, who gritted his teeth through ragged breaths. “It is no matter. In hours I will repossess this colony and its inhabitants.
“I think…” The nobleman spoke, pausing to hear his deep breathing echo throughout the silent chamber. He looked up to the bear towering over him, both fear and hatred plastered on his face, “You may not find it so simple.”
“Your defiance is misplaced, but admirable,” Bomani calmly replied, “You will make a fine Enforcer.”
-
The Yokari grunted, chains rattling as he momentarily struggled against the restraints. Bomani remained unmoving, unmistakable from the Bailiffs as well as the statues lining the chamber.
“Your sentence will be merciful,” Bomani continued, “The others have joined us as soldiers. You shall help lead them in the coming fight.”
The noble, through all of his visible anger, was slumped forward in defeat. He was praying the light deprivation would take him first, but the dim glow was enough to stave him from death.
“You cling so tightly to the light, my ephemeral friend,” Bomani slowly stepped around the bench, and down before the Yokari. His metal boots made solid thuds under his weight, intensifying as he approached the restrained man. “Even after your impediment of this court, I shall ease you of your burden.”
STAKESBY, NIGHTFALL
The attack had commenced almost simultaneously with the advent of evening nautical twilight over the city of Stakesby. The sun was well under the horizon, with nothing beyond the ambient and artificial lights of the city providing illumination. The battle was preceded by minor seismic disturbances for a few short minutes, rattling the displays of nighttime businesses and disturbing the balance of those known to partake in the drink.
A series of demolitions across the city told its denizens this was no mining accident. A dozen fireballs consumed several city blocks, the shockwave toppling numerous buildings and shattering glass for miles. As smoke plumed into the sky and billowed into the streets, massive waves of golden-armored infantry began pouring out of these artificial ravines in a dead sprint or mounted on the sides of hovering skiffs. The initial infantry was largely uniform; hundreds of humanoids in luxurious golden plate armor, all with the heads of cats.
The mounted waves moved quickly to secure key infrastructure they had reconnoitered; they intended to disable the power grid for at least some length of time. Other forces were killing and incapacitating the city’s population as fast as their rifles would allow them, with a secondary force dragging unfortunate survivors down into the pitch-black subterrain to an unknown fate.
As near as was possible, an armor platoon emerged from their tunnel and sped towards the Governor’s complex. Two anti-air vehicles protected the column, which was centered around a set of personnel skiffs carrying squads of Enforcers. Their commander, a humanoid Justicar with the helmet of a tortoise, toting a massive maul. His new name, Ra-mei, replacing the name of his noble heritage that he now had very little recollection of.
So far they had been unimpeded, but they were trying to lure out the most drastic response they could get.
The attack was planned on a timeline; the force attacking Stakesby was the largest, with a similar but smaller contingent launching their own attack on the city of Ruswarp. As if on cue, a battle group of two golden Retribution-class battleships came out of FTL with a heading towards the world. Accompanying their arrival were two smaller groups of three vessels each, coming out of their respective warp flights at both angles perpendicular to the planet and the main battle group. These groups were comprised of the much smaller Arbiter-class Cruisers and Penance-class Frigates.
Towed in with the battle group’s Alcubierre bubble was an independent, unmanned construct; a Justicar wormhole beacon.
Their intent was to jump in system, outside of what they predicted would be the enemy’s effective battle space, and then waste no time in putting interdiction up and putting their new foes on the back foot. One of the lighter Justicar groups moved to engage to nearest Jade vessel they could find. The other positioned themselves to gain firing solutions on the city of Saltwick as well as every surrounding center of civilization they could target. Their missile bays ran hot, firing an effective fleet of independent warheads.
From his complex deep underground, Bomani monitored his various Enforcers and their progress. His arms were crossed, waiting to see how long it took for the Ingenious to respond to this crisis.
STAKESBY, GOVERNOR'S HOUSE
Alain Park, son of a Grauforst mother and Dong Wusian father, was relatively young to be a hatamoto, a middling rank in the Jade nobility. He was re-reading the latest message from Captain Byakko Whitewharf reporting on the series of unexplained disappearances. Of particular concern was Umeji Fumimaro, another minor noble and the regional director of KanshoCorp operations, a powerful and wealthy man who had simply disappeared one night, along with one of his guards and his mother-in-law.
A distant rumble made his cup of cha rattle against its saucer, and he reached out a hand absently to quiet it. There was another, deeper rumble, and he glanced up through the open balcony doors at the city beyond, and so happened to be watching as the first explosion lit the night sky.
"Shit the bed!" he exclaimed, an expression he had definitely inherited from his mother's side, springing to his feet. As he watched, more explosions rippled from downtown. His first thought was some kind of industrial accident, but even as he watched he saw a small, skiff-like vehicle roar out of the smoke and heard gunfire in the distance. Glittering figures of gold appeared on the street, and with a jolt he realised they were under attack...
IN FRONT OF THE GOVERNOR'S HOUSE
There were only fourteen marines on duty outside Park's residence. Sergeant Alonso Campos, a grizzled yokeneko, squinted at the explosions and then began snarling at his men. Two rushed inside to secure the governor, whilst Campos began arraying his men to defend the gates. Even he, however, paled a little behind his helmet visor as he saw the scale of the attack coming towards them, ducking as the first shots came his way.
Campos bellowed for bronze squad to cross the street and take cover in the canal walkway, a convenient counterscarp, since their own position in front of the gate provided little protection other than a low wall and a single pillbox. Red squad filled out these positions, his corporal racking up the T800 Graviton Lance and sweeping it across the front of the advancing attackers, pulses of rainbow light betraying the presence of deadly graviton beams which elasticised and expanded anything they touched by a small fraction, but one large enough to kill proteins and warp machinery.
Even as red squad opened fire, however, he saw Marine Narinao caught by a ripple in the air which burst with a booming sound, hurling the man off his feet and tumbling him to the ground sickeningly. The durable visor of his helmet had shivered into pieces, and even at this distance Campos could see the bleeding from the man's eyes, ears and nose. Narinao was deathly still, his head at an awkward angle, and Campos yelled at the rest of bronze squad to stay in cover. The man was clearly dead. There was a twang from bronze squad's position in the canal bed as one of the marines loosed a Kasen rocket from his bow, the arrow igniting after a few metres and arcing gracefully towards the leading skiff.
DOWNTOWN
Honjou Harukatsu, a wealthy samurai who lived mostly off a wealth of stocks and shares his parents had accumulated, was walking with his wife back from a delicious meal at an Alejandran-style pizzeria. The kids were being babysat by their nanny, and the fact that Harukatsu was sleeping with the nanny was an open secret, something that Harukatsu himself did not realise, but tonight his wife was content. She had married him for his wealth, and despite being an adulterer he was a kind husband and an attentive father, perhaps spoiling his children too much. She had convinced herself to overlook this one vice of his, but whether she could have done so for the remainder of their marriage would never be known.
They were just on the edge of the area devastated by the explosions. By the time Honjou had picked himself and Honma up, his single bodyguard was already rushing them towards their towncar, his pistol drawn and dust smearing his dark kimono. Harukatsu and his wife bundled into the rear seats, but as he watched Gotou cross around to the drivers side he saw something throw the man to the ground. Gotou dragged himself painfully upright, propping his pistol on the hood of the car and returning fire wildly, yelling for Honjou to get out of there. Honjou wriggled frantically into the driver's seat just as another shot hurled Gotou off the car and into a nearby shop window.
There was an explosion behind them and something, he didn't know what, crashed into the roof of the car, a shard of bent metal lunging forwards and impaling him in the back of the shoulder. He screamed in pain and turned to look for Honma and his mind blanked as he saw nothing but a mass of twisted metal and leather, a single foot protruding from the bottom.
Before he could take in what had happened, the door was wrenched open and a gold-armoured hand reached in, dragging him off the spike and onto the street. He screamed again before a fist sent him into merciful unconsciousness...
BARRACKS
Located next to the only spaceport in Stakesby, the barracks were a modest one-storey cluster of buildings with underground storage and shelter facilities. Approximately half of Captain Whitewharf's marines were off-duty there, with thirty more on shift and protecting the barracks and spaceport itself. A RAI Frame, Whitewharf was 'sleeping', letting his artificial brain cool off and run its essential diagnostics and maintenance much like a human, when the alarm woke him up.
Already standing, his strange face snapped to alertness. Fashioned like a tiger's face, but an oddly abstract geometric rendition, his marines nevertheless had come to trust him. He was named after Byakko, the mythical lucky white tiger, which endeared him to his men, and for the colony itself, having been assigned there at 'birth'.
Strapping on his G-BUS armour as he went, he bellowed at his marines to get up, but they needed no encouragement. Glancing outside, he saw roils of smoke from downtown and heard the radio chatter from terrified local law enforcement, first responders and civilians, as well as the gruff voice of Campos over at the Residence.
Byakko was no slouch. He knew that any surprise attack would have targeted his own position and that he had perhaps mere seconds to organise his men. In a response they had practised many times, his mechanised infantry platoons and pioneers rushed to secure the perimeter whilst his specialists and crews began to fire up their IFVs and light tanks. One of his own men launched a light drone, a metre long, for overwatch whilst his adjutant patched in the radio and camera feeds from the compound and across the city.
Sure enough, a mass of bizarre, gold-plated infantry were rushing towards them, barely a block away and stiffened by skiff transports. It bought him little joy to realise that the enemy were fragmenting their positions by diverting units to massacre civilians, but it gave him an opening. This opening was crucial given the grim news that the enemy had deployed armour and it was heading right towards Campo and the governor's residence. Unless Campo went full monke, as the saying went, the governor would be dead or captured in minutes.
"2nd platoon! Open fire! 5th move!" he bellowed, designating targets using his HUD. Accordingly, the vanguard of the enemy infantry were lathered with crystalline q-cyl bullets that burst in fiery orange-red blossoms on impact and with the cruel rainbow beams of graviton lances. As tempting as it was to counter-attack, Byakko doubted that an enemy so capable of achieving immediate and overwhelming surprise had nothing up their sleeve beyond an infantry bumrush, and so he held back, even as he heard the rumble of Balm-class light tanks ready to move. Their two multirole SAM-SSM variants were already on the move, floating into cover behind a long barracks building on their strange pink-red clouds of hardlight, communicating silently with the overhead drone as they scanned for targets.
SPACE OVER WHITEWHARF
The two ships in-system, the newer Katsumoto-class Side Of White Sliced and the older, but larger, Katana-class Full Lobster Pot, were taken entirely by surprise. The only saving grace was that the attackers had chosen to arrive outside of effective combat range, warping in before advancing towards the Side, which was closer.
Captain Nagao Tokinari called out orders, trying desperately to understand what was happening as unknown contacts flooded his sensors. He briefly considered hailing them but then his sensors officer called out plaintively that one portion of the enemy fleet was launching nuclear missiles at the planet, whilst a trio of smaller ships were making directly for them.
Genofeva Talida, his counterpart aboard the Full Lobster Pot, called him through his private console.
"Fall back towards me, draw them in range of the orbital guns. There's nothing we can do about those warheads - even our fighters couldn't catch them."
Accordingly, the Side drifted backwards, waiting until it had firing confirmation from the three distant railgun platforms. His course suddenly reversed, he lined up his spinal barrage cannon and the ship shuddered as it fired immediately upon coming into range, missiles and railgun turrets barking as they supplemented the fire directed against the Arbiter-class cruiser leading the enemy charge. Above him, the 3km long Katana cruiser loomed into view, its spinal Flame Lance firing a stream of pure supercritical-fluid blasts which, though they lacked the range of his barrage gun, were just as lethal. It too began hissing missiles into the void, whilst their combat air groups formed up in preparation for an attack run on the Penance-class frigates, should enemy fighters fail to emerge.
RUSWARP
Ruswarp, a town of barely 60,000 people, was conquered almost before fighting even began. The explosions that launched the attack wiped out a bar in which six of the single platoon protecting the town were spending their evening, whilst the remaining nine were thrown to the ground, deafened and blinded by the flames and smoke. Caught in the street, they were mown down by the huge numbers of golden warriors pouring from below, only one marine managing to make a brief stand using the pintle gun of their LAV until a blast from a passing skiff blew him apart.
Within moments, resistance was all but gone, people either trying to flee into the surrounding hills on foot or in whatever vehicle they could find, or else cowering in an attempt to hide. Here and there the odd would-be-hero or furious retinue member fought back, sometimes toppling one or two of the attackers before being overwhelmed, but within the hour the invaders had secured the town with no real losses to speak of.
SALTWICK
A larger town, nearly a city, the 180,000 inhabitants of Saltwick fared little better than their neighbours ninety kilometres away in Ruswarp. Orbital platforms and ground-based interceptor systems reaped a great toll of incoming missiles, but the volley was massive and all it took was one. That one screamed through the sky, past the florid blooms of defensive fire and thwarted warheads, to crash into the southern reaches of Saltwick, obliterating half the city in a single brutal fireball that incinerated everything in its path. Before the survivors could recover, a second warhead slipped past the now-devastated defenses, hammering the night with another inferno, and then another landed and, within a minute, the coastal valley that had once been home to Saltwick was a hellscape of radioactive flames and smoke that could be seen from Ruswarp and Stakesby....
IN FRONT OF THE GOVERNOR’S HOUSE
Faring a withering amount of fire, the lead skiff stood no chance. The thunderous engines holding the vehicle off the ground failed after the anti-armor arrow sailed straight through its front armor and the detonation of its payload. Flames blossomed as the doors and hatches were blown open by the overpressure, vehicle careening through the concrete of the road into a structure on the column’s flank. The gilded infantry who were able to bailed and recovered, now weathering the storm of return fire hailing upon them from the defenders.
The initial wave was akin to a mob, zealously advancing into the main concentration of Campos’ defense. A hundred men fanned out laterally to create a wide target display, making a dead rush to enter and share the hasty entrenchment with their enemy marines. The volleys of disciplined Jade fire yielded great effects on their individual targets, but for every cat-helmed combatant they neutralized, another pair emerged from the wall of flames behind them.
The main cannon of the second skiff was a small-bore gun. It traversed and let loose a burst of concussive warheads towards the complex’s main gate. Behind the Jade marines, the large opening was blown wide to display a straight shot to the governor’s house. Under the fire of heavy weapons, the Justicar vehicles and their weapons were at the very least temporarily disabled.
Ra-mei departed the blast door of his skiff, maul in hand, casually walking behind his sizable force engaged in fighting. He was unfazed by the myriad of corpses in the street, smoldering from the trauma to their armor as they were exposed to the outside light, nor was he bothered by the roar of cyclic weapons fire. Instead, he began barking commands and directing his subordinate Enforcers in various maneuvers.
While the abundant light force continued to engage the marine’s full frontage, dozens of Justicars were slaughtered by the minute as they succumbed to internal wounds or were rendered into dust by massive ruptures in their suits. Small teams of Enforcers maneuvered into covered and elevated positions in the structures flanking them, bringing with them crew-served grenade launchers. With little regard to safety geometries, they began to saturate their foe with high-explosives in hopes of suppressing their automatic weapons.
Ra-mei stood stalwart, silhouetted by the flames of the skiff wreckage. His arms were spread wide open to the scene before him as his soldiers flowed by, assuming his role as the architect of this fight. His eyes were locked not on the defenders, but the estate shown to him through the ruined gate. Park was his quarry, but these combatants were to be his example.
PROXIMITY OF STAKESBY SPACEPORT
Aptera the Bailiff was currently the most senior commander on the field, and as such had placed himself at the main point of friction. The spaceport housed the marine barracks according to the intelligence yielded by their interrogations, and was key infrastructure for yielding both evacuations and potential reinforcements. His initial strategy was simple; gauge the aggressiveness of the Jade response, spread them thin, and dominate the airspace with anti-air batteries.
Aptera had expected the defenders to muster quickly, and he had expected for his initial harassing forces to be repelled once the defenders assumed positions. What he hadn’t entirely anticipated was the level of enemy armor they would be able to deploy on such short notice. From his makeshift command center, made from the husk of an expropriated Jade Shinto temple, Aptera had issued new guidance for his subordinate leaders.
Another company of feline-helmed linemen rushed the barracks complex; instead of maneuvering in the open, the dozen-strong squads split into numerous files down various substreets, fighting house-to-house and street-to-street in successive bounds. Their objective was to both tie up the main contingent of marines, as well as gain a foothold wherever they could into their barracks compound by use of portable charges. For now, the combination of crew-served weapon systems and small arms fire was enough to repel the initial assault, leaving clusters of armored corpses in the street, giving off a smoky haze from their exposed wounds.
The maneuvers would appear abundantly clear to Captain Whitewharf; the Justicars were attempting to envelope and encircle the total perimeter of the compound. Their aerial assets would also be able to ascertain this was to cover the maneuver of four SPAAG platoons moving deeper into the city, all well on their way to cover the airspace of the spaceport.
Other, smaller detachments were continuing to traverse the city seemingly at random, shooting and capturing the unarmed citizens at their leisure. Aptera was hoping this would sufficiently taunt the enemy commander, or perhaps break their resolve. Either way, his main goal was to force an action and spread them thin. Perhaps they would dig in and try to outlast them in a daring defense at the barracks. Perhaps they would conduct risky maneuvers and try to round up as many survivors as they could. Perhaps they would fall for his cheap tricks, get drawn out and picked apart in the streets.
He would allow his rival to respond before sending the armor his way.
SPACE OVER WHITEWHARF
Hanos sat in the command module of the Blind Justice, the lead of the Retribution-class Battleships and the flagship of the task force. His armored was embedded into an elaborate mechanism, attaching him by extension to the machinations of his large vessel and into the operational network of the entire task force. Armor reminiscent of a proud lion, he characteristically stood patiently and awaited for opportunity presented by his quarry. Likewise, they had buttoned up and were naturally trying to lure his vessels into a point of concentration.
The minor admiral was resolved to end this quickly, lest he earn the ire of Akyrios. He listed his battleships gently onward, keeping care to keep them out of mutual engagement range as his subordinates probed the capital ships and gun platforms.
The ships were still at a considerable range, their gravitic field systems able to distort the trajectories of incoming projectiles to avoid catastrophic hits. The group engaged with the Side began to fan out laterally, sortieing out interceptor wings from their hangars and an array of long-range Decadizing Torpedos for them to escort. The second harassing group maneuvered into long range contact, instead making a move directly towards the planet in hopes of forcing a response.
Hanos was no fool. He knew that even with a numerical advantage that a bottled-up enemy could absolutely floor his battle group. The gun platforms concerned him more than the enemy commanders, their assets concerning him more than their possible decisions in his conceit.
IN FRONT OF THE GOVERNOR'S HOUSE
Things started well, with the lead enemy vehicle detonating spectacularly and crashing to a fiery halt well ahead of them, whilst gold-armoured bodies began to pile up on the floor, but it was almost immediately clear that the defenders were completely outmatched. Campo knew that if he left his men in their positions they would be overrun within moments, but trying to pull back in the face of such numbers would equally result in disaster, and where would they go to?
His momentary dilemma was solved for him when several larger figures set up a grenade launcher with a direct line of sight into the canal bed. Campos hauled his gun over and sent a burst towards the window, but it barely made the enemy flinch, and before he could direct anything heavier against the launcher it had barked its own reply out, a tracking line of explosions tearing towards and then through bronze squad's position. There were screams, and then silence from bronze squad as the enemy began to advance, threatening to occupy the ditch themselves.
"Fuck! Pop smoke and fall back!" he yelled over the din to his remaining six men. One young marine, a nervous man from south Neusattar, ran early, silhouetting himself in the ruined gates and getting cut down for his trouble. With a snarl Campos threw his own firefly grenade, the immediate and spectacular firework-style plume of smoke, chaff and wild electronic signals blinding visuals, thermals and even radar momentarily.
The rest of the survivors straggled back, and through the smoke Campos heard Marine Sudaka yelling in frustration - obviously not all of bronze squad had been killed by the grenades, but Sudaka quickly went quiet, whether killed or captured Campos had no idea. Another marine died somewhere in the smoke, but the survivors ran for the residence, Campos arming the gate's last defense as he went - a row of directional combination AP-HE mines across the entryway. Fucking alien bastards...
ALAIN PARK
Park watched through a gap in the panels of his balcony, peering with one eye in horror at the display below. He could see quite clearly what was happening as the left flank of the marines was soaked in explosive fire, before the survivors fled through the gates under cover of a smoke grenade, rushing along the driveway towards his residence, casting crazy shadows from the lanterns either side of the driveway.
Beyond, large swathes of the city had fallen dark, lit only by the fires of wrecked buildings, destroyed vehicles and gunfire. In the distance he could see the spaceport, still lit, with civilians streaming towards it from every angle. Several small craft had already taken off, and as he watched a little freighter rose from its berth, before being struck by a missile from below and screaming back down to the ground to plough an explosive furrow through the warehouse district, a giant bloom of flame marking its final resting place.
The two marines who had come back to the residence tugged at his sleeve. "Come on sir! We have to go!" insisted one, taking a firm grip of his forearm and pulling him away. They stumbled back through the building, down into the cellar where an emergency tunnel led past the compound walls and out into an alleyway a block east.
CAPTAIN WHITEWHARF
The initial assault had been bloodily repelled, leaving enemy dead strewn in front of their positions, but the marines had suffered too. He had already lost half a dozen killed and many of his men were walking wounded. Worse, the enemy were digging in uncomfortably close, keeping up the pressure and refusing to allow him breathing room. A breach charge blew a hole in one of the barrack walls that formed the exterior wall of the compound, gold-plated soldiers flooding in, and only a quick reaction by one of his T800 operators sealed the gap, killing two of them and crippling a third before the attackers realised the hole had been sighted in by a weapon that could pass through cover.
Another breaching charge blew in one corner of the compound, attackers swarming in and engaging in a bloody battle with his flat-footed troops, costing more lives he could not afford before they were driven back by a pioneer who drove his hoverbike into the breach, fixed guns blazing whilst he used his AA-42 like a lance, wheeling repeatedly until he was knocked off his bike and killed, the engine destabilising and shattering itself forcefully, toppling more of the wall to make a low barricade that was enough to trip any attacker.
Overhead, a missile shot down a civilian freighter. His combat drone quickly identified several SPAAG positions and, at a signal, the two Balm platforms fired a volley of eight atlatl missiles which glid quietly into the sky before orienting and then boosting down for top-kill strikes against the enemy artillery.
"Sir!" yelled one of his lieutenants, back from setting up a firing position facing the breach in which the biker had died, "shouldn't we fucking do something? Our people are getting butchered out there!"
Byakko recognised the distress in the mans voice but shook his head. "If we give up the spaceport, everyone on this planet is dead. We hold this position as long as we can, then we're out of here. Understand?!"
IN THE SKIES ABOVE
The enemy fanned out, slowly closing the range, and it seemed like they were using systems similar to the TILT generators to deflect long range shots. The cloud of Jade missiles was rapidly approaching the enemy position, and their onboard computers re-evaluated as the flotilla of enemy missiles and fighters emerged. The small interceptor missiles reoriented, arcing in fresh attack vectors to cluster against the enemy interceptors themselves.
The IJN fighter complement was 32 strong, with a pair of corvettes as back-up, and it began to advance cautiously against one flank, tracking the enemy frigate on that side as it got further away from its group and from the enemy formation as a whole, whilst behind them the Side and Full moved into a column formation and began to advance.
IN FRONT OF THE GOVERNOR’S HOUSE
The grenadiers offered a gratuitous shower of explosives to the defenders for their efforts, traversing their position several times for good measure. The barrage was merciless, even catching some of their more eager grunts in the casualty radius. As suddenly as they began, a brief lull filled the air as the gunners ceased to observe their effects. They optics were met with the disorienting display from the firefly grenade, giving the Jade marines enough of a reprieve to slip out unimpeded.
They watched as the first wave of Justicar infantry descended into the trench, disappearing in the smoke. The defenders had appeared to be in a route. The vanguard found little more than mangled and dismembered bodies, either impacts from their concussive warheads or suffering massive burns and grievous wounds from grenades. That was before the pointman was struck by a ruined helmet, thrown with hostile intent and a powerful cry from Marine Sudaka who was slumped against the far side of the canal. Their wounds were great; glass from their visor firmly embedded in the flesh of their face and open lacerations to the torso running copious amounts of blood onto their white breastplate.
Like a cornered hound, Sudaka lashed out with a hastily drawn shortsword. The blade found its home in between the plates of the nearest Justicar, blood painting a wide arc as it was ripped from the wound and sending the grunt to the ground. Teeth gritted through the pain, Sudaka lunged forward in a race against the rifles swinging their way. In the struggle, Sudaka was able to dispatch two more before being pummeled by a pair of rounds to the chest. Their back burst in a massive exit wound before their corpse was unceremoniously tossed against the wall. With Sudaka slumped against the concrete, the first Justicar victory was solidified.
Ra-mei simply walked past the road towards the gate, passing the defensive position unopposed. His underlings still rushed by, looking to catch the marines in a pursuit as the enforcers mopped up any survivors with their Executioner’s Hammer. For a moment, Ra-mei thought he could see a marine looking back his way before disappearing into the governor’s estate. His observation was cut short as the vanguard tripped the mines at the gate.
Ra-mei was knocked on his back and tossed rearward, the gilded sheen being scorched off his armor leaving it a filthy bronze. His vanguard, however, were blown to pieces and shredded by thousands of tiny armor-piercing projectiles in a wide arc. The Enforcer shot to his feet, enraged by the trap; enraged that a group of about ten riflemen were giving him a run for his money right now. No matter, he bitterly thought to himself. He was hoping to walk into the governor’s estate unscathed, but this would have to do. He motioned to his grenadiers, pointing ahead with two fingers.
The crew-served turrets began conducting searching fires, opening up once again at a rapid rate and creeping their barrage up the hill and towards the large compound. The final platoon of the vanguard infantry company made its way into the courtyard under the cover of these fires, and the previously halted skiffs of his convoy began their movement once again to bypass and circumnavigate the complex. Ra-mei hopped and latched onto the side of the rear skiff with one hand; his goal, to find the escapees himself.
PROXIMITY OF STAKESBY SPACEPORT
The sapper teams were transitioning from a dead rush to conducting hit-and-run feints; the Enforcers pushing the attack had realized very quickly that the defenders were very adaptive, and their compound was very defensible. Teams were setting and detonating breaching charges, before running off without even attempting to gain a foothold in some locations. Still, the T800 gunners were making light work of their forward teams, seemingly killing entry teams right in their tracks.
The SPAAG platoons had been blowing both through and alongside the civilian evacuation groups, the dismounts taking potshots as effectively as the could as they moved into positions. Most of the populous city was still alive and kicking, making a mad dash to the spaceport.
The Justicar SPAAG platoon nearest to the barracks was rendered combat ineffective in short order; they were the only ones that had began shooting and filling the airspace with a bounty of loitering munitions. The operator in the command vehicle barely had the time to program the loitering missiles overhead before he even realized a surface-to-surface missile was on its way to kill him in moments. Three of the four SPAAGs were destroyed in spectacular fountains of fire, a fourth suffered a mobility kill after its overhead was struck by a pair of atlatl missiles which pinned the hovercraft under heavy debris.
Aptera was impressed that his rival commander had not sallied his troops out of the compound, instead doubling down at the barracks with their SAM-SSM platforms that could cause him problems regardless of their position. His next move would be to deny his opponent their fortifications.
An armor platoon split into two pair of hovertanks were maneuvering to the marine barracks to attack on different fronts. The tanks moved under cover of the distraction from the sapper teams, using buildings as defilade and careful not to expose themselves for more than a moment. Once the tanks were in fighting range and visual contact of the walls, they would slip out of cover, take a shot with their main guns, and disappear yet again.
SPACE ABOVE WHITEWHARD
Hanos grew anxious as his battlespace became complicated, ordering the second harassing group to quickly close on the enemy and moving his own pair of battleships forward. The torpedo bays of each of his vessels slugged volleys of conventional guided nuclear munition towards the second IJN vessel and the orbital defense platforms.
The axial coilguns of his battleships fired once the missiles and interceptor waves were beginning to mesh and pile up; the main guns fired warheads at a fraction of the speed of light; two-stage ammunition with the frangible Decadizing Particulate and the bursting mechanism. Hanos’ first target were the stations, in hopes of demoralizing the foe and rushing the captains into a panic.
The Justicar interceptors from the first group operated in pairs; ten pairs moved as the vanguard in hopes of running through the IJN fighters with no mind to deliver their payloads, the other ten pairs peeling back to intercept the oncoming craft and projectiles. Justicar interceptors were not impressive vehicles, the initial engagement yielding heavy effects on the defending complement. Those on the offense honed in on the oncoming corvettes, letting their payloads loose and continuing on to the Katsumoto-class without observing their effects.
The second harassing group let loose their own forty-fighter complement, mirroring this exact maneuver. It was at this time that Hanos observed freighters breaking orbit; civilian craft were already getting loose this early on in their attack. He scoffed; it was no matter, he would let the runners escape for now.
GOVERNOR'S RESIDENCE
Campos and his men continued their headlong flight, bracketed and hounded by grenades. Forced to avoid heading directly to the residence, which stood on higher ground and was visible from outside the compound, they instead hooked left around the building. By the time they came level with it, the enemy barrage had already reached the building and was tearing down the beautiful wooden framework and glass shoji walls, and so they carried on, continuing left towards the eastern wall. A second firefly grenade served to cover them as they hopped the wall, but even then the enemy caught them, battering them with more explosives. Bundling over the wall, Marine Lafreniere was badly injured, his leg ripped by shrapnel. The battered quintet of survivors struggled into an alleyway, intent now on simply making it to the airport...
THREE BLOCKS NORTH
Just a short distance away, the two marines eased a door open and cautiously crept up the steps to street level. The way seemed clear, and they waved Alain forwards, one marine covering the other two as they crossed the wide two-lane roadway. Alain was almost exactly halfway across when the roar of engines swelled and a glittering skiff turned the corner perhaps 50 yards away from them.
Marine Hitaki swore, immediately squeezing off a burst of 10mm q-cyl at the skiff, but it would do little more than scratch the paint. He hoped more to hammer the viewport and give the driver pause, even for a second. Marine Ishido grabbed Park's arm and half-tugged, half-threw him towards the uncertain safety of the next street, before taking position at the corner and firing his own weapon towards the skiff. He noticed, bizarrely, a giant golden figure with the head of a turtle, of all things, riding desant, hanging by one hand from the side of the skiff, a huge maul or hammer in its other fist...
STAKESBY AIRPORT
Byakko listened with satisfaction as the thunderous booms of landing munitions heralded the deaths of the first enemy SPAAG contacts, confirmed moments later by his surveillance drone. He gave a greenlight signal and three more vessels took off, one large freighter crammed to the gills with refugees, and two smaller private shuttles that had similarly taken as many aboard as they could. Behind him, there was still a small crowd waiting to escape, and two of his pioneers were working on breaking the security of other vessels lying around whose owners had not yet shown up, and were likely never to reclaim their vehicles.
They had advance warning of the enemy tanks' arrival, but that didn't do anything to actually stop their barrage. By sheer bad luck, the first shot overpenetrated, punching through the stone wall without detonating, ripping through a half-empty storage hut filled with maintenance gear, and crashing into the hull of one of the SAM-SSM platforms. The hull buckled, stress pressure tearing the far flank of the vehicle apart and killing the commander immediately, spinning it wildly as it crashed to the floor. The gunner, shellshocked and concussed, struggled out of the tophatch and was dragged rudely to safety by a nearby marine.
Byakko cursed. He wanted his light tanks as a strategic reserve, to cover their own escape once they had gotten as many civilians away as possible, but the enemy commander was laying on the pressure and he knew he was going to have to commit soon. He called out an order and his anti-tank specialists, equipped with folding compound bows, took a moment to orient through the surveillance drone and then loosed a volley of Kasen munitions high into the night air. The sleek arrows hissed quietly into the sky, waiting a second as they began to tumble before firing their rockets and falling in a lethal hail on one of the tank pairs, accelerating to kill velocity as their warheads reached for the enemy armour
Relief came unexpectedly, however. The flow of civilians was beginning to ebb, hundreds having made it to the aiport whilst thousands were already dead or captured at the hands of these strange, aureate invaders. Many of the approaches to the airport were now cut off by the enemy, and only those civilians with the presence of mind, stamina and luck to travel further east and then approach the airport obliquely had any real chance of getting by.
Save for the Huoming Monks. There had been a couple of Temples on Whitewharf, and one was a Temple of the Precept of the Crane. The warrior-monks of the Crane Precept had found their small Temple neglected in the initial assault, but the largest Temple, that of the Temple of Grace, had been occupied by the enemy and that could not stand.
A score of them, some already wounded, came flowing from the night to fall on Aptera's command post, having left several of their own dead behind on the streets. Unlike the Jade marines, who fought with guns and bombs, the monks fought with the cruel weapons of the peasantry. Punching daggers, their blades laced with platinum, bo-staffs covered in platinum runes, and tonfa weighted with knobs of platinum. All designed to channel idshii, the Jade understanding of magic. Rushing forwards almost silently in their simple orange-yellow cloth garb, they sprang for the defenders, leaping supernatural distances and moving like lighting. The tiny group attacked with abandon, determined to clear these invaders from their holy spaces or die trying.
SPACE ABOUT WHITEWHARF
The orbital platforms began to call out warnings as the volleys began to target them directly. Platform Three took a direct hit, the decadizing warhead shuddering an entire section of its ring assembly apart, hurling debris and crew out into the cold embrace. Almost immediately, the station lost control and began to slip back down towards the surface, a plaintive mayday signal going out as the surviving crew struggled against the rising G forces to make it towards the two evac shuttles aboard.
Platforms One and Two, targeted by lesser missiles, had more time to shoot them down, but even still Platform One suffered a hit to its main gun assembly that forced the commander to cease firing whilst engineering crews spent precious minutes they did not have trying to repair the damage.
Talida saw the enemy belatedly try and reinforce, their two battleships and second light group rushing towards the battlespace, but now was the time to execute kime-saki.
The Side lurched forwards, suddenly turning its railguns on the incoming enemy fighters even as its BDP and TILT systems struggled to throw off the incoming warheads which picked away at its armour plating, punching holes here and there with successive hits. Huge blasts of flak and flechette clawed at the attacking fighters, even as the two corvettes roared into a sudden counter-attack, their bigger hulls and heavier guns thumping at the attackers.
Through the maelstrom came the Full, the Flame Lance firing huge gut-ripping blasts from its prow at the enemy cruiser, its turrets whipping malevolently at the frigates either side. The Full showed no signs of stopping and, as it ranged up, its short-range gyaku-tanken dual turret, designed to cut through hulls so close you could reach out and touch the paint, hurled a pair of argent blue beams that drew a line between itself and the Arbiter's bridge.
The fighters screamed into the attack simultaneously, ripping through the remains of the defensive cordon and unleashing a volley of missiles at the frigate on the Arbiter's flank. They were determined to make the most of the window the Side was giving them with its sacrifice, even as in the distance they saw fires winking along its hull.
Far off, the wink of Slipgate and hyperdrive activations over the planet told of fleeing civilians, though their number was pitifully few...
GOVERNOR’S RESIDENCE
Shortly afterwards, the hail of fire stopped and the second Justicar infantry company in line completed their objective, seizing the governor’s residence and the surrounding area. All individuals who had been unable or too fearful to evacuate were routinely captured; the Justicars away from the fighting at the airport knew the resistance was over and rounded up survivors at their leisure with only the necessary bloodshed to do so. Soon after, photon absorbers were deployed to the front to rob the area of light entirely, in gradually reaching domes.
With no guidance from field commanders to conduct a pursuit, Campos’ retreat was unimpeded for now.
ALAIN PARK
Ra-mei had found his quarry, not intending to fail in his endeavor of bringing the purported custodian of this world to the court where he was tried. Still, his target ran, or rather, was thrown even further from his grasp. He could see the glistening of the two firing weapons as impacts flashed in a cascade on the front of his vehicle. The driver only wavered for a moment, Ra-mei holding on to the swaying vehicle with ease. The hovercraft came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road, cutting the marines off from one another on either end. One was stranded at the exit of the tunnel with the skiff blocking his line of sight, the other was now virtually in arm’s reach of the Enforcer.
Not wasting even a single second, the Justicar gracefully leapt from the vehicle and was upon Marine Ishido. The marine fell back onto muscle-memory and trained drills, placing a controlled pair of 10mm q-cyl with perfect shot placement reminiscent of his skill. Had it been any other opponent, any other day, this would have been sufficient to save his life. Marine Ishido barely had time to see the ineffectual impacts from his AA-42 before a hunk of metal and a subsequent shockwave devastated his internal organs. The Enforcer’s maul had struck Marine Ishido center-mass in response, the visible blast front the impact sending him flying.
Ra-mei was in a dead sprint after Park before the Jade Marine hit the ground. He paid no mind to the other rifleman across the street; if he chose to pursue the Justicar it would make no difference. Alain Park had made it an impressive distance considering what was chasing him, but it was a short inevitability that Ra-mei had closed the gap and secured an arm around his neck in an aggressive choke.
“Alain Park, your men have fought admirably,” Ra-mei stood calmly in contrast to the man who was struggling in his grasp, “But it is over."
TEMPLE OF GRACE
He had spent his entire existence as a field commander, savoring the conduct of countless operations and priding himself on his tactical mastery. Aptera crossed his arms, feeling content to control the battlespace and force it to its culminating point yet again. His rival commander was certainly fierce, but Aptera was smugly certain that he had them in checkmate from the very start. He took just one more moment to savor the situation before issuing the order to end it, looking at the video feed of the crumbling walls of the barracks compound, ripe to be assaulted and taken. Perhaps, he mused, he would be able to capture his rival and create another Enforcer to serve him.
The Bailiff put his hand up, signaling the attention of his communication specialist. “Tell Kashto it is-“
The sounds of close quarters battle made him spin about in surprise, silent out of shock. He watched as an ensemble of hermits with crude weapons weightlessly leapt about and began savagely beating the soldiers of his headquarters, taken aback as he watched what appeared to be mundane sticks shatter the iridescent armor worn by Justicar infantry or likewise split through it like warm butter with platinum knives. Once Aptera was finished with shock, he moved on to blinding rage and failed to issue his original order.
How had his security element been bypassed by men in rags who were hardly armed? His men would pay dearly for their incompetence if they were unfortunate enough to have survived the monks. Unfortunately, the personnel of his headquarters were caught flat-footed, as well as not being properly armed for close-quarters combat. Those who were armed were able to dispatch several of the robed men with their rifles but were swiftly bludgeoned or gutted by the martial artists, leaving the Justicars in smoking husks.
Aptera, like most Bailiffs, was a hulking figure; he personally stood seven feet tall. His weapons were his armored fists, now active to deliver devastating shockwaves upon impact. Through their violence of action and the quick melee, the Huoming Monks had miraculously slain the majority of his command staff at great expense. One leapt at him with a great cry, already bloodied. The Bailiff responded with an uppercut so fast it was hardly visible, sending the monk to the ceiling in pieces.
Bravado coursed through his veins as he drew blood, feeling invincible as he was rushed by the remaining quartet of warriors. His overconfidence cost him dearly. Aptera made quick work of his next two opponents, but this had distracted him long enough to lose the use of an arm to a punching dagger. He desperately lashed out as a staff methodically disfigured his lower body. The Bailiff was in disbelief; the last emotion he would feel before a punching dagger exposed his bare head to the light.
BARRACKS
Minutes passed, communications seemed to be down, and there was confusion among the leadership. The feints had stopped being conducted, the tanks had stopped taking shots of opportunity, the SPAAGs had stopped maneuvering; the Jade Marines were being afforded a window to recuperate. Kashto knew something was not right, and he was going to have to decide in lieu of Aptera’s blessing; dreading the reprisal he would certainly face later.
Kashto’s thoughts were punctuated by the loss of two tanks to easy shots, causing him immediate alarm. Just a short stall had immediately cost him half of his armor assets, popped wide open like a fireworks display seen far and wide. Desperate not to sustain more losses sitting down and end up on the rear foot, Kashto immediately ordered the assault.
The other tank section immediately unmasked from their covered position and began hammering the fortifications to create breach points.
The Justicar infantry all maneuvered and massed to the breach created by the cannons, in order to assault with their main force into the compound and displace them once and for all. The remaining infantry company had wised up, not simply using a rush tactic, but instead moving under the cover of the tank’s main guns and automatic weapons to assault through and begin seizing the compound.
The only issue now was time. The original assault planned for two breach points; with the loss of the tanks, the infantry now had to all move to the single breach. The defenders had bought precious minutes, much to Kashto’s chagrin.
SPACE ABOVE WHITEWHARF
“Two! Just two ships!” Hanos cursed aloud. He was astounded and had lost faith in all of his subordinate commanders that this fight wasn’t already over given their stark numerical advantage. Their strike craft had gotten absolutely dominated and their interceptors bypassed; he watched on an enhanced display as the Arbiter-class was turned into shiny dust after a series of nuclear fireballs ripped it apart. The initial harassing group was not faring well and their destruction at this point was inevitable upon examination of the heavy damage that the frigates had sustained; they were not intended for a stand-up fight and had gotten locked into a direct engagement.
Out of frustration, Hanos ignored the incoming communications from his incompetent subordinates. He wanted this done, and he was resolved to do it himself. The engines went to full burn as he pushed the Blind Justice into a more optimal engagement range, now focusing the fire from their main guns to the IJN’s pair of capital ship. The other Justicar battleship followed in trace, lagging behind from the breakdown in communication.
The weapons crews went into overdrive, manually overriding the swiftly overheating weapon systems has they sent massive volleys of nuclear torpedoes and decadizing warheads to adjust their course to the dangerous vessels.
The Beef (Ingen) — 21/08/2021
ALAIN PARK
Hitaki couldn't see past the skiff, but he heard the shots, the impact and then saw Ishido's body crash to the ground through the slim gap between the skiff and the ground. He froze; his gunspear was useless against the skiff, as were his frag grenades, and even if he could take on the hulking figure beyond it he knew the skiff would cut him to pieces immediately.
Frozen by indecision, he watched as Ra-Mai picked up the governor, who struggled momentarily before realising he was vastly outmatched.
"Who in the Empress' name are you?!" gasped Park, "what....what do you want from us?!"
TEMPLE OF GRACE
Hori, the most senior monk left alive, wiped blood from his forehead and winced, the pain in his broken arm finally catching up to him. He glanced around at the half-dozen brothers and sisters who had survived the onslaught, then down at the corpse of Aptera, surrounded by dead Crane warrior-monks.
After a few deep breaths, he turned to Kazato, a young monk in training. She had a cruel-looking cut on one thigh, her robes rent open, but was still clutching her bo staff with a grim determination.
"Sister, you must go to the spaceport. Tell the commander there what we have seen, tell them to go."
Kazato took a breath as if to protest, but a raised eyebrow from Hori stilled her. She bowed her head, pressing her fists against her palm. With a tearful look at her brothers and sisters in faith, she turned to leave, limping on her staff. Hori watched her go.
"We cannot let the enemy hold this place. Let us burn it."
The warrior-monks set about breaking furniture, tearing clothing and piling it, lighting fires in the corner of the beautiful temple and fanning the flames before staggering out into the courtyard to await the inevitable as fresh Justicar warriors approached them...
BARRACKS
The enemy were milling, their attack's impetus faltering, but then the enemy tanks rolled forwards and unleashed a volley, even as the battered infantry surged towards the front gates, reinforced by fresh soldiers. The trickle of civilians had faded almost to nothing, and one of Byakko's lieutenants had just told him that a marine from 5th platoon had radioed in to report that the governor had been captured by the enemy.
He made an executive decision. Bellowing orders, he watched as the remaining missile Balm moved into position, its missile racks emptied, opening up a punishing fire with its 12.7mm railgun as it drew fire from the enemy. Using its appearance as cover, the two light tanks surged forwards on their clouds of rosy hardlight, aiming their Noroi guns and opening fire too.
The rest of the surviving marines began to fall back, depleted squad by depleted squad, towards the interior of the spaceport where a single Kankyo-class IV dropship sat nestled, already loaded with desperate civilians. To the south, four battered marines arrived, firing the occasional shots behind them as if pursued.
The dropship, small in space, was colossal to those on the ground. Two hundred metres long, it bristled with BDP mounts that were already firing to pick off the odd munition which screamed towards them. Several boarding ramps along the hull were extended, the last few people staggering up them even as flames began to boil up along the edges of the airport.
SPACE
Captain Tokinari's voice came in crackling over the comms, difficult to hear over the yells and alert sirens that were ringing through his bridge.
"Captain Talida, I am sorry to report significant damage has been sustained. I am issuing an order to abandon ship. I will remain on the bridge to co-ordinate covering fire." he said matter-of-factly, even as his ship shuddered beneath him.
Talida, watching the burning Side Of White Sliced through a viewscreen, bit down a response. She knew Tokinari had been quietly spiralling ever since the Side had been involved in the Bombardment of Hornqvist, and it seemed that this was the chance at oblivion he had been hoping for. She refused to sully his decision, and so replied with a simple affirmative.
Ahead of her, the two enemy frigates were also floating wrecks, burning in a dozen places under her guns whilst the enemy cruiser had shattered into cosmic particulate. The Full Lobster Pot was also damaged, one of its heavy turrets offline and its port flank slowly suffering as more and more bulkheads succumbed to a spreading structural failure, but the old cruiser was still in the fight. Turning her course towards the planet, she ordered the ship to rotate along its x-axis, presenting the less-damaged starboard flank to the enemy as it made a run towards the planet, hoping to cover the remaining evacuation.
The remains of the fighter wing, along with a pitiful handful of shuttles from the dying Side, formed up, some coming in to dock, putting the ruins of the first enemy combat group behind them. The Side was still firing sporadically, its guns slaved clumsily to the bridge. She offered Tokinari a silent salute as the frigate died....
ALAIN PARK
“We are the rightful custodians of this world,” Ra-mei stated plainly, unaffected by the nobleman’s momentary throes, “And you will help us retain it.”
The Enforcer rested the sizable mallet upon his shoulder, dragging Park along with him towards the skiff. The blast doors on both sides of the thick hovercraft cracked open, before quickly sliding rearward to give Hitaki a clear line of sight to the captured governor, the Enforcer holding him, and a team of Justicar riflemen at the ready. They made a decision for the hesitant Hitaki, saturating his silhouette with a fully-automatic barrage of concussive rounds.
Ra-mei stepped aboard the craft with Park in tow. Once they were off, they needed to move swift to initiate the chain of events towards a more grandiose maneuver. Alain Park would face Bomani, the Judge who would serve as the true retainer of Whitewharf.
BARRACKS
Kashto grew frustrated from his fruitless attempts at contacting his headquarters, deciding to seize initiative. He had always thought Aptera was rather detached and suffered from a bloated ego; something he privately derided as he always felt the friction as a younger frontline commander. Aptera’s history was certainly impressive, but riding on the confidence of decades-old victories was certain to be his downfall.
The Enforcer was in the assault position with some of his most forward elements; kneeling among an array of his subordinate leaders huddle around him using the destroyed husk of a golden skiff as cover. Their armor was not the pristine sheen it held just hours prior, displaying the rigors and tribulations that the troops had faced against the well-equipped defenders thus far. The superheated fluids had melted down some of their plating, some had chunks blown off via ricochet or fragmented projectiles, and others were rent blackened from close contact with explosive ordnance.
Kashto knew the infantry currently flowing through the breach were probably looking much worse than these unit leaders, and resolved to end this quickly than lose another company at the focal point.
“Once the first gun is through the breach, they will displace by echelon,” The commander pointed at the holographic display on the paved street in the middle of his huddle, showing various friendly and enemy elements maneuvering, “The vanguard will bypass their armor and establish firing positions and pursue by fire. Their escape craft will shred us in the open; stay masked and hit them with every heavy weapon we can get to the edge of the spaceport.”
There was a clank as Kashto pounded an armored glove to his breastplate. The leaders all reciprocated and sprinted off to rejoin the assault.
The first squad through the breach had sustained heavy casualties once met by the Ingen armor, them and their relief forced to hastily crawl under the exchange of heavy weapons to the next covered position in the compound. The next squad through the fatal entryway employed photon-absorption grenades, masking their movement after a burst created a wall of opaque, imperceptible blackness to disorient the wall of incoming fire. Squad after squad flowed through the breach, gaining a foothold and travelling in various directions. They chased the displacing marines all the way to the airfield, sustaining minor casualties along the way.
The engagement from the vehicles was certain to be a swiftly deadly one; a fight between tanks in close-quarters-battle was about who was quickest on the draw. Among the smoke, fire, and chaos, one Justicar tank was catastrophically killed after sending off a pair of Decadizing rounds from its main canon. The two-stage weapon was a match made in heaven for any complex or segmented armor, the miniscule particulate built to embed and convert matter into a weak fungus to be crumbled by the secondary white flash.
After the first wave of squads assaulted through and gained a foothold past the crumbling walls of the compound, the second wave attempted to encircle and ambush the vehicles with potent shaped charges via crafty infantrymen. Under this cover, the main effort rolled through.
Conducting their bypass, the main effort comprised of heavy weapons teams rushed to line the rubble on the edge of the spaceport. Their target was before them; the last of the stragglers rushing to their colossal escape craft. Rocketeers and grenadiers took moments to establish their hasty firing positions, quickly going hot to send volleys of projectiles from various directions.
Some of the teams in softer positions were blown away quickly by the turrets on the shuttle, simply being erased by the scale of the weapons in comparison. They watched some of the rockets make it most of the way, only to get detonated mid-flight by the point defense arrays. Still, the rate of fire did not falter.
SPACE
Hanos had lost his temperament, and the battlegroup’s second in command could tell after repeated hails were retorted with a transmission of painfully simple orders; attack the enemy’s remaining vessel. An entire fighter wing had been lost, along with its parent vessel detachment. After losing three capital ships, Hanos had maneuvered his pair of massive battleships into the range of the enemy’s more deadly weapons.
The volatile commander was in turn offered a well-placed slug from the remaining station’s mass drivers. The projectile created a new trench as it tore along the top edge of the battleship from front to rear. The sympathetic detonation of warheads rattled along the now-open compartments along the top of the vessel in a dazzling display of lights, rendering the hundreds of vented individuals and vast tons of metal into nothingness. The defense platform’s lucky round had not spared the bridge, unceremoniously abbreviating Hanos’ existence.
The damage was major, but the Blind Justice was still in the fight with live engines, a stable reactor, and many other weapon systems to bare. The second battleship in line was the Deference to Power, and the commander, Sudi, wasted no time to have her subordinates slave the Blind Justice to her bridge crew. The Valkarian convert was animalistically hunched over the bridge from her vantage position, watching her crew frantically continue the fight.
Her plan was simple; the second harassing group was to focus their efforts on incapacitating the second station and allow the escapees to slip by unscathed. She continued the battleships on a chase of the Full Lobster Pot, but gave them a brief reprieve from the merciless exchange of ordnance. They did so; no escape craft, freighters, shuttles, or otherwise were engaged after she issued the order.
-
“Send them a message,” Sudi’s aged voice was heard over the internal communication of the bridge staff, her communications specialist offering undivided attention as they transcribed her will, “Offer the captain surrender, with a guarantee of safety and fair treatment of every soul aboard their vessel. If they stall, we will provide no quarter and pursue the remaining evacuation craft.”
PARK
Park saw out of the corner of his eye the fate of Marine Hitaki, thrown back bloodily down the stairwell to the escape tunnel, his last hope of salvation gone. Desperately, he tried to activate his Holo, but it flickered briefly with NO SIGNAL before Ra-mei brusquely yanked the golden rings from his fingers, cutting off the light.
"You've made a terrible mistake," gasped Park. "A terrible mistake."
BARRACKS
Sergeant Kerenos never registered the round that killed him and his gunner. The decadizing rounds, yet again, proved absolutely lethal against armour that would have stopped a half dozen lesser rounds, shattering it in a bizarre flash of fungal blaze, detonating the ammo rack and sending a plume of argent ruddy-orange flame into the night.
The other light tank hummed aside, moving backwards towards the lander, using its main gun to suppress and disrupt any enemy infantry clusters that rushed too far forwards, buying the scrambling infantry time to escape even as the last SAM platform, juking wildly as it strafed with its coilgun, was swamped by enemy infantry wielding anti-armour weaponry. It too detonated, although less spectacularly, its reserves almost empty, simply bursting fire from a penetrating shot that leaked smoke high into the air as the ruined hull settled with a thump to the concrete below.
Byakko paused for a moment with two of his men halfway up the ramp, risking themselves to cover the last few stragglers. The light tank came to rest right at the base of the ramp, goosing its hardlight drive to spring inside once the ramp began to rise. Byakko hammered a burst at a pair of golden enemies trying to set up some kind of mortar position in the courtyard of the spaceport Juice&Naps outlet nearby, their silhouettes painted for him by the overhead drone and his rounds snapping through the thin treatwood walls to punch one down and force the other to scramble away. Beside him, Corporal Izuma gasped in pain as she was hit.
He bellowed at Sergeant Major Haruki to fall back, grabbing Izuma himself with one paw-like hand and dragging her bodily up the ramp.
"That's it! Dust off, go go go!" he roared, and with a hiss the ramp began to lift even as the ship itself boomed, its gravatic engines spinning up with a huge cascading wave of pink-blue foam, washing around the hull like an ephemeral tide and raising it slowly into the sky. The surviving tank used its own hardlight drives to lessen the weight it placed on the ramp, gliding towards Byakko with smoke rising from a half-dozen glances on its hull, its pintle gun torn off sometime in the fighting.
As the huge ramp swang shut, a white figure appeared out of the corner of Byakko's eye. Hefting his rifle under his shoulder, one-handed, he readied himself for a wild burst of automatic fire as it fell into his sight picture, but at the last moment held his figure. It was a warrior of the Precept of the Crane, and she tumbled with an agonised cry along the ramp, her magic-assisted leap having clearly cost her the last of her reserves as she fell onto her injured leg, smearing blood along the sleek surface. Barely avoiding the tank as it skipped past inches away from them, the three marines and the monk spilled onto the hangar deck of the dropship, eager hands reaching out to help them up and away from the closing ramp.
Byakko rubbed his face and looked around at the terrified, battered and confused masses on the hangar deck. A mishmash of soldier and civilian, rich and poor, Yokari and minority, they stood and sat, sobbing, laughing, cursing, all processing the enormity of what had just happened...
SPACE
The dropship's crew asked permission to deliver a volley of missiles onto the enemy below, but the skipper refused. The Lt. Commander knew that they might need those missiles to fight their way out of the system, and since the enemy infantry posed little threat without any dedicated anti-air up and running, he chose to save their ammunition.
"Keep at them with the BDP's," was his only concession, as the 16 point-defense lasers snapped over and over with their argent blue beams, ripping enemy munitions from the air and searing through infantry and ground vehicle positions as the huge ship turned and rapidly began to ascend, trailing shattered armour plating and debris as the enemy nibbled at its hull. Eventually they climbed out of range and the skipper glanced at his console.
"Damage report."
"We lost a BDP, some hull damage, plating's a little sparse over the dorsal manifold." replied one of his officers, with a voice calmer than he felt.
"OK. Signal to all friendly vessels still in range. We are spinning up a Slipgate, t-minus 3 minutes. Anyone who wants through needs to get here now."
Almost immediately, smaller civilian vessels and a few IJN snubfighters that had made it to the planet began circling round.
Aboard the Full Lobster Pot, Talida weighed her options. Her vessel was badly damaged, more than half its primary armaments out of commission and its hull badly compromised in multiple places. With the help of the now-sunk frigate, she had managed to destroy three enemy ships, but she now faced a force twice as potent with less than half her initial firepower remaining, her own fighter screen battered and strung out as it tried to run interference for the civilians. She realised that if she did not surrender now, the attackers were right - they could simply bypass her and mop up the civilians at their leisure.
She took a moment and then signalled for her comms officer to open the line back to the enemy.
"This is Captain Genofeva Talida, IJN Full Lobster Pot, commanding. We surrender. I accept your word as a fellow officer that you will afford safe and fair treatment to my people. Powering down our weapons systems now."
The Full Lobster Pot came to a gradual halt, gouting flame, as the flags at its tower and stern were tugged down and pulled inside the ship, where they were quickly burned. Lobster, the ship's RAI, was backed up into a Soul Trap and loaded aboard a duty fighter which launched, heading to escort the evacuation craft from the Side. The rest of the crew busied themselves repairing critical damage and helping the medical team move the dead and wounded, in disbelief that an IJN warship had been forced to surrender to the enemy, only the second time in decades.
Talida watched on her console as, unmolested, the scattering of remaining craft dove through the emerald gate the Kankyo dropship had opened for them, before it too slid through, shutting the gate behind it and leaving the system empty save for debris and wreckage, enemy ships, and her own broken warship. She stood, adjusted her hat, and then headed down to the starboard hangar bay, the only one undamaged by enemy fire, to await their prize party.
PARK
“We shall see.”
Ra-mei went silent as the blast doors shut, the absence of light overtaking the vehicles’ interior. The skiff peeled off, leaving the still scene in silence. The two marines were lifeless and unmoving, battered husks of their former selves. As the Justicar operations continued, this street too was consumed by the encroaching oblivion of deployed photon absorbers that crept ahead.
Park was taken to face Bomani, the Judge patiently waiting to greet the usurped authority of his new requisition.
UNDERNEATH STAKESBY
Bomani watched as the defiant governor was taken from his court, taking stock in knowing Park would not be defiant for long. Whitewharf was his.
Whitewharf was his, but at a much larger cost than he expected. He reminisced greatly of the days of fighting the Kalaedans and the Unitary State of Mineva, where wresting in the underground and launching mass attacks was the norm. Though, he weighed that he had conducted those campaigns with much larger units in a state of total war.
Akyrios was not going to be pleased with the exchange. Bomani had presided over the loss of over four-hundred troopers, nine fighting vehicles, and the apparent death of an extremely senior Bailiff. In comparison, he had not even killed or captured the entirety of the considerably smaller enemy force, who was able to retrograde and get offworld. To return the favor of this tactical humiliation, he would set a much grander plan into motion.
The Judge took his first set of actions as the guardian of his new planet; summoning the battle-worn Enforcers who salvaged the initial fumble into a success to his court.
Not long after the cities on Whitewharf were consumed in oceans of profound darkness that no light could cut through, a final object had emerged. A single shuttle was breaking through the atmosphere with engines pushed to their absolute limits.
Sudi clasped her hands behind her back, rolling her shoulders back to erect her posture; body language displaying triumph and relief. The intensity among her bridge crew died down, unfettered by the theater of exchanging weapons and coordinating complex defensive maneuvers. The fight was over, confirmed by the transmission and by her sensor operator announcing the status of the IJN weapons.
The Valkarian patiently watched as the tactical maps showed her the small craft jumping out of system. All the while, her weapons officers continued to maintain firing solutions on the Full Lobster Pot given any anomalies if they changed their mind and decided to go out in a blaze of glory. Still, the weapons and engines of the IJN warship remained silent.
“Prepare the boarding compliment and notify the hold,” Sudi ordered, beginning her way out of the ornate bridge, “We will accommodate prisoners and seize the vessel before they destroy every shred of intelligence.”
The remaining Justicar battlegroup adjusted their formation among the destroyed vessels and stations, small salvage craft departing to scour the newly formed shoal cluster for any signs of life.
The Justicar battleship was large, and likewise had a sizable away force. Two transport vessels carried a combined company-reinforced of infantry to scour the vessel and manage the prisoners, as well as Sudi and her master-at-arms. They were escorted by a small flight of strike craft that maintained a vee formation on their approach. The Justicars boarded without incident, not before doing a close flyby of the ravaged port side of their prize ship.
The roaring of the engines filled the hangar bay, dying down once the sizable craft was neatly situated parallel to the wide bay doors separating them from the vacuum outside. A gangway extended as an exterior hatch opened on the Justicar shuttle, wide enough to support vehicle traffic. A pair of silhouettes stood atop the ramp. Sudi was a tall, hunched carnivore whose helmet was that of a callous wolf, with encased spines shooting out of her backplate. Aside her was an average humanoid with a rifle fixed to his back. Sudi and her master-at-arms descended the ramp unaccompanied; the Justicar captain making it a point to be the first to embark the Full Lobster Pot, alone.
“Captain Talida,” Sudi began, arms still crossed behind her, “I am Sudi, a Justicar Judge of the Veronis Tribunal. I accept your surrender; you nor your crew shall be mistreated beyond this point. Our hostilities are over for the time being.”
WHITEWHARF
The last few survivors who had managed to hide from the attackers cowered in terror. Those unlucky enough to have light sources survived long enough to be captured by the gold-plated aliens, whilst the lucky ones simply passed away, exhaustion and weariness leading them into a sleep from which they would never awaken.
ABOARD THE IJN FULL LOBSTER POT
Talida, in her red fatigues with golden trim, white chest harness and broad black officer's hat, watched with narrowed eyes as the alien descended, still clad in battle armour. She drew her own honokatana and offered it hilt-first to Sudi as her crew assembled on the hangar deck, waiting to be shepherded into confinement.
"Judge Sudi, I must formally protest against the war crimes committed by your forces, along with the lack of any declaration of war prior to the attack on our colony."
ELSEWHERE
With the crew of the Full Lobster Pot surrendering, there was no-one left to register the shuttle that left Whitewharf's orbit, clearing atmosphere before making an FTL jump out of the system along the same path as the other evacuees...
ABOARD THE IJN FULL LOBSTER POT
Sudi reached forward, carefully and respectfully seizing the hilt of the weapon and pointing it upwards. She remembered in the days before she accepted the Justicar's bargain, now almost decades prior, she had favored such bladed weapons and was a passing professional of the Keta. She had only held a katana a handful of times, respecting the craftsmanship of an elegant weapon. The memories were fond, save for the distaste of old allegiances.
"You will have a right to appear before the courts of the Veronis Tribunal, and to petition your institutions by virtue of the Justiciari Charter," Sudi remarked, unfazed by the tactfully-dressed aggression. Behind her, armed Justicars emerged and flowed around them towards the detainees and innerworkings of the vessel. They inspected corridor by corridor, and ushered their prisoners to be retained on the Deference to Power.
Sudi stepped aside, gesturing the Ingen captain up the gangway. The master-at-arms stepped by the leave of Talida's party. The Valkarian gave a final offer.
"I will allow you to walk unrestrained from your vessel."
From the wormhole beacon that the Blind Justice had towed behind the bloody naval engagement, another set of vessels creeped out of the massive portal and into the system. A single dreadnaught and its escorts, upon them emblazoned with the iconography of their Prime Adjudicator; Akyrios himself. Before him, his prize.
The system of Whitewharf belonged to its rightful owners, and once again justice would reign.
CASTLE ZHANG-YU, SANRIN SYSTEM
The castle was unusually quiet, despite the increased activity. The presence of the Jade Empress had everyone on their best behaviour, her jade-armoured elite guards with their dragon helmets the most visible signifier of the honour done to this colonial seat of power by the reigning monarch.
Inside the keep, Daimyo Toshi had surrendered her seat to the Jade Empress, who now sat in state. Takara was of a mixed mind regarding the Ancerious colony. It had been a colossal relief to finally see her daughter again, albeit greatly changed and in the company of a strange group of women she now called her 'sisters'. The androids and the High Imperium warrior seemed to care deeply for the young princess, however, and since they had helped save her life at the Garden Of Lights bathhouse she had extended her imperial favour to them too.
On the other hand, the galaxy seemed almost more rife with problems than their territories in NS-1. Toshi and her son had managed to get them bogged down in a repeat of the Keystone Campaign, or perhaps even worse, whilst across the board there were reports of skirmishes, power struggles and combat missions at the furthest reaches of the Empire, culminating in this, the loss of an entire planet to some previously-unknown enemy calling themselves the 'Justicars'.
Hatamoto Alain Park, formerly the governor of Whitewharf, had miraculously escaped, unlike two-thirds of the people he had ruled, and so he had been summoned here to answer to the Jade Empress. Sat on the carved throne, beneath rich mahogany beams from which hung incense burners, banners and lanterns which glinted light off the statues, carvings and polished wooden floor of the throne room, her onibi cast deep shadows on her face, obscuring her eyes as she watched Park approach.
Either side of the approach was lined with the snarling dragon masks of the 1st Regiment, between whom stood attendants, aides, local notables and general hangers-on who were here with their own petitions or simply looking to use this rare opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the Jade Empress. There was a silence in the room, quiet disapproval and impassive stares at the man who had seemingly abandoned the citizens under his care to death and enslavement at the hands of these aliens. Failure was not an option and, although Takara was known to be more merciful than her father had been, many still anticipated the audience would end in Park slitting his belly in the courtyard outside.
Stopped by a warning hand from one of the guards at the foot of the dais, Park was obliged to bow and then waited an awkward minute whilst the Jade Empress scrutinised him.
Finally she spoke, with the faint ringing tones of all yokari, her accent in Common flawless.
"Hatamoto Park. Be so kind as to explain to us what happened at Whitewharf." she asked simply.
Park’s face was passive, blank eyes daring to lay upon the Jade Empress seated in vantage above him. The sneers and whispers among the noble rabble nor the lines of gaudily-plated warriors flanking him were able to make his heart flutter. The only bother upon him was the wash of the lanterns basking him in their gentle glow; he felt his flesh begin to protest and itch during the entirety of his exposure all the way to the foot of the dais.
The disgraced governor bowed, holding his tongue in the deafening silence before dropping himself the whole way to his knees. His hands were flat on the floor, head down in prostration. He felt the relief wash over the flesh of his face momentarily as it was obscured from the room’s illumination.
At last, he was spoken to. Her dignified voice would have been as jarring as nails upon a chalkboard to any other in his position. “Your Divine Majesty…”
He kept his head low, lifting it only to be able to project his voice forward, “There was an unforeseeable attack, hordes of warriors were upon us in moments from deep underground. I am only here due to the honorable sacrifice of two Marines who led my escape.”
Park lifted himself up, remaining on his knees. The white and jade flesh of his face was grossly discolored and cracking like a battered glass pan. His expression was unchanging, even as his skin tightened and peeled. Where the light grasped his flesh, a thin smoldering began to build. His hair and outermost layer of skin began to rain off him in a cumulating shower of dust.
“And they were fools for it,” Park spat. Just moments ago, his ruse was falling apart; now with his arms raised, he was rent into a thick cloud of smoke and dust. The thick haze of particulate only thickened as Park’s figure was reduced to nothing. His new form was a dark cloud that shot out among the onlookers around him.
Out of the cloud, two arm-shaped appendages made of particulate hastily clawed their way up the dais, open hands swinging to pass through the Empress and her entire retinue. In seconds, the particulate and smoke had saturated every corner of the space, ingratiating the whole of the audience to a gift from Akyrios.
As the dark cloud suddenly burst forth, the room sprang into motion. Two of Takara's bodyguards, powerful Creation adepts from the Huoming Temple, began casting wards to protect against dark magic, whilst the Marines flashed on their vitredur blades and helmet flashlights, cutting through the growing gloom.
The attack was not Corruption, however. The two monks watched in confusion as the black cloud continued to spread, defying the known laws of idshii, not realising that this was nothing mystical but rather simple airborne fungus. As some fled in terror, rushing to the exits north, south and east of the room, others rushed towards the Jade Empress to protect her, highlighted in crazy glimpses of light through the fog and gloom by the dazzling lights of the Marines.
There was a blinding flash, glaring like the surface of the sun for a splint second, and then a series of thudding booms and screams. In the immediate aftermath there was silence, before wails and yells began once more, punctuated by the sound of falling debris as lanterns and pieces of rafter fell to the ground. As quickly as it had come, the fog was fading away, much of it seemingly dissipated by the flashes, but those present realised rapidly that something was terribly wrong.
Here and there were dark patches on the ground, surrounded by faint, tiny flecks of dark red, and scraps of metal, where people had been stood only moments ago. The Daimyo's throne was on its side, torn as if by a terrible wind, and in front of it lay another scorch mark, the Jade Empress herself nowhere to be seen.
A Marine rushed up the dais, hurling aside one of the two monks who was wailing over the ruins of his bloody arm, and froze as his foot clanged against something amid the wreckage. Crouching, he brushed aside a charred piece of wood and tremulously picked up a twisted piece of metal, spattered with blood.
The Imperial Diadem...