Shadows of a Regime: Dark Nova

[Seska Dragonslayer]

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IC...

...

This is space. The dead places between stars and worlds - worlds, some of them filled with the vast, empty deserts, and some of them teeming with life.

Perhaps once, maybe. That was years ago - before the invasion, before the war really got started. Its been going on for maybe a hundered and fifty years - all those unexplained dissappearances, all those outposts that seemed to vanish without a trace - structures intact, but devoid of any life. That was when it started - when the active scouting and understanding of our newfound enemies began.

Everyone is scattered far and wide, without hope nor direction, as the universe we know is stripped from us one planet - nay, one system at a time. As we are forced to give ground, give space, and fall back further and further from home. Amid the turbulent sea of fighting, there stand a few meager islands of resistance - and these are far and few in between, and in the war of attrition, will eventually lose their hold and be swept away in the flood. It seems as if everything we ever knew is slipping slowly. Soon, it will be gone...

Is this the end.......?

~---------------Chapter One: The Meager-----------------~

------------

Piotre VI
April 11, 2734
Planet Side Dock, Mercenary Force Alpha Omega Operations HQ

------------

The blizzard screamed at the dome glass, and for anyone whom had not been here before, it would seem that that shrieking wind - which had kept this system, the closest to the Milky Way that was unmolested - would have blown that very dome to pieces, and made it impossible to land craft of any kind here.

Sub-commander Seska Kardis listened to the winds howling through the foot and a half thick glass, and sighed. Beside her, she felt the familiar feeling of her animal - a dog, from earth - who acted as her eyes when she was not directly linked to anything with a sensor array. That was what had made it so difficult to join the Mercenary corp - first, her age, and second, her physical conditions. Life, from birth, had been unkind.

She turned slowly, and beckoned the dog to do so as well. Shadow did so willingly, and as he turned his head to face the direction that they were to head in, Seska sighed. And then she began to walk forward, her dog walking lightly beside her, both sharing the same vision. Literally.

It was her adaptation to the nueral interfaces - to design one for her pet, her seeing eye dog, and then come up with a way to decode the variance in nerve signals. It had taken a year. And this was the fruits.

Flight Wing Beta V, report to mech docking on level 7 for immediate briefing......flight wing Beta V, report for briefing on level 7 Mech dock...

All around her, were the sounds of the small city which had sprung up here since the colonization of the Mercs. It was somewhat a requirement - the Merc were not well recieved in most places, and in as many they were outright hated. So, by company decree, they had simply set out to take planets for themselves, and base themselves from those planets. That had been a long time ago. Before the war erupted....

Yes. Before the war had erupted. Before all hell broke loose - and before this little outpost has become one of those places on the route for refugees, as well as a long standing island amid the thick of the flood. And now, after so many years of fighting, the people who had scorned the Company didn't laugh very much now, nor did they cast down or turn away Company vessels. We alone, aside from a very few, stand trall when others fail and perish.

She walked through the midst of town, thankful for once not to have some fledgling wingman or woman accompanying her. She had been here since she was thirteen - four years. She held a rank that most 40 year old people never aquired. In spite of the overwhelming
odds that were stacked against her, she had succeeded in doing what she ultimately knew she would be doing.

All flight crews and pilots - report to your craft with all haste. Condition Yellow!

She stopped, and looked around her...or, rather, the dog did. People were streaming past now, someo f them still in flight gear, others in their plain clothes. There was a franticness to their movements that unnerved even her. She turned, and with her dog leading her - ran down to the elevators, trailing lockes of silver hair.

The ground jumped and lurched slightly as she entered the elevator, and keyed in the level....level 17, Kappa XVII dock. There was a brief hiss as the elevator lurched downwards and came to a very sudden and screeching halt. The door opened, and she stepped out into the grey room - grey, of course, because animals have no color vision.

She was now fully aware that most of her wing was assembled here, formed into the military ranks, awaiting orders. She herself had not recieved any yet, and kept listening in to command channel for some semblance of orders.

Battle stations!! Flight Wings to launching doors immediatly - Condtion Red! Came the screeching overhead speakers, and she watched as her mass of trained pilots broke formation and clambered up to the varied and assorted mecha to either side. Seska herself walked silently to the left, where her own mech was, and climbed in through the hatch on the side. She had barely closed the hatch itself, and listened to the pressure locks seat themselves, when she heard the sound of the launch doors opening. Before she even reached her chair, she could feel the temperature of her flight deck start to rapidly decrease.

She leapt gracefully into her seat, Shadow going into the kennel that had been designed specifically to accomodate him, and thin inserted the ethercable into the base of her skull. With that action, the dash and consoles of her flight deck lit up, one by one, and she felt the reactor within go from standby to ready. The steady hum was a reasurance to her.

"Kappa command to Piotre control - awaiting instructions..." She said simply, but the command line was filled with hasty conversations back and forth. She sat still as stone, as she felt the hydrolic lifts beneath her begin to lift the massive bulk of her mech from the repair levels until it stood level with the launch deck - massive, human in appearnace for a mech, yet very sleek. The majority of the hull was painted a deathly black, with only one marking upon the torso of the metal giant - the sign of the Dragon, sacred to those of the Draelic religion to which she followed. With a thought or two, she nudged the mech forward, and heard the fluid creaking of joints, as the oil worked into them. With shuddering steps, the mech took its standard position at the head of the forming units behind her, and then she sat back, and waited. For the moment, everything was silent - Reis' AI (aptly named Reis) silent. It would, of course, stay that way until she actively spoke to it, which she would not do until she felt like being belittled again.

"Com tower to Level 17 - Kappa X and Kappa XVII wings, stand by for launch.....clearing launch tunnel.....Kappa wings, you are now go for launch." Crackled over her coms, and she braced herself. "Form on me, the Blues!" She hollared into the com unit, and as a single unit, sixteen craft lurched forward into space.

And there, a light show displayed.

[GabrielThief]

Gabriel rushed through the corridors to the hanger where the Lari was docked. He had just received his orders and was heading to his ship to take off. He got there to find his engineer, Thomas Darren, making some final repairs to the outer hull, while the other two loaded the ship with the last of their personal belongings. Thomas finished up and saw Gabriel coming.

Got our orders?

Yeah, get onboard, I'll explain once we've launched.

Thomas hurried aboard the ship and got to his station in the main cockpit, Azhure and Sean joining him a few moments later. Gabriel boarded the ship and sealed the hatch, then proceeded to the cockpit and took his seat at the command console.

Azhure, plot the course the mechs are taking and patch it through to my command console.

Yes sir.

Sean, keep all sensors locked on the mech group, we're on an observation mission and we need to record everything that happens.

Yes sir.

Prepare for take off.

Gabriel powered up his engines and proceeded with all pre-launch checks. When everything turned up clear he activated the launching sequence and pulled the ship out of the hangar.

Lari, activate cloaking device.

Cloaking device activated.

Gabriel finished the launching sequence and took the manual controls of the ship in his hands, piloting it with great skill. He followed the course the mechs were on as closely as he dared, making sure he didn't lose them.

Ok, let me explain our orders. We are to follow the mech group staying cloaked and making sure not to be detected. We are to observe and record everything that happens in order to gain any tactical data on the enemy. Under no circumstance are we to engage the enemy. If the battle turns against us we are to leave and report back to HQ with whatever data we've obtained.

[Sariel]

Lonan dreamed of a pond as rain drops continually splashed on to the surface creating a peaceful vision. The vision put into his head with some mind tricks a doctor used to remove the violent dreams a life time of war had pressed into Lonan's mind. As the condition yellow was warned over the speaker in the room someone shoved him and yelled near his ear. Siting bolt right up Lonan swung his legs over the bed and fell from the top bunk to land on his feet and spill side wards catching himself on the pole supporting his bunk. The room was empty save one person as Lonan watched two people burst out of the room. Without looking at him the other pilot spoke as he moved quickly threw the door.

"Its a Condition Yellow."

Lonan swore as he grabbed his vest, shirt and boots. Putting on his boots fast Lonan slide his pistols home after strapping on his waist holster, one in his boot and the other in the hallow of his back. Leaving the room at a quick stride with his shirt, vest and a small pack in his hand one could see the burn scars on his back, left shoulder and side, fires on space stations were a bitch. Pulling on his shirt quickly Lonan saw two men pass him as he pulled his vest on and speakers from further down the hall screeched a red warning. Picking up his pace Lonan hurried down into a T juncture and sped down the hall and moved threw an open pressure door. Lonan moved into a room with other smaller flight crafts mostly larger and better equipped that the one he jugged towards. Kissing his hand as he passed by the back end of his craft Lonan slapped the hand to a drawing of a long red haired woman with impossible curves supporting an old style bomb between her thighs that had been painted on the side of his craft. Climbing into the cockpit by way of slight hand holds in the side of his craft. With out warning Lonan fell side wards onto his seat as his foot caught on the pack he carried.

Righting himself in the chair he pushed the button to close the hatch with a grunt and a mutter.



Gon'a be a long day.

Lonan pushed a few buttons and leaned back in his chair and slide a wire and plug into the base of his head. The plug met the implant that allowed his mind to patch with his craft and the craft came to life. The large weapon on the bottom of his craft came to life spinning 360 degrees as the air supplied by the ship hissed into the cockpit. Lonan hovered the craft a few inches off the floor and shot forward threw the bay door when it opened passing another flight craft and nearly sharing his Betsy with the wing of another fighter.

Lonan sighed as the voice of another pilot flowed into his mind, the one he had nearly scraped he knew.

"If you do that shit to my ass again Cinder I'll blow yours away."

The Flight Leader broke in telling them to shut up and giving orders. Lonan broke the communication half way with knowing it was a "norm KC&SM". Putting on some tunes as he thought over another bout of killing craft and supporting the mechs Lonan relaxed a little as he dropped his craft into his position in the loose flight formation.

[Dumah]

The universe flew by in a swirl of ruby, punctuated with brilliant flares and deep inky darkness. A shape, wreathed in crimson fire, shot through the unearthly depths of the nigh forgotten half-realm with wings outstretched. Carefully cut vectors etched into the matte black surfaces caught and directed the alien wind. All around flew the wisps and little fiends that inhabited this hostile place, following and dancing about the machine that flew so out of place here.

Ahead, a blotch of inky blackness stained the perfect vermillion vista. The eye of a star, it's deep well reaching out into the fringes of the barrier. Fingers of the void, and there you could stand for a thousand years and never see a stop to the dancing corona of light and colour that whipped about the edges. If you looked at it just the right way, at just the right moment, you could see the star itself awaiting you...

Lights reflected off of the creature's 'wings' as it folded them back and began it's dive into the peculiar nothingness that lay at it's nose. It had long ago come to preffer a short dive into the outskirts of a given system, rather than to appear around the sun. It facilitated escape, if the situation warranted, even if at the sacrifice of surprise.

There were other ways to surprise...

The frame twisted and distorted as it poured through the gateway into the world.
~~~~~
White fire streaked through the night-sky, a kilometer outside of the last planet's orbit. Deep scanning lit the sensors with an array of unidentified marks, but the device knew what it was looking for. It's great dark wings folded and stowed, their cherry glow still fading into the cold void around them. Here, it did not need those.

It leaned forward, drifting under the thrust of carefully arranged jet assemblies. Distant sunlight, minutes away from it's source, caught the edges of the old robot. A moment later, and the robot was gone in an eye-watering twist of motion and total silence...
~~~~~
Created for death,
On wings of fire flying,
I, then, the reaper...
~Dumah, Postscript Dialog

[Lilim_Savanant]

The howling of the wind was all she could hear inside the confines of her helmet. Even though she had long ago turned off her microbead's external pickup, the sound of the blizzard could still be heard as a constant background noise that blocked out any sound except her breathing, which she had long ago become accustomed to ignoring.

The weather had been holding steady for nearly a day now and the outer armour of her suit was covered in a layer of ice crystals. A more foolish warrior would have increased the heat output of the suit to melt the ice away. Indeed this might have improved her agility by removing small amounts of frost which had begun to accumulate within the joints. But agility was not what she needed right now. What she needed was stealth and camouflage. She may not be as agile, but she was nigh on impossible to spot in these conditions.

The blizzard was indeed a deadly foe to the inexperienced. The storm made using sensor equipment a nightmare. Interference cut the range of scanners and other sensor equipment down to a minimum, and even then there were still sensor ghosts. The storm would occasionally throw up reflected signals which may or may not be anything. But she was counting on this to her advantage.

She knew she would never have been able to get past the Shaetai scanners when entering orbit, but once planetside it had been possible to hide amongst the storm and the various valleys and ravines coated white with ice and snow. Even so, the Shaetai had sent ground forces in to follow her sporadic signals. She had been betting on this and had set her suit to send out repeated pulse signals.

Under normal conditions this would have lit her up like a beacon. But here....

She was producing ghosts everywhere. The blizzard combined with the rugged terrain meant that her signal was reflected and refracted in every direction for miles. At any one time they would be chasing at least a dozen seperate signals. They had been forced to split up to find her quicker.

She was about to make them sorry for their mistake.

The gorge she had settled down in was deep with snow and it twisted and turned without warning. Snow drifts provided cover from visual identification, and there was no way they could aim with their sensors.

She looked at her sensor readouts in the right hand side of her helmet. Streams of data continually updated, too much data for most people to handle. Most systems took all sensor data and compressed it down into simple information for ease of assimiliation. She had everything. Internal, external, health monitors and environmental.

Compressed data would have been useless to her right now. What she was paying attention to was ground vibration.

The enemy had been forced to proceed at ground level as sensor ghosts in flight could easily result in them misjudging the ground if they needed to land. Experience told her that tremors registered in her sensors meant a group of three battle sized mech-suits were approaching down the ravine from the south and nearly on her position.

She waited two more minutes as the vibrations got stronger till she could feel them without the sensor's help. From her position at the side of the gorge she would appear nothing more than another ice covered boulder.

She had visual on them. They were practically on top of her. All three were moving slowly down the gorge directly in front of her. Shoulder mounted missile pods and an assortment of arm mounted weapons. The missiles were redundant. Tracking equipment wouldn't work and they'd only collapse the gorge in on them with stray shots. Energy weapons would be for close range use only. The low temperature would sap heat from any shot over twenty feet. All she really had to watch out for was projectile weapons which weren't common. This would be close quarter fighting, which was her speciality.

The third mech had barely moved past her when she activated the jump system. Their sensors must have picked up the movement, but they couldn't pinpoint it, as they all started trying to look for visual confirmation.

She felt the force of her thrusters push her inside the suit as she flew sideways behind the rear mech and pulled herself in directly behind its legs. Pulling the trigger of her weapon she watched through the visual display as bright pulse shots streamed from her weapon. At this range there was little room for deviation and most of her rounds hit home. She quickly fired three bursts into the unarmoured rear section of the knee joints. Metal plating was torn asunder and cables began to spill hydraulic fluid as the joints gave way. The momentum of its movement caused it to topple forwards to land face first in the snowy gorge.

Even before it had reached the ground she was already tearing away using the force of her thrusters, slightly buffetted by the blizzard. The second suit had turned around and spotted her. A blazing green beam of energy tore her way but missed by metres. Before it could correct the error she was directly in front of the second mech's torso. It tried to back away clumsily but was not quick enough to avoid the much smaller armour in front of it.

Another burst, followed by another. Point blank fire directed out the outer casing of the cockpit. She knew she couldn't fire straight through to the pilot, but all she needed to do was open a hole.

She pulled in closer, using her left arm to grab hold of the torn metal and wrenching backwards hard. The front plating peeled back to open a two foot wide hole into which she placed a small metal device before pushing full force on the reverse thrusters to take her away.

Two seconds later and her suits sensor display went static for a second before returning to normal. She had only caught the edge of the EMP pulse, but his mech would now have had its systems fried. He was trapped in a metal coffin, which without his heating systems, would slowly freeze and kill him.

The third suit had managed to back away to a safe distance and was trying to send energy pulses her way. Each one missed but sent up showers of rock where it hit the sides of the gorge. She closed in for the kill.

Two bursts, a dodge to the right, another two bursts. Her armour allowed her to move like a dragonfly, flitting from place to place before they could draw a bead on her. The left arm came off at the elbow, severed by her sustained fire. And then it did something she didn't expect.

Both missile pods opened up and began firing. Even without tracking, at point blank range she had to dodge in every direction to make sure a lucky shot was not her end. But her main concern was that the cartwheeling missiles were now smashing into the rocky walls and were begining to send rubble crashing down.

The enemy suit was crushed by dozens of heavy boulders which fell down onto its torso, but Lilim was still flitting left and right to avoid a similar fate. But she wasn't fast enough.

A long sharp splinter of rock came flying at her and pierced through the armour of her left forearm. It wasn't the searing pain that spread through her body which made her lose control. It was the cold filtering in from outside which numbed her entire arm.

Her armour spiralled downwards slightly before she managed to regain control and landed awkwardly.

The sensor readouts displayed a drop in internal termperature of nearly ten degress, while her health monitors assured her that her superhuman body had already reacted to the pain. The blood around the impaled forearm had clotted, so at least she wouldn't die of bloodloss, but if she did not hurry, the opening in the suit would allow the inside temperature to continue falling.

Without hesitation she gritted her teeth and began to jump her armour in forty metre bounds down the ravine away from where the enemy had come. She would not die before her mission was accomplished.

**********************************

Internal temperature was down nearly twenty five degrees. Another ten and even her superhuman stamina would not be able to save her. But her goal was in sight.

She could make out the dome of the Mercenary Dome. The storm wasn't as strong here and a base of such size was likely to have a signal booster which could overcome the effects of the blizzard. They would be able to pick her up on their systems, but even more importantly they would pick up the approaching Shaetai forces.

As if to confirm her belief a number of what she assumed were launch bay doors began to open and a full force of mech suits and jets could be seen emerging.

She pushed the thrusters as much as possible, heading towards the vast shape of the dome ahead of her. Turning on her Short range Vox-caster she began to broadcast on all frequencies.

------- This is Lilim Savanant requesting permission to enter----- i repeat------ Lilim Savanant requesting permission to enter----- i am wounded and require medical treatment------ i am here with urgent information concerning the Agripinaa sector------ i repeat------ i have urgent information concerning the Agripinaa sector----- awaiting response-----

Her body was shivering and she was starting to become tired. Now all she could do was wait and see whether they would believe her mission, or whether she would be blasted away.

[Seska Dragonslayer]

In the corner of her mind, let alone the holgraphic projection screens around the cockpit, the images flared up. The battlefield - this time chosen by the Shaetai - was a jumble of various indicators, marking the known enemies from the friendlies. It was a bloody mess.

All around, through the standard medium of visual camera's mounted at various angles on the exoskeleton of her craft, she watched the blindingly bright firefights. The enemy, as always, had come in with heavy destroyer support. The tactic had nearyl been abandoned by the Terran space fleets some decades age, until the Shaetai employed their own vessels. Three massive destroyers and a space carrier craft hovered outside the range of the planetary defense batteries and lasers, and hailed death into the tight knot of combating mechs and fighter craft. Occasionally, a missile whizzed past her and her squadron, flying harmlessly to the limits of its range in the space all around them.

"Deep Blue squadron, break to formation VTR, ready weapon systems!" She hollared into the com system, and readied her own self. She slipped the combat mask - an old heirloom of the times when fighter jets were common and space travel a fantasy. She felt and tasted the fresh, proper air pour into her nostrils and her mouth as she seated the mask and sealed it to the helmet she wore. Then she finished securing the harness that had thusfar only been half put on, and by the time she had completed this, they had begun their engagement.

The formation was specifically designed to sheer into an enemy unit and pierce it through and through, disrupting the enormous advantage that several clumped units had to their defense. As swiftly as she dared in these 'close' quarters combat, she lashed out with the limbs of her mech, and felt the gut lurching impacts as she slammed into enemy vessels. Information poured in through the various sensor arrays, since her eyes were useless to garner information as to the effectiveness of her attacks. An enemy craft drifted slowly away from her, the main hull bust clean through and through and its occupants life signs dying away. It was replaced immediatly by another two from the same enemy squadron. One of them, while not quick, managed a point blank shot into her hull, and the whole vessel lurched monstrously beneath her. It casued little more than scarring of the obsidian paint, and then et result for the effort was null and void as she ripped first the attacker, and then his compainion, to shreds.

She was granteda brief reprieve as she forced her way through the outriders of the enemy, into the tightening circle that surrounded the combined forces of the Mercenary Force. Despite the varied technological aspects of many of the vessels, the fight was not one that would be won. The enemy outnumbered them easily five to one, and at that the enemy was simply superior in every way.

"Taken..........damage, requesting assistance..." Crackled over the more mundane communications equiptment, and Seska could but sigh, and shut the device off. It was everyone for themselves in this fight.

Inexorably, she drove deeper into the tight knot of war.

[Sariel]

Lonan flew out in front of the other fighter craft as the burned their way towards the destroyers that looked to Lonan like the hands of a god. From close up the size of the things dwarfed the formation of the two dozen craft that flew at them. The fighters had chosen a flight path that took them to the destroyers at the line farthest form the carrier of the enemy mechs. As the formation neared Lonan's sensors picked up the movement of the small mechs moving to intercept his group.

Using their call names the Flight Leader broke the silence of the fighters.
Cinder, Squawk move forward and take care of that.

Urging his craft faster Lonan pulled away from the group soaring forward at the mechs that were just coming into distance missile range. Squawk's craft matched his speed and was nearby as it lunched its first sweep of missiles at the still distant mechs which passed a flight of the mech's own missiles in transit. Lonan watched as Squawk's missiles find homes in several of the small enemy mechs, the mechs were built fast and light with much less fire power and armor than their bigger brothers and exploded from the payload of Squawks missiles.

Lonan relaxed as enemy missiles lost their lock on him while Squawk fire counter measure for the missiles as he broke off and burned down and to the left at top speed. Many missiles hit the small sensor registers that Squawk fired and exploded as Lonan came within range with his own weapons. Lonan dodged sidewards as a missile blind to him nearly collides with his wing and scrapes along the length of his craft before popping into his view trailing off behind him. His heart beating nearly a hundred and fifty ticks a minute Lonan rapidly empties his missile load as distant pulse and laser fire send him pealing off away from the knot of mechs. Not watching his missiles land Lonan notices Squawk's craft rock and waver after a lucky pulse shot takes it near the bottom, where it was heaviest armored. Squawks craft flew on suddenly launching dozens of missile from four different bays before it wavered again and Lonan heard the transmission from the other fighter as the mechs quickly covered the distance between them selves and the two fighters.

Lost control of the. . . Son'a'bitch tore right threw . . .

With Squawk's full load of missiles fired the enemies mechs moving in on the injured craft suddenly became ground zero. Different types of missiles including missiles meant to be used against large mechs and even one meant to be turned on a destroyer meet the small mechs and sent chucks of metal whizzing threw space.

Turning around from his direction angled away from the mech weapon fire Lonan finished the turn around pointed at the injured craft as it explodes from enemy fire. Grinding his teeth Lonan turns his mini gun on the enemy mechs turning the chest area of one into a boiling mass of shrapnel before pealing off at a distance while under fire. The rest of the friendly flight crafts move in cleaning up the last of the first mech wave and continue on to the destroyer while another larger wave of mechs comes into view on Lonan's sensors.

[GabrielThief]

Gabriel had been observing the battle for it's duration, his ship's sensors recording all the data they could. The battle wasn't going too badly, but it wasn't going well either.

We're outnumbered at least five to one.

Thank you Sean, but I can read a tactical display you know.

I'm just saying that we should do more than observe, we should be in on the action.

Thank you, Lieutenant, that's quite enough. Our orders are to observe, and that's what we're going to do until I say otherwise.

Yes sir.

He was right, they were outnumbered five to one, and they weren't destroying enough enemies to even the odds by any significant amount. Gabriel had been piloting through the battlefield, his sensors picking up every detail and recording it. They were hidden behind their cloak, and as long as they didn't drop it, the enemy wouldn't be able to see them or lock sensors on them. It was then that Gabriel noticed some serious trouble, a small squad of enemy fighters had broken away from the main battle to attack a couple of crippled friendlies.

Gabriel began rapidly flipping switches and adjusting controls.

Sean, load a full volley of torpedoes and ready all pulse cannons, I want a full sweep on those ships as I make my pass. Prepare to fire on my command.

Aye sir.

What are you doing Gabriel?

Azhure's voice was filled with anxiety, and just a little fear.

I'm about to violate our orders. If any of you has a problem with that, tell me now and I'll be sure to note it in my mission log.

Gabriel smiled inwardly as no one spoke up.

Gabriel piloted the ship around the edge of the small skirmish until he came to a position where there was lots of empty space on the opposite side of the ships. He then accelerated to full speed and began an attack run.

Lari, deactivate cloaking device.

Cloaking device deactivated.

Fire!

Just as Gabriel flew his ship past the small cluster of fighting vessels, his weapon systems fired, releasing a volley of torpedoes and a full sweep of the pulse cannons. Nearly all of the shots found their mark, destroying on ship and crippling the other two. Gabriel's ship sped past.

Lari, activate cloaking device.

Cloaking device activated.

Seconds after the cloaking device reactivated, Gabriel activated the ship's ventral thrusters, pushing his ship off the path they had last been seen following. He then brought the ship to a full stop and waited. With any luck, anyone who had seen the ship for that brief moment would have plotted the course and attack there, as opposed to looking for them so close to the place they had just attacked.

[Lilim_Savanant]

The battle raged on. The storm had eased and the weather was nowhere near as bad as it had been, but this only meant that the real fighting had been given chance to commence. The temperature inside her suit had steadied and she was confident that she could remain at this level for at least another two hours before her body shut down.

She had spent the last few minutes dodging, spinning and cartwheeling in every direction as explosions ruptured the landscape. Heavy artillery was coming from a great distance. Low orbit Shaetai vessels at a guesss. Squadrons of fighter craft swooped back and forth through the skies involved in high speed dogfights with their enemy counterparts. Mech units continued to blast each other at medium and close range. Missiles left craters while energy fire left long trails of melted snow where the rock beneath could be seen.

The mercenaries were outnumbered, that much was clear. But they were the more skilled of the two sides. The soldiers on the front line were here now only because their skill at arms had helped them avoid death countless times. But against too great an enemy even skill wasn't enough. Lilim knew this to be all too true.

She was amidst the heaviest of the fighting now. A small flitting object amongst the countless large machines. She weaved in and out of the path of the war machines. Her message had failed to get through to the dome in time, and now communications frequencies were filled to brimming with signals going back and forth across the field of battle. A sweep down of her thrusters got her out of the path of a plasma stream which registered on her external temperature monitor for a brief moment before it dropped once more.

Again a thrust, this time to the left as a stream of high velocity solid ammunition plowed a furrow through the landscape. It was no good, she couldn't avoid the combat any longer. Even with her mission, her warrior pride would not allow her to simply observe this battle. If she died then so be it.

Most of the Shaetai suits were standard combat models. Designed to perform adequetly under most battlefield conditions. Heavy armour plating over all the major systems, with weaker armour over any joint to allow freedom of movement. But whoever designed them had missed something important. While the heavily armoured tracking and scanning equipment was in the head, the pilot was in the heavily armoured torso. But between them was a lesser armoured neck joint. And somewhere in there was the bit that joined the two.....

She sweeped quickly past the shoulder of the nearest Shaetai mech, coming within a foot of colliding into the solid metal armour plating. As she sped past she pulled down the trigger on her weapon and sent two sudden bursts into the side of the Sheatai machine's neck joint. With any luck she had severed the connection and the pilot would be fighting by manual aim until his backup system came on online. But that gave the mercenaries five minutes where he was effectively blind.

Again she swept past another Shaetai and sent yet more burst of high velocity pulses. The weak armour was torn asunder and another system hopefully down. She might be injured, she might be in danger of being blown out of the air, and she may even fail her mission. But she was gonna give the defenders every chance they could get.

Again another burst, another mech. Again. And again. And again, until all she could hear was the gunfire.....

[Dumah]

There was an eye-watering twist of space not far from Seska's position. A flash of light marked the passage of a Shaetai formation into the next worlds, as Dumah unfolded adjacent to them. High intensity energy radiated in thin lines from emitters all around and about the exterior frame, doing terrible hurt to the three enemy mechs too far for it's blade and too close to warrant heavier weapons. The monoblade on it's right arm swung out in a terrible arc, glittering with rerouted power straight into the closest machine's gut, and then up through all it's major systems.

The AI did another sensor sweep, realigning itself with the local area. Seperate friend from foe...Shaetai from everything else. They were horribly outnumbered, as things stood. First order of business? Shore up the defenses. Then deal with whatever fools were in charge of this attack.

Too many foes for a direct approach. Dumah would need to be more surgical.

A dense sphere of depleted radioactives hurtled through space, unheard for lack of atmosphere. It tore into a Shaetai heavy fighter, sundering armor from framework and giving it's pilot a direct line into the starry night. Dumah was already gone again, folding away to accomplish more important tasks.
~~~~~
The ground assault was going steadily for the mercenary forces. Steadily worse, from the looks of it. The Shaetai had achieved a low orbit vector, and were dropping fire into friendly lines. That had to stop right now...

Dumah dropped out of the sky onto one of the lead assault craft. The impact knocked it's orbit downwards, and it began to fall. The slave in charge of the vessel cried blue murder, trying to get the ship stabilized...and it would have worked had their attacker not proceeded to rip open it's flank and violently rearrange several very important thrusters. The mech leapt from the former starship's crippled flanks, and started moving down the line.

Fire filled the sky, as the Shaetai diverted their attention to taking down this horrifically effective shock troop that had smashed into their lines like a nightmare on wings...

It ignored them for a time, looping, twisting and evading until it had guided a fairly good sized formation into a fairly tight cluster. The rail gun roared again now, a sonic scream from on high. Explosions raced indiscriminatly through the airborne formation, knocking the survivors around and about. They tried to lock onto their prey again, but found it missing until it appeared all too close.

One by one the remainder fell to the humming edge of Dumah's blade as he danced among them...

One of Them would be near here.
~~~~~

[Kaantaa]

Kvisa slowly brought the Sinistrata out of FTL transit near the mercenary planet. He had gotten a message from the Admiral that they had a mission for im if he was willing to come. His sensors were momentarily blinded until they readjusted to norma space. Kvisa sat calmly in the command chair of his one man craft.

Kvisa snapped to attention as the warning klackons sounded. He studied his tac board to see -to his irritation- Shaetai ships. They were only a forward scout, but they might end up making him late for his meeting with the admiral and that would have ... unpleasent consequences for the Shaetai.

"Crivens. I guess I'll just have to do some manure hauling pro bono for The Admiral before I can get to the mission." ?Kvisa muttered in extreme irritation.

He shut off all active sensors and exteraneous energy usage and turned on his stealth and Electric Warfare systems. The Sinistrata floated into the middle of the Shaetai squadron. There were only five ships here. Kvisa, with a smile like a very sharp -and poisonous- dagger, loosed two missles at each of the two forward sentries, keeping their drives deactivated, and set his Graser's sights on the helm of the command. He let the missiles drift for ten seconds, then simultaneously punched the activator for them and fired the graser. Without waiting to see the results, he plummetted straight down for three seconds, jerked port, and continued his zero-gee "fall"

He sent the ship into evasives for the next minute, then cut all power except stealth and life support and coasted away towards the planet on a ballistic course.

The graser shot, shred into the helm of the largest ship, ushering in gamma waves and the endless death of space as air, broken machinery, and bodies, some suited and some not, flew out. The crew of the first point ship didn't even have time to realize what had happened to their command, due to the fact that by this time them and their ship were nothing more than an expanding cloud of superheated atoms. The other point was more fortunate. One of the birds had malfunctioned, bursting early and damaging the second launch as it flew through the shrapnel. Its targeting was thrown off and detonated far to the starboard side of the vessel. The explosion still made the point ship rock and they took serious damage to the shields, but they were well enough to start tracking. Unfortunately for them, Sinistrata was already long gone.

One of the remaining ships semnt off S&R vessels to pick up survivors. the other had gotten a faint trajectory trace and started to follow it up. Oddly enough, it looked like it was going towards the planet.

Kvisa swore as he realize that he had barely damaged one of the point ships. The premature shot had also lodged some debris onto the top of the Sinistrata. All he could do now was hope that they didn't pick up the trace from the errant pieces of metal as he coasted towards the Mercenary planet. Quietly, he dinned his chameleon encounter suit and helmet. Tthe white planet below him did not look too promising for his intolerance of extreme temperatures. He swore again for good measure, and prayed to Myshala, the goddess of stealth, that he would arrive unnoticed.

[Sariel]

Sariel stayed his path as the Merc fighter crafts broke into two groups. One group hung back angled toward the nearest destroyer while the other met the enemy mechs and craft with missiles as soon as they were in range. Missiles from both sides passed each other as they sped toward opposing targets while both groups moved their ships in attempts to dodge the deadly payload screaming at them. Sariel watched ships break formation and shoot out in every direction as the missiles closed the gap. Missiles caught signatures from the craft and gave chase to some of the ships on both sides. A smaller craft near Sariel dodged sidewards and shot back the other way rolling so close to Betsy Sariel swore he heard the old girl let out a held breath. The missiles were going to fast to change course with enough agility to catch the only pilot Sariel admitted was better and cockier than himself . The missiles passed harmlessly by Betsy and Downer's craft. Sariel sent a message to the other cocky pilot as he prepared to center a stream of ammo on the area where a couple of mechs had managed to break threw the hail of missiles with being totally damaged.

You want to watch that Downer I just had the old girl detailed.

As Sariel sprayed the two Mechs at a distance that insured only about one in eighty shots were on aim while Downer's reply was as Sariel knew it would be.

Oh calm down you spaz, I didn't hurt your lady. You ready to dance with the devil.

Without an answering Sariel kept his course at the mechs as they got much closer and much easier to hit very quickly. Pulse fire from Downers craft added to Sariel's steady stream of ammo as the gap shorten and both crafts came under fire. The Mechs started breaking up as Sariel's shots cut one of the mechs not so neatly in two. Downers pulse fire sent chunks of his targeted mech flying threw space seconds before both crafts flew threw the space that had not long ago been taken up by not fully functional enemy mechs.

Both pilots goosed their engines and sped threw space towards different nearby enemy targets with Sariel dodging from side to side with a enemy craft firing on him from behind. Their only job along with the others in the group was to keep these enemy mechs and crafts as busy as possible while the other crafts fired missiles into the launch bays of the destroyer. The crafts didn't have any weapons capably of destroying the destroyer but knocking out its ability to fire on the planet bound defending Mercs would insure more friendly fighters. Sariel had entered into a bet with Downer when they had swept threw their targets, who ever killed more enemy crafts would be supplied with a can of shaving gel by the loser, no small prize in a place where luxuries were rare.

Sariel dodged about as his mini gun was aimed on the craft firing on him both seeking to hit an important part of the others craft.