Post by lighthawk on Aug 23, 2007 19:01:33 GMT -5
A pinprick of light flashed in the dark void of space. As if squeezed out like water, a massive shape forced itself from the point of light. White seemed to glow against the black vacuum, five hundred meters of shaped and re-enforced metal. The USS Truelight was a small craft, for an intersystem warship, and lightly armed with only three plasma turrets, two laser point defense pods, and a single missile tube. It was not meant for direct combat, with most of it's curving wedge shaped body stuffed full of engines and electronic counter measures. It was meant to deliver a payload of a special sorts, and the middle of the vessel was built around that goal.
As the Truelight arced into a tight orbit around the arid, dust colored planet it's jump had placed it near, the vessel rolled belly side down. Like an old time winged bomber, twin doors dropped open, and dozens of elongated cylinders fell for the ground miles below. The Truelight's engines glowed like miniature stars, pulling the bulk of the craft up and away from the planet.
The cylinders began to glow, first a dull red, then brighter, turning orange, then white. Fire danced across the leading edges and the cylinders began to separate into two groups, some falling ahead faster, leading the charge. Larger, longer cylindrical shapes came racing up from below, fires raging at their ends instead of their fronts. The missiles streaked passed the falling metal, chasing after the Truelight.
More missiles followed the first wave, smaller and more manuerable then the anti-ship giants before them. They turned for the group of falling tubes, making for a head on charge. The leading cylinders reacted, breaking apart, and filling the air with a rain of explosives, reducing themselves and the missiles to blasted debris. The trailing cylinders plunged through the mess, still streaking for the ground.
Even more missiles came and the remaining tubes of metal reacted, splitting along seams across their base. The cylinders ripped away to reveal metal forms of various sizes. Some were not much bigger than knights of the old world in their heavy armor, others were giants of steel. The missiles found the cylinders, they didn't even register the armored forms, couldn't see them through the confusing mass of chaff that had been packed in with them. The sky lit up with fire as parachutes unraveled behind the powersuits, slowing their fall. With a burst of their jump jets, the battle armor landed in a swirl of dust, ready for the fight.
Broem looked across the flat, barren land at the boxy shapes in the distance. The heat rose in waves from the baked dirt that blurred the structures, and a quick glance at the external therm comfirmed the mission intel; at less than 20 million miles from the star it orbited, the world was an oven that would roast most organic lifeforms. The only thing keeping him alive at the moment was the five tons of machinery he wore like a second skin.
He flipped down the image enhancers with a curt nod of his head, and the buildings in the distance jumped into clear focus. They were ugly, box shaped, and colored like rotted meat. The Detolybo were not known for their artistic tastes. Violent, short tempered beings, their only real love was war and they cared about little else. Fortunately, their preference for fighting over thinking meant they were behind most over races in the technologic war, and that was what was going to cost them today.
Broem estimated about ten miles to the mission site, there was still too much chaff in the air for his sensor system to handle. It kept him and his team alive to reach the dirt, but it always made the first moments of any mission potentially confusing. A quick glance over each shoulder showed him his teams were forming up after the drop, and he left the team leaders to that. Eyeing back through the optics, he took note of the target objectives.
" Alpha, take the left flank, hit the water, fuel, and ammo dumps," Broem called through the squad frequencey, at the same time shaking his head at Detolybo stupidity. " They have the ammo and fuel side by side with the water supply on the ammo's edge. Light it up. Beta, hit the right, communications and power generator. Get their comm down quickly, it'll blow the mission if one them decides not to be stupidly brave." An unlikely possibility, Detolybo almost never called for help, but it could happen. " Delta, you're with me, up the middle. Smash and burn a path to their spaceport and wreck anything that can fly."
Wolf Pack's mission was both simple and complicated. There was a lot of political nonsense involved in the planning, and even though they could, they weren't suppose to flatten the Detolybo base. They were to go in, smash up a bunch of their equipment, make sure the Detolybo couldn't fly off or call for help, and then leave them to stew. A few days later, a USS battleship would show up to negotiate a surrender after the Detolybo were getting sick of living with no water or power. From there it was suppose to lead into some POW exchanges, if the Detolybo government would listen.
Simple in concept, but not being allowed to just flatten the base included an order not to kill more Detolybo than could be avoided. More POWs meant more of their own people returned, and every Detolybo left alive might be one more USS soldier that got to come home. Easy enough idea, but making it work would be tricky. They were going to have to hit the base hard and fast and get the hell out before the Detolybo could respond in force.
" Move out people," Broem lit his jets as he gave the order, and his armor soared forward in a flat arc. The brief roar of the jump jets gave over to relative silence as the ground dropped away, and then it came rushing back up and the jets roared again. Broem felt the slight tremor of impact as his multi-ton armor touched back down, and then it seemed the powersuit almost bounced as it lept again. Ahead, the boxy buildings grew larger.
As the Truelight arced into a tight orbit around the arid, dust colored planet it's jump had placed it near, the vessel rolled belly side down. Like an old time winged bomber, twin doors dropped open, and dozens of elongated cylinders fell for the ground miles below. The Truelight's engines glowed like miniature stars, pulling the bulk of the craft up and away from the planet.
The cylinders began to glow, first a dull red, then brighter, turning orange, then white. Fire danced across the leading edges and the cylinders began to separate into two groups, some falling ahead faster, leading the charge. Larger, longer cylindrical shapes came racing up from below, fires raging at their ends instead of their fronts. The missiles streaked passed the falling metal, chasing after the Truelight.
More missiles followed the first wave, smaller and more manuerable then the anti-ship giants before them. They turned for the group of falling tubes, making for a head on charge. The leading cylinders reacted, breaking apart, and filling the air with a rain of explosives, reducing themselves and the missiles to blasted debris. The trailing cylinders plunged through the mess, still streaking for the ground.
Even more missiles came and the remaining tubes of metal reacted, splitting along seams across their base. The cylinders ripped away to reveal metal forms of various sizes. Some were not much bigger than knights of the old world in their heavy armor, others were giants of steel. The missiles found the cylinders, they didn't even register the armored forms, couldn't see them through the confusing mass of chaff that had been packed in with them. The sky lit up with fire as parachutes unraveled behind the powersuits, slowing their fall. With a burst of their jump jets, the battle armor landed in a swirl of dust, ready for the fight.
Broem looked across the flat, barren land at the boxy shapes in the distance. The heat rose in waves from the baked dirt that blurred the structures, and a quick glance at the external therm comfirmed the mission intel; at less than 20 million miles from the star it orbited, the world was an oven that would roast most organic lifeforms. The only thing keeping him alive at the moment was the five tons of machinery he wore like a second skin.
He flipped down the image enhancers with a curt nod of his head, and the buildings in the distance jumped into clear focus. They were ugly, box shaped, and colored like rotted meat. The Detolybo were not known for their artistic tastes. Violent, short tempered beings, their only real love was war and they cared about little else. Fortunately, their preference for fighting over thinking meant they were behind most over races in the technologic war, and that was what was going to cost them today.
Broem estimated about ten miles to the mission site, there was still too much chaff in the air for his sensor system to handle. It kept him and his team alive to reach the dirt, but it always made the first moments of any mission potentially confusing. A quick glance over each shoulder showed him his teams were forming up after the drop, and he left the team leaders to that. Eyeing back through the optics, he took note of the target objectives.
" Alpha, take the left flank, hit the water, fuel, and ammo dumps," Broem called through the squad frequencey, at the same time shaking his head at Detolybo stupidity. " They have the ammo and fuel side by side with the water supply on the ammo's edge. Light it up. Beta, hit the right, communications and power generator. Get their comm down quickly, it'll blow the mission if one them decides not to be stupidly brave." An unlikely possibility, Detolybo almost never called for help, but it could happen. " Delta, you're with me, up the middle. Smash and burn a path to their spaceport and wreck anything that can fly."
Wolf Pack's mission was both simple and complicated. There was a lot of political nonsense involved in the planning, and even though they could, they weren't suppose to flatten the Detolybo base. They were to go in, smash up a bunch of their equipment, make sure the Detolybo couldn't fly off or call for help, and then leave them to stew. A few days later, a USS battleship would show up to negotiate a surrender after the Detolybo were getting sick of living with no water or power. From there it was suppose to lead into some POW exchanges, if the Detolybo government would listen.
Simple in concept, but not being allowed to just flatten the base included an order not to kill more Detolybo than could be avoided. More POWs meant more of their own people returned, and every Detolybo left alive might be one more USS soldier that got to come home. Easy enough idea, but making it work would be tricky. They were going to have to hit the base hard and fast and get the hell out before the Detolybo could respond in force.
" Move out people," Broem lit his jets as he gave the order, and his armor soared forward in a flat arc. The brief roar of the jump jets gave over to relative silence as the ground dropped away, and then it came rushing back up and the jets roared again. Broem felt the slight tremor of impact as his multi-ton armor touched back down, and then it seemed the powersuit almost bounced as it lept again. Ahead, the boxy buildings grew larger.