As the hangar depressurized, all external sounds slowly went away with the a.s.sault and landing craft slowly powering up.

The landing s.h.i.+ps were of the CAS-7 type, a VTOL capable variable-sweep wing tilt engine supersonic transport order made for the Galactic Empire marines. Being 16 meters long with a folded out wingspan of 10 meters its by no means the largest craft to serve as a landing craft, but it was the most maneuverable at the time. For propulsion it was fitted a 12th generation VSIMR electrothermal propulsion engine at the each tip of its wings that could rotate 360 degrees independently of the wing and be used as a propulsion unit in s.p.a.ce when the wings were swept back fully, and to land vertically on planets with high gravity when the wings were fully extended.

As the hangar had been depressurized completely, the large external hangar bay blast s.h.i.+elds slowly opened to the void of empty s.p.a.ce outside. With the external blast s.h.i.+elds open the landing and fire support s.h.i.+ps slowly left the hanger and formed up in clumps together. After the 10 some carrier s.h.i.+ps had deployed all their invasion craft the s.p.a.ce around was filled with hundreds of gatherings of smaller s.h.i.+ps in formation around them the carrier s.h.i.+ps started to disa.s.semble into smaller s.h.i.+ps, revealing them to be a gathering of smaller destroyers pus.h.i.+ng a relatively inexpensive sh.e.l.lwork that formed the carrier bay. After abandoning the carrier sh.e.l.ls the destroyers formed up in front of the formation to cover the smaller s.h.i.+ps as they deployed large radiators.

["All s.h.i.+ps in a.s.sault formation. Deploying reflective barrier"]

Finally in a.s.sault formation a sort of fied spread out about 50 kilometers in front of the formation of some 1000 s.h.i.+ps that accelerated towards the ever growing gray planet, and not a second to late.

["Incoming!"]

[509.603 PROJECTILES DETECTED, TASKING ANTI GRAV DRIVES IN FORMATION..]

"That voice is f.u.c.kking creepy.."

"Of course it is sargent, it's an AI."

"Why are we using AI?"

"Can you calculate the trajectories of half a million projectiles in a split second to find out which will hit us?"

"Noted. But the voice is still so eerie"

"There's no reason to spend defence budget to make it sound s.e.xy just so you can get it off in the landing craft sarge."

"That'-"

"Something just pa.s.sed us!"

"Yeah of course, why spend energy on something that's gonna miss?"

"It's not gonna come back around and hit us?"

"Nope, that one is bound for deep s.p.a.ce. Any second they're gonna realize it's not working, stuff is only gonna get more dicy from here."

As the chatter in one of the landing craft once more quieted down so did the attack.

"They stopped.."

"That is not good.."

"Why is that Sir?"

"It means they're switching up tactics… Fuc-"

Cutting himself off the marine officer launched himself forward inside his CAS-7 and reached the pilots, were he ripped the headset off one of them.

"My birds get ready to break formation! Command Command, this is Alph7! Deploy caff immediately!!"

["This is command, please restrict-"]

"Cla.s.sified intel suggest enemy forces utilize AITC-HEL in defensive formations! All units deploy caff and smoke NOW!"

["AITC-HEL? That's nonsensical, they don't have the budget for that kind of hardware. Wait what is thä!-"]

As the commander's voice suddenly cut off one of the s.h.i.+ps in the back of the formation suddenly started melting and then immediately blew up, spreading chaos among the formation.

["What was tha!-"]

["Command down! Com-"]

["Abort landi-"]

"Everyone shut the f.u.c.k up! It's a AITC-HEL! Deploy caff and smoke now!"

["Who the f.u.c.k are you!?"]

"Lieutenant Dax of the 125th combined ops...o...b..tal drop troopers! Now before you guys call the usual s.h.i.+t about there only being 100 battalion's of that kind let me just do this. Callsign LIMA INDIGO ECHO 144 DELTA! Now invoking emergency reformatting of command and control structure!"

[RIGHT OF Pa.s.sAGE CONTROL PROTOCOL CONFIRMED. COMMANDER DAX OF THE 125TH WETWORK OPERATIONS COMMAND NOW IN CONTROL. ALL UNITS NOW UNDER OATH OF CONFIDENTIALITY. 125TH WERE NEVER PRESENT, NOR DO THEY EXIST, FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN 'ACCIDENTS'.]

"Did the creepy AI just threaten us?"

"...Yeah it did…"

"I repeat! Enemy controls one or more anti invasion tactical cla.s.s high energy lasers! All units deploy caff and smoke then s.h.i.+ft formation NOW!"

As a second s.h.i.+p in the formation blew up Dax had finally put himself in command of the invasion.

["Second division deploying caff and switching to formation sigma."]

["This is first division, caff and smoke out. Recommend tactical retreat."]

["Third division is taking heavy casualties! Also recommending fallback maneuver!"]

"Stay on target! Firesupport light those f.u.c.kkers up now!"

["48 AITC-HEL units located, commencing counter battery"]

"I want them nuked so bad you can see their irradiated corpse's glow in the f.u.c.kking dark!"

["Firesupport confirms, painting grid's 34-g5, 19-l2, 22-u4, 99-r3. First volly out, splash 20 seconds"]

Opening up the counter fire, the destroyers at the front of the formation sent out a volley of tactical thermonuclear missiles that quickly reached the atmosphere and lit up like small christmas lights. .h.i.tting the upper atmosphere at speeds above mach 60.

["5, 4, 3, 2, 1, splash. Targets. .h.i.t, standing by for additional fire orders."]

In a split second the small christmas lights lit up like stars and painted a large part of the planetary defences in deadly radioactive fallout for the next 200 million years.

"Good, give me a bunker buster on grid 21-w4 too."

["Affirm use of exitoc matter annihilation"]

"Yeah do it, just in case they thought we were sorry."

["Confirmed. Sending one times 'apocalypse by fire' prototype antimatter warhead, splash 20... 4, 3, 2, 1, splash."]

This time there were only a single light, but simply describing it using the word 'light' was a gross understatement. For a millisecond a supernova was present on the surface of Gemini 5, and as it disappeared it created hurricane speed winds on a scale that could only be described as apocalyptic.

"Hold it at that, we don't want to ignite the atmosphere. Separation is imminent, firesupport slingshot around the planet and join the second wave. LZ configuration haven't changed, remember that all communication to s.p.a.ce is blocked within Gemini 5 so we won't know when backup arrives. All units are weapons free and to act on their own devices, stay alive and hold your ground."

With Gemini 5 getting closer by the second Dax called for the firesupport ellements to split off and slingshot around the planet to join the second wave when it arrives. With the destroyers splitting off the formation only landing craft remained, and all of them slowly retracted their wings and readyed for orbital incursion under enemy fire, all except a single squad.

"This is insane.."

"Yeah it is, that's what makes it so great. Now everybody out of the landing craft NOW!"

""""SIR YES SIR""""

As the group of CAS-7's under Dax's direct control was about to hit the upper atmosphere, the marines inside jumped out of the crafts, wearing their safety vests and diapers (Ablative heat s.h.i.+elding and a drogue parachute combination). With the marines and Dax ejected and free falling from outer s.p.a.ce the pilots of the 6 landing craft all administered booster drugs and their seating rotated to turn upside down while blast s.h.i.+elding covered the black tinted gla.s.s windows.

"Hit them fast, I would recommend a 30% increase to rush through the upper atmosphere, anything above that and the crafts won't hold."

["Unit 1 confirmes, you qiton's really come up with some insane stuff."]

"I prefer the term 'fun'. And the Iron race was part of our military for 200 years, so we need to be a bit creative to surprise them."

["Roger. Form up on me, let's have some fun!"]

The basic idea behind a open style orbital insertion is simple really, to confuse the enemy and make them think the invading forces are not worth attacking or have already been disabled. Intercepting and/or shooting down invaders from s.p.a.ce not only requires a considerable amount of resources and precision, so it's often done by artificial intelligence. An AI looks for the optimal orbital incursion angle, speed and formation, so by doing something considered completely 'wrong', it is possible to get past the first wave of defences, in theory. For example if a group of objects moving way too fast is followed by a bunch of smaller objects one would a.s.sume its debris, and not landing crafts speeding ahead to clear out a landing area followed by landing troops in exo suits.

"They never saw it coming huh.."

"Sure didn't, is our commander actually a genius?"

"He might be.. But still it's partly due to our pilots, I've never heard of increasing ones ma.s.s with the grav drive to speed through the upper atmosphere and then lower it to slow down and wipe out the ground defences..."

"Yeah that would definitely kill any pa.s.sengers on board, meaby that's why he told us to jump with the s.h.i.+ps and not inside them.."

Under normal circ.u.mstances slowly floating down in parachute above a hostile area would be a death threat, in fact it was so common to die if that happened the large white parachutes was nicknamed as diapers, due to marines s.h.i.+tting themself before being turned target practice by the defending forces. But that didn't happen this time, in fact several of the marines leisurely joked around with each other as they floated slowly towards the ground. About 5 minutes before the marines had deployed their parachutes the 6 CAS-7's had swooped down like eagles as they spread out their wings and wiped out the nearby dencfinding forces with their chin mounted rotary cannons. Having landed without casualties, the some 50 marines took up a defensive position on a relatively flat hill and started to dig in while the CAS-7's circled overhead and looked for enemy reinforcements.

"A hour till the Rapier arrives!"

"So only-"

"Don't f.u.c.king jinx it now.."

"Sorry."

If there existed a higher power it surely heard the marines chatting in that moment.

["I'm being painted by something!"]

Before anyone could react the landing craft was. .h.i.t by some sort of projectile that buried itself halfway into the hull.

["Something hit me! No penetration, I'm still okay "]

"Punch out now! That's an order!"

["Negative, I can still s"]

As the rookie pilot tried to save his craft the sh.e.l.l that hit him a few seconds earlier ignited. Like a firestorm it spew flame throughout the craft and cooked anything inside in a sea of chemical fire. Spinning out of control the CAS-7 still burned as it was reduced to a burning husk as fire exploded out from it in columns formed by whatever holes still were in the craft.

"That shot came from over the over the horizon, find the spotter NOW!"

With flames still spewing out of the burning husk Dax pulled up his rifle and scanned the surrounding hills.

"Next shot is inbound! All air units deploy caff and hug the ground! Everyone else, find that spotter, shoot first, then shoot again to make sure!"

"Hexapod, 7'o clock, 600 meters!"

"Then f.u.c.king kill it!"

With the sky above them filling with caff as multiple projectiles flew by Dax and his squad opened fire and descended into h.e.l.l incarnate.