“What action do you purpose we take then?” William Hamilton, Achilles’ First Lieutenant asked from his position at the tactical console.
“We need intel,” Somerville began. “We also need to hurt this confident bastard. Without naval cover his position will be very weak. If we can take out some of his ground equipment as well we may encourage the locals to rise up against him. Whether they do or not, we will have to move on. We simply don’t have the manpower to take on the Russian Army. There is nothing we can do for the populace of Ouvea at the moment. If the Russians have invaded this system they are likely trying to conquer all of French colonial space. If so then there is going to be fighting at New France. That is where we are needed.”
New France was France’s colonial crown jewel. Outside of the Sol system it was their largest manufacturing base and generated huge tax revenues. It had been discovered sixty five years ago and since then the French government had been pouring resources into the system. The last report Jonathan had read estimated that the population had risen to over five hundred thousand. It was also the most heavily defended system in French space, with a large percentage of France’s fleet based there.
“So how are we going to get any intel?” Hamilton asked. “The Russians obviously have the planet locked up tight. Not a single signal has got out. They must have some kind of jamming equipment.”
Somerville brought up an enhanced image of the instillations in orbit around Ouvea. “There,” he said pointing to a smaller station, “that is a transit hub for cargo and passenger freighters. The crew of those ships will probably still be on board. The station they are docked at is too small to house them all. We’ll send in a force to cut out one of the freighters. We’ll get our intel from the freighter’s crew and sensor logs.
“Sensors,” he continued, “I want you to carry out a detailed survey of the planet. Look for any heavy concentrations of Russian soldiers and material. Focus on the main cities. If the Russians have landed enough troops to subdue an entire planet there are likely to be large staging areas near the main population centers. We’ll hit as many of them as we can with ground attack missiles as a distraction while our marines get us a freighter.”
As everyone quickly began to put Somerville’s plan into action he took a few moments to compose himself and think about this next words. With a couple of touches to his command chair he opened a ship wide COM channel. “Achilles, this is your Captain speaking. By now you all know we were attacked by Russian frigates as we entered the Ouvea system. It now seems the colony has been invaded by Russian troops as well. If the Russians had attacked this system then they have likely attacked the rest of the French colonies. That means going through whatever forces the Russians have out there is our only way of getting home. We have all trained hard to make Achilles the fighting ship she is. It’s now time to stand into danger. I know you will all do me proud. Somerville out.”
Chapter 2 – Intel
3rd September, 2439, inner Ouvea system.
Third Lieutenant Jensen checked the fastenings on her combat suit for the fourth time. She hadn’t worn the armor since basic training. Every naval officer had to be trained to use them in the rare case a ship was boarded by hostiles. Not that such an event was ever likely to happen. Certainly, since leaving the navy’s lunar academy, she had never had to practice with the suits aboard the various ships she had served on.
Jensen was standing in one of Achilles’ two shuttles, surrounded by marines in heavy combat gear. Their equipment was bigger and bulkier and yet they looked much more at home in them. Achilles had a crew of over four hundred men and women, sixty of which were Royal Marines. It was a tradition dating back to the time of the wet navy’s of Earth. As well as serving as combat soldiers, the marines doubled as crewmembers for Achilles. Although their duties were light as they were expected to spend a lot of their time training for combat.
Their enthusiasm was infectious. Jensen had hoped to join the navy all her life. The idea of sailing between the stars, exploring new systems and protecting Britain’s colonies had always been a romantic dream of hers. Despite the frequent boredom that came with spending months out in space, she knew that her career choice was everything she had wanted.
The battle with the Russian frigates had been icing on the cake. She had never longed to see combat but she had been training for it all her adult life. It had been satisfying to finally test her abilities for real. Yet the marines’ thirst for battle was unlike anything she had ever seen before. After the battle with the Russian ships, when she had been able to get some time alone to think over what had happened, she had almost had a panic attack. In the heat of the moment the danger hadn’t really sunk in. Alone, in her quarters, the shock had hit her. She knew it would be something she would be dreaming about.
Yet almost all of the marines had seen combat before. They knew what to expect from this mission and still they were excited. Sure, she was excited about the upcoming mission. It wasn’t often an officer got to go off ship. If they succeeded in capturing their goal she would also get the chance to command her own ship, albeit only for a few hours. Though maybe the Captain would find it useful to keep the freighter for a while and she could continue to command it.
But the marines weren’t just excited about the mission. They were thirsting for the promise of combat. Almost all of them were boasting about their skills, about how many Russians they would personally take out and how they would single handedly complete the mission. No doubt some of it was macho showmanship, even from the female marines. Yet they were just different to naval personnel. While Jensen trained to test her tactical awareness and skills against a faceless, distant opponent, the marines trained to match their bodies and reflexes against someone up close and personnel.
As Jensen listened to their bravado, she realized they had to believe they were the best, for anything less would mean death. The devastatingly powerful plasma rifles all of Earth’s armed forces carried ensured that when it came to hand to hand fighting, there would only be one survivor. If the marines were full of thoughts about not being good enough or not making it back, those thoughts would become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Keying her COM unit Jensen opened a channel to the rest of the naval personnel who were on the shuttle with her. “Listen up everyone,” she began, “the marines know their business. When we get to the freighter stay behind them. Let them carry out their mission. Once they have cleared the frigate then it’s our turn. Neither the marines nor I need any heroes getting in the way. Is that understood?”
After a chorus of ‘Yes sirs’ came across the COM unit Jensen allowed everyone to go back to their thoughts. They would be launching from the ship in minutes.
*
Surveying the planet before him, “have you managed to locate any targets for us?” Somerville asked the Sub Lieutenant who had taken over Jensen’s position at the sensor console.
“Yes sir, I’m putting the data on the main holo display now. Tactical already has the targeting information.” came the reply.
Somerville simply nodded and then began to study what the Sub Lieutenant was able to decipher about the Russian positions. As he suspected, there were sizeable landing zones around some of the major population centers. The images showed the Russians frantically trying to move most of their equipment away from the landing zones and into the populated areas. They knew Achilles would never fire on civilians, especially not friendly civilians. However, some of the equipment looked too big to be moved quickly. There were prefabricated barracks, large supply dumps and heavy artillery. Somerville would be happy to relieve the Russians of those.
Sir,” the First Lieutenant said, breaking into his thoughts. “Its time to launch the shuttles, shall I give the order?”
“Proceed,” Somerville said. After punching a number of commands into his command chair he continued. “Tactical, I want you to hit these targets first. Make sure you take everything out. Then you can move onto tar
gets of your choice. Keep hammering them until we run out of ground attack missiles or targets. These Russians have pissed me off.”
“Aye sir,” the Lieutenant manning the tactical station said with glee.
“Begin firing in thirty seconds. I want everyone’s attention on us,” Somerville said and then switched his attention to the shuttles that were just lifting off. They fired their thrusters to re-orientate themselves towards the docking station and then went silent. The plan was for them to use their momentum to coast up to the station, firing off their engines only at the last second to bring them to a halt. If there were any Russians on the station they would know they were about to be attacked, but they should only get a thirty second warning. That would give his marines the element of surprise.
On his command chair, he opened another holo display so that he could watch the progress of the ground attack missiles. The first salvo was still five minutes out but Russians were already beginning to flee from the landing zones. Any thought of saving more equipment had been abandoned. Ground attack missiles didn’t have a nuclear warhead; in its place were conventional explosives. However, by the time the missiles hit the planet’s surface they would have accelerated to a significant speed. Alone, the explosive force from the impact would be several megatons, the conventional explosives would add to that ensuring everything in the target zone was destroyed.
*
Sitting beside the pilot in shuttle one, Marine Lieutenant Cassells was raring to go. His men would have the hardest job, but he was ok with that. While the marines and naval personnel in the other shuttle would dock with one of the French freighters and take control of it, he was tasked with capturing the docking station’s main control room. Every freighter berthed at the station was held in place by docking clamps; they meant capturing the freighter wasn’t enough. Whoever was in the control room could override the docking clamps’ release mechanism and keep the freighter trapped. Cassells’ guess was that the Russians already had the clamps locked down.
“Sixty seconds,” the pilot called out to the marines in his ship. “Beginning deceleration burn in three, two, one.”
Cassells was thrown forward in his seat and he heard a number of marines crash into each other behind him. Like all spaceships the shuttles were equipped with inertial dampeners but the pilot was operating his shuttle at its limit so as to give the Russians as little warning as possible. He struggled to push himself back into his seat but the force from the deceleration burn was too much. Instead he allowed the seat’s restraints to hold him until the shuttle hit the docking station with a thud.
“That was close,” the pilot said with a grin on his face. “Borders away!” He then shouted over the COM channel.
Cassells swore into his helmet. Pilots! His men didn’t need any orders. As he took off his restraints and made his way to the boarding ramp the pilot had lowered his men were already pouring onto the docking station’s hull. Stepping off the shuttle onto the hull, Cassells felt the boots of his combat armor immediately switch on their magnets to give him grip. The marines were already splitting into two groups and sprinting to their targets.
Taking the lead in his squad, Cassells took off towards their target. Sargent Hughes was already on his knees planting the shaped charges when he got there. The Sargent’s squad, accompanied by Cassells, was to take the control room while the other squad would form a blocking force. From the schematics they had been able to get of the docking station, there was only one place where a sizeable force of defenders could be housed. If they wanted to get to the control room to help defend it they would be limited to a couple of corridors. The second squad was already above those corridors, about to blast their way into them and set up defensive positions.
When Cassells jumped away from the charges and held up three fingers everyone crouched down. The shaped charges went off with an explosion of light, but the concussive force and sound Cassells was used to from training on planets was missing. He barely registered their absence though, he was already jumping through the access hole they had blown in the station.
Pausing inside to make sure all his men were with him, he stepped to the front, “I’ll take point.”
Rushing down the corridor, he held his plasma rifle ready to blast anything that moved. As he rounded the first corner he came face to face with a large composite door that had automatically locked in place when the station detected a hull breach. Clicking his COM unit he asked, “how’s it coming Jones?”
“Almost done sir,” came the reply, “just a couple more seconds… There it’s attached.”
Cassells nodded to Hughes, who keyed the device he had connected to the door’s controls and overrode the locking mechanism. Jones had been left behind to place a membrane over the breach. It stopped the atmosphere from leaking into space and allowed them to trick the station’s central computer into opening the sealed doors.
As the door opened Cassells sprinted on. Rounding the next corner he immediately threw himself to the floor. Two Russians in combat armor were already there and bringing their plasma riffles up to aim at him. His sudden drop meant their fire went over his head. His return fire tracked in on one of the Russians, the superheated plasma burning right through his armor. Before the second Russian could track his fire down onto Cassells, one of the other marines rounded the corner and opened fire, taking him out.
“Good shooting Jackson I owe you a beer once we get back to Achilles.” Cassells said. As he approached the downed Russians and turned the next corner he brought up the schematics of the station on his HUD. The soldiers must have been guarding the control room for its entrance was right in front of him.
“Ok marines, this is our target.” Cassells said over the squad COM. “Remember, check your aim. Your plasma bolts will shred the command consoles in there. We need to be able to access the docking clamps after we capture our objective.”
Stepping back, he allowed Sargent Hughes to come forward again. This time he pulled out a long cord of plastic explosives. He fixed the cord in place roughly shaping out a rectangle the height of a marine’s combat armor.
“Brace yourselves,” he said over the COM as he stepped back. Again everyone crouched down as the explosive went off. Only a fraction the size of the explosives that had been used to breach the hull, the blast was still impressive in the confined corridor. It blew the door into the command room and almost toppled some of the marines. Yet, as soon as the concussive wave washed over them, they were on their feet and storming into the room.
Three Russians had been blasted off their feet and another was in a crumpled heap with part of the large door on top of him. Further into the room, three Russian soldiers in combat armor were still more than ready for a fight. Plasma bolts came raining down on the marines and the first two through the door both caught bolts to the head and chest.
Cassells didn’t have time to mourn them for he was the third man through the door. Immediately he swept to the right and took cover behind a command console. In front of him explosions erupted as plasma bolt tore into it. Gritting his teeth, he moved further to the right and jumped up to engage the Russians. He couldn’t allow them to destroy all the command consoles.
As he jumped up he saw one Russian go down from a plasma bolt to his knee. Another, who was pouring fire into the doorway, tried to switch his aim to Cassells as he rose but Cassells beat him to it and plasma bolts tore into his armor and blasted through him.
The final Russian realized the hopelessness of his situation and let out a string of Russian curses as he charged the doorway, trying to take out as many of the marines who were still trying to enter as possible. With a swing of his rifle Sargent Hughes cracked the Russian’s rifle out of his hands. He then performed a perfect roundhouse kick, catching the charging Russian in the face and knocking him to the ground.
Cassells looked at his Sargent as the rest of the marines poured into the command room. “What?” Hughes asked, “You said we were to check our
fire.”
Cassells shook his head while chuckling, “show off,” over the COM for all the squad to hear. Dismissing the Sargent’s antics from his mind, he shifted his focus to look for the command console that would access the docking clamps. Pleased to see that the console hadn’t been hit in the fire fight he said a silent prayer of thanks. It only took him a couple of seconds to switch the console on and navigate his way through the controls to the one he wanted. Mission complete, he thought as the console informed him the docking clamps had been released.
Switching his COM to the mission channel he spoke to Lieutenant Jensen, “Cassells here, the docking clamps have been released. We’re making our way back to the shuttle now.”
After her reply he contacted the Sargent leading the blocking force. “How are you doing Grant?” he asked.
“We’re coming under heavy fire sir, Corporal Fisher is down but we are holding them off.”
“Ok, we’ve secured the control room. Fall back to our position and then we’ll evac to the shuttle.”
“With pleasure sir,” the Sargent replied.
*
A few minutes earlier Jensen received a call over the COM channel from the Lieutenant leading the marines from her shuttle. “Lieutenant Jensen, we have secured the freighter. No Russians were onboard, I’m moving my men to the docking hatch in case they try to force their way in when they realize what we’re trying to do. The ship is yours.”