Utulien, Aduial

[The Cerberus Alliance]

Ark Four had been found. The explosion from his mech's reactor left a a crater that would be seen as large if the surrounding area wasn't filled with scars of much larger size. Kyle, Ark Two, hit his mech's jets, flying back away as the hail of firepower came in.

"Arks Two and Three, fall back and get Ark Five out of--" The Star's commander was cut off as his shields gave way under under the punishment of enemy weaponry. His reactor didn't detonate like Four's did, instead the machine fell lifeless to the ground.

"Sonofa.." Was all Kyle could say as he hit every trigger he could, launching a volley of missiles and particle cannon shots at one of the craft that had targetted his fellow mechwarriors.

His remaining fully functional squadmate, Ark Three, hurredly hit his jump jets and flew back to the location of Natalie's, Ark Five's, damaged machine. Thankfully, her shields had just come back online as the attack started or else she would have been one of the first casualties.

He forced his machine to jump left, narrowly avoiding a shot, though the blast afterwards tore into his shields. As long as they don't get any direct hits in on me, my shielding should cover for the rest. That's if I keep within range of the shield generators on Five and Three. Gotta move back...

As he hit his jets to fly backwards, a shot hit exactly where his machine's foot had been a second before, the resultant blast doing enough damage to the mech's shields to tear off the LAM's lower leg. Kyle caught himself from falling, slamming the mech's left arm into the wreckage of a nearby building, before responding with another missile salvo and a PPC blast from the right arm. Not. Good. backwards movement isn't possible with just one leg.

"Ark Three! I'm not able to fall back. You two need to fall back and regroup with the others! I'll try to hold them off!"
After what seemed like a long pause, Ark Three responded with a short "Roger" before his and Ark Five's Mechs turned and flew off towards the areas that scanners had shown as being held by forces from Zerstorendar.
After he'd seen them fly off, Kyle had his computer remote-activate the shields on the commander's downed unit. His power systems were still intact enough to allow a swift power-up with little concern. He managed to fire his jets again, skidding away from another close shot as his shields gained boosted strength from the downed unit's generators.

Another blast, another miss, but this blast did manage to cause cockpit damage, which sent shrapnel into the mechwarrior's leg and shoulder. No time to think about his wounds, he slammed his fist into his ammo controls, switching the feed to the small supply of anti-matter warhead-equipped missiles that had been loaded in his auxillary ammunition bin. After firing his last salvo of thirty missiles into his foes, he fired his jump jets, turning them to full power as he charged the enemy craft...

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

Elsewhere, the Cerberan mechs had regrouped with the exception of one star. Finally, an individual took command. Broadcasting on battlenet, a mechworrior calling himself "Galaxy Commander Nicholas" called to allied forces with a message:

"We have brought as many guns as we could afford to bring. Where's the nearest target?"

As this message went out, all one-hundred seven mechs began firing their PPC's, coordinating their volleys to target only one or two of the incoming speeders at a time.

OOC: I'm not planning on that mechwarrior from the first part of this post survive. If he could take a few of the enemy with him, and leave enough of the mech to identify that it was there, that'd be just fine. I just don't know what would be damaging enough to justify describing the destruction of any Departed craft myself.

OOC2: EDIT: I apologize for any crappiness with the writing in this post.

[Zerstorendar]

"Genlich, a message from the Dominion.", said one of the Ravager comm. officers.

"About time.", commented Scarus.

"Zerstorendar commander, we are not Terrans and we haven't been useless. We have been securing the bloody city. We are already enroute to aid you, just hold on."

"Patch me through", ordered the Ravager General as his subordinate complied:

"I don't care where you're from, but it would be helpful if you could keep in contact. I'll be linking a number of Ravager units to your own forces."

Throughout the city that the Imperiatus were advancing on, Ravagers bolstered the defences along with the surviving Skeelzanians, the Warbringers and Marines of the Dominion, and the elements of KAG that had arrived already. The defences were already powerful, and were becoming more formidable with every passing moment.

However, there were few such moments.

Scarus was pleased with the progress of defensive preparations, but decided that it was hus duty to save as many Ravagers as possible. As such, it was time to fall all the way back to the city and spare the forward Ravager units still fighting to slow the advance of an inexorable foe.

“Report on the field.� Demanded Genlich Markus hurriedly.

“We have fallen back several more klicks, casualties are withing acceptable limits but rising steadily. Reports indicate the enemy high-yield weaponry is more focused than ours and ambush opportunities have been decreasing: enemy coordination seems to be peaking. Cerberan mechs are also falling back. A number of Kelauan fast attack units have been supporting the Ravagers, but were mostly blown out of the sky.�

“So where are they now?�

“It seems they are fighting on foot, but are having trouble keeping up with our Ravagers.� Scarus sighed. Ravagers were very, very fast, and did not work well with troops like Warbringers or moderately-enhanced Kelauan Marines, as their rapid fight-and-retreat tactics could leave allied units suddenly unsupported. The General had another order in the interests of their suddenly-active allies:

“I want someone in touch with their leader, Tantis or whatever his fucking name is, and tell them to stay in the city. My Ravagers don’t want or need their help, and the last thing my troops need to worry about is supporting troops with differing capabilities. Tell him to get his troops back to the city and stay there.� Scarus turned to another comm. Officer as the first one began contacting the Kelauans:

“We’ve bought all the time we can, fall back to the city. Try not to leave anyone behind, but I want all frontline forces back in the city’s zone of engagement in fifteen minutes.� Scarus paused, as if he had had an afterthought:

“Inform the Kelauans of this timeframe, the Cerberans too.�

Across all fronts, the Ravager harassment Digits began falling back as quickly as possible, the Imperiatus hot on their heels, so to say.

Genlich Markus Scarus made sure his command crew were operating at peak efficiency, and began running final deployment checks on his soldiers. It was almost time for action.

[Kanuckistan]

Entering the atmosphere at relativistic speeds, Kanuckistani counter-missiles tore columns of nuclear fire through the air, like laser-straight lightning writ large, touching off mushroom clouds where they licked the ground.

Coordinating with allied ground where possible, taking care to avoid friendly forces when not, KHGV Target Drone had begun her 'light' kinetic bombardment, and the sky burned.


-----


"Looks like their main body's past us..." Stroud announced over the roar of distant atomics, brow furled as his recon drones attritioned, "Arm everything - time to ram a blackjack up their backside!"

"Oh God... please don't let me die today! Tomorrow would be so much better!"

"Too late for that - take us up, active cammo online, roll recon drones and dial up the point lasers. Set auto-mortars to auto-acquire mode and - HOSTILES 10-LOW!!!"

"Ripper Guns engaging!"

Wrapped around an anti-matter charge, needle-like spines of neutronium-laminate SAPL penetrators were spat relativistic in the wake of air-tunneling photonic-assist lasers - high-explosive armour-piercing rounds ripping through the enemy formation; reinforcements, stragglers, or support, no one would ever know.

"Repeaters chamber AM-HE and engage in low-angle allied support! Auto-mortars to auto-acquire mode, fire at will!"

Omni-Repeaters used as low-angle, long range artillery began lobbing sub-kiloton warheads, gunner contacting those KAG fighting with Union forces to coordinate fire, while mortars lobbed lightly stealthed conversion bombs into the upper atmosphere, each laser-head housing a dozen independently-targeted lasing-rods, skewering a dozen targets with bomb-pumped hellfire.

"Sir! Enemy vectoring to intercept!"

"That didn't take long, but let's not give them the chance! Unlock the main gun, deploy decoys, and take us into the rear of the enemy advance! All guns, fire as you bear!!"

The Imperiatus had the firepower to slag a Bolo, but the heavy Grav Tank would prove a far more fleeting target. Live fast, Die Spectacularly, Leave one HELL of a crater - that was the game plan now.


-----


"SIR! Union forces are falling back!"

Pervez had good genes, inherited some nice augs, but the armour the freighter engineer wore was little more than carapace; solid, but limited in mass without power-assist. And his weapon was but a simple chemical PDW.

He was, however, the KAG clansman mused, proving the old adage - Anti-Matter Bullets; the Great Equaliser.

"Go with them. Graveyard Legion! WE ADVANCE!"

Blinking as the armoured bulk beside him seemed to vanish as cammo engaged, KAGer going high-mobility, Pervez almost hesitated, but did as he was told; knew as he slipped over and through debris with inhunam speed and agility, nuclear thunder sounding all around, that the fight would come to him.

[Skeelzania]

The enemy attack had been expected, but that didn't mean the Skeelzanians were able to do much about it. The armored prong had rolled back the Skeelzanian lines all around, the chaos making it difficult to provide total artillery support. Even units not directly under attack had been pulled back, relying on the heavy support from the Zerstorendarian Ravagers.

The only bright spot that Ekard could see was that, as they pulled back closer to the city center, the shattered remnants of the 302nd were beginning to truly get back into the fight. Probably no more than three thousand of them had fully responded, with another sixteen hundred FS who had originally been attached to them. All together it suggested appalling casualty rates, but at least the Division hadn't been completely annihilated.

The same couldn't be said for Fürst-General Alfons Hrazany. Prior to the Imperiatus counter attack, when things hadn't been quite as frenzied, Ekard had dispatched a squad to investigate his commander's whereabouts. The hotel Hrazany had been embedded under had been replaced with a crater the size of a city block, a direct hit by some sort of ordnance. It was a shame, really: Ekard could of used the men with the General.

A sound that would put a Solomon thunderstorm to shame caused Ekard to look up from the data slate in his hand. The Kanuck bombardment was ripping the firmament; he could feel the impacts through the soles of his boots, see pebbles shaking on concrete slabs. "Nice timing, that. If we can keep Trunk and his guns from being vaporized, maybe he won't have to worry about his ammo count as much.

[Arizona Nova]

The Departed only pressed their attack for a little while. A few had gotten excited and pulled the triggers on their bombs too soon; that would not happen again. The enemy now fought in a manner befitting creatures that claimed to be sapient; at least some of them anyway. It didn't matter for any of them though.

As resistance stiffened to the advance of the cavalry, they strafed as a whole, simply trying to continue running toward the guns. Finally, when Kanuckistan's ships began to rain vengeance on them, they knew there was little more to be done for that. Battered, and chewed up past half strength, at once they all turned, speeding back as they could to the safety of their ship. The shield shrank, close enough to fit just it, so as to conserve what power remained, and the guns began to fire once more at the Kanuckistani forces marauding in the air, and anyone foolish enough to stray into their reach on the ground.

As the first wing of cavalry fled back to the ship, out issued another charge; the ship was now utterly emptied, save for a token crew. But the second army was no less equipped than the first, and with equal fury it moved to engage the enemy.

The plain around the vessel, flattened and scorched for some kilometers, was to be the final battleground now.

[Kanuckistan]

KAG and civilian space assets had, wisely, vacated line-of-sight from the enemy forces long ago, those few ships assisting the Superfortress in bombardment amply capable of doing so from the other side of the planet.

The dreadnought, meanwhile, alone and unable to maneuver, had little chance of harming the Target Drone - still lightseconds distant, Ch'cye actually ordered their evasive random-walk stopped, and ECM dialed back, rotated to ease targeting while obstructing the results of enemy fire.

Fire that bounced harmlessly of the titan's limited-aspect inversion field.

At the same time, as the enemy retreat sounded, the kinetic bombardment shifted, laying instead a ring of fire around the dreadnought, cutting the enemy off and forcing their army to charge a virtual wall of nuclear fire as tiny munitions normally tasked with killing other missiles, comparatively cheap and plentiful, rained down at ludicrous speeds, ringing the dreadnought, focused where the enemy would have to concentrate, coming or going, where the targets were richest and the ground to cover smallest, intensifying the inferno with an overlapping barrage.


And amongst that barrage, as the enemy emptied their ship, left it along, a special item - not a weapon in and of itself, the Mule was normally a lightly stealthed missile bus, it's inertialess SLDS drive allowing the rapid delivery of missiles against extremely distant targets, befor returning to base. Now, however, it sought to turn the tables, pierce the shields of the enemy with it's Streaming Linear Displacement drive System and deliver a handful of independently-targeted boarding torpedoes.

[The Cerberus Alliance]

Comm chatter throughout the Cerberan forces were pretty hectic. Commanders were busy signaling each volley of PPC fire, as well as signaling exactly which target the barrage was to be focused on. Every now and then, a casualty or two, sometimes three, would be reported (mostly just damage, a loss of an arm, or the destruction of a leg) In the midst of all of this, Galaxy Commander Nicholas, jokingly refered to as "Bionic Nick" or "BioNick" my most troops due to a majority of his body being replaced with cybernetic parts, listened for anything new as he took part in the fighting.

"Zerst is falling back. It looks like two of our mechs are retreating from around their location, too." He recognized the voice of a commander whose star was on the outer edge of one of the formation's flanks.

That was some odd news, Nick thought as he pulled the trigger to fire his cannons and called through the comm "FIRE! Targets registered Bogies 1 and 2!" He couldn't help but grin out of satisfaction as he saw one, maybe two, hundred blasts of blueish-white light cascade into a pair of the incoming enemy before he had to dodge more incoming fire.

"About these two unidentified mechs, any idea where they came from?" He messaged his second in command.
"I don't know, sir. Identification signals are showing up as 'Ark Three' and another machine that apparently has too much of a damaged transmitter for us to make an identification from this range."
"Very well. Have those two head for the escape zone at navpoint Delta. We should be getting resupply dropships there any time now that should be able to handle those two--" He hit his jump jets, dodging more incoming fire. "--better than I can."

Another jump to avoid a few shots, then a quick step backwards to avoid the explosion from another mech's reactor going critical. After ordering another barrage, Nick broadcast movement orders to his troops:

"Everyone fall back and stay behind allied forces. Our mechs are little more than dodgy artillery pieces right now, and it might help to get something in between us and this speeder rush."

[Arizona Nova]

Captain Enradis Nenen, of the First Sanctified Fleet of the Areian Imperiatus, stood alone on the observation deck. He gazed out at the cracked, nearly shattered window, which looked down on the twisted, graceful hulk below. The ship groaned and creaked under him, as the percussive thumps of artillery and sudden impacts of energy weapons played up and down the hull. Their lights, of increasing color and frequency, cascaded across its surface pell-mell; red, yellow, the indistinct flying shapes of bullets, all dissolving into hot white as they melted into the shields. Such careless bombardment was surely the mark of barbarian races.

He would be sad that such a thing as this glorious vessel was now passing away at the hands of savages, but all such weak-minded emotional compulsions had long been since erased. He had a duty which he – and his ship – would serve to fulfill the greater glory of the Imperiatus, and make a great monument to the day that they scourged this rat’s nest. The systems had reported incursions of boarders on various decks and of penetration of the ship’s lower levels, but these pirates and mercenaries would not be given the lion’s share of loot, not from this ship. They would have to strip it, as they undoubtedly would, from the shattered detritus of the planet about them.

Taking a small keypad in hand, he input two simple commands. Deep in the reactor of the ship, feedback from the bombardment of the shields had been building up to critical levels. With those commands, Enradis Nenen had unlocked the safeties holding back that build up. The shuddering of the ship took on a unified beat, as the vibrations from these final agonies of its reactor core overwhelmed and drowned out all other shakings.

Enradis cast the keypad aside, carelessly, and turned to the locked door. He heard noises outside, and the tramp of dirty feet. Coming for him? They knew him not. They came for plunder, to kidnap who they may. To torture and to ransom, maybe. They would not have him, though, not even for a moment. He ruled the end of his ship, and he would rule his own. With his right hand he took a ceremonial dagger from a scabbard on his belt. For a moment, he regarded it – the ship’s name, engraved in his people’s sacred tongue, too subtle for lesser minds to grasp, running in curves on the flat, its handle carved in twisting shapes beautiful to the eyes yet comfortable to hold. Its silver blade gleamed red in the light of the dying sun. He drew it back before his heart; soon it would be stained red, forever, and it and his remains and the ship would be merged in one great holocaust. All would remember this day, friend and foe alike, and his immortality would be assured. That comforted him. He plunged it deep.

The reactor howled and shook, violently enough that anyone in the ship and some hundreds of meters around felt it, and then it gave. For a split second, the shaking stopped, and many thousands began a sigh of relief that would be frozen in their lungs and minds for all eternity. The reactor blew. All the combined effort to crack the shields of the indomitable ship only served to feed the wrath of its fiery death. Within moments the shockwave and dust and debris had filled the charred ash-bowl it occupied, that had been an eye-blink’s before a teeming battleground. It roared through the ruined streets, uprooting whole buildings and flinging them into the air like sticks. It soon lost momentum outwards, and went upwards, cyan plasma mingling with dirt and ash and debris as it formed a giant cloud mushrooming and spiraling into the heavens. Any watching telescopes would think that an asteroid capable of wiping out all life on the planet had just impacted.

[Zerstorendar]

Genlich Markus Scarus monitered closely the situation as the second wave of enemy troops harried his own retreating forces. Most of his Ravagers were now in the safe zone, and the operation had become defensive once more. The first enemy wave had been bloodied, but the second one had achieved some impetus in the enemy assault once more, and the Ravagers were forced to combine into larger units in order to concentrate sufficient firepower to resist. All said and done, however, the situation was not out of control just yet. The Zerstorendarian forces were still largely intact and in good order.

A Ravager with a Comlink leaped off the top off of a nearby building to stand next to Markus as he gave an urgent report. He could have used the integral comm. Systems of their Powersuits, but Scarus preferred a more personal approach where possible.

“Genlich, we are detecting massive power fluctuations in the grounded Dreadnought.�

The General’s own not-inconsiderable brainpower combined with his suit’s AI allowed him to reach the two most likely conclusions very quickly, and both were very, very bad. Perhaps the KAG boarding troops, whose tenacity had impressed Scarus and whose boarding procedures easily rivaled those of Hellbringers, had set off a chain reaction on the ship. Or perhaps the ship’s captain, in a last gesture of defiance, set the ship to self destruct in the face of imminent defeat. Either way, the result would be the same. They had several minutes at best:

“Get every man on the Comlink, I want every last Ravager in the orbital bombardment shelters, right the fuck now. Broadcast on every channel, let the Skeelzanians know. Have the Digits seconded to the Skeelzanian artillery crews drag anyone they can with them.�

“Yes sir!� Several Ravagers rushed to carry out his orders, a cacophony of deep, filtered voices dispensing said orders and warnings to everyone who could hear them.

Across the field, Ravagers scattered in as organized a manner as possible, their units consisting of a mix of fifty-man Digits, ten-man Subalts, and lone troops who had lost unit coherency. They could not possible have moved any faster, and many got to shelter, while many did not. A number of Skeelzanians were dragged forcefully by the massively powerful forms of armoured Ravagers to shelter with them: there was no use remaining at one’s post now.

When the Imperiatus Dreadnought exploded, it was with the force of the most powerful weapons of mass destruction. Ravagers who had not made it to cover dropped immobile to the ground as their AI’s made a last-ditch effort to save their lives by activating anti-WMD protocols. Those Ravagers that were able to override their emergency teleporters normally reserved for saving the lives of those mortally wounded did so, and hundreds made it to the relative safety of the fighting Sternsieg vessels orbiting New Constantinople. The unlucky ones that had no made it to shelter went into stasis, and their Thwarter suits shut down all non-essential systems to enter a hyper-reactive state. As the blast that would render New Constantinople a wasteland passed over them, some Ravagers were able to barely hold onto life as their suits weathered the blast and preserved their internal environment.

Genlich Markus Scarus made it to safety at the very last moment, the huge door to his bunker closing as a white light erupted on the horizon. As darkness enveloped the super-reinforced bunker, he groaned. At least two thousand Ravagers would die now, and Tereza knew how many allied troops.

The Imperiatus would pay. They would fucking pay.

[Arizona Nova]

-=ISRV Kaltarak

The crew in the deep bridge on the Kaltarak watched helplessly as the drama on the ground rapidly unfolded. Bombardment of the dreadnought was out of the question, as nothing short of the force needed to break a world would avail against the Departed ship. The Hughie squadrons, though guided by Kertai, were soon lost amidst the combatants on the ground, winging every which way, dodging enemy retaliation and Kanuckistan's bombardment alike.

They sat for the better part of an hour, but it may as well have been an eternity. It didn't seem fair; the victory against their fleet had been hard-won and glorious. How in the world did their dreadnought retain enough structural composure, while plummeting in hard atmosphere, to deploy an invasion force? And now it was embedded like a tick in the surface, and a tick that could not be burned at that.

Admiral Naronya and Anandil were turned from the view screens, when all the sudden a gasps and screams of shock and horror eruped in the bridge. Their attention snapped back and the bottoms dropped out of their stomachs as they saw the huge plume jet out of the atmosphere. Maniacs! Monsters! Murderers! An outpouring of grief and rage resonated around the bridge. Anandil looked at Naronya; his eyes were welling up, he bit his lip. Anandil buried his own face in his hands. It was over, and these horrendous fiends had killed a whole world, for no reason at all but malice. He would destroy them for this, he swore to himself, clenching his fists hard, almost to the point of drawing blood. They saw fit to level godlike destruction on a world whose only crime had been to exist, to draw the attention of their hate, and godlike wrath would be poured on them in return. Make no mistake.

On the Fist, reactions were much the same. The battle wore on, but then the terrible explosion belched forth. Anikar fell to her knees.

"Noooooo! Damn you! Damn you!" she screamed, her eyes flashing. "Was it not enough for you to cut down thousands of sailors in their prime, that now you must kill a world!?" She slammed a fist into the deck, leaving a near-graven imprint.

Silence reigned as all present took in the horror unfolding below. Slowly, the dust cloud began to spread across the face of New Constantinople's sky, a creeping horror that, in a matter of days, would cast the entirety of the planet into a black and cold night which would not lift for many lifetimes, and choke all life. No one alive today would ever see the sun shine there, and generations distant in the future - if the future ever came - would only through a great miracle.

"It is the Second Darkness," said Govannon, his voice hollow. Anikar peered at him from the corner of her eyes.

"Do not invoke that name," she said. "The First Darkness, I am certain, came from something greater and more terrible than the homicidal animals who came here today, more twisted than even their most morbid dreams. And the First Darkness was Everlasting. This is the Lesser, but even in so being it is more terrible a thing than any of us can bear."

She stood, now looking down at the floor. "Where else have we to go?" she groaned. "Arizona Prime is a ruin, and now this, our homeworld-in-exile, the third of this race, is blotted out. We are dispossesed once more."

"We must pull back the fleet to what places of strength remain to us, and with all that we can bring with us. Send word to all the refugee fleets - they are being militarized under federal jurisdiction. I shall appoint such admirals for them as I can. We must gather somewhere, out of sight, but keep them together, and keep them connected."

She brought up a map. "Divide our forces under what commanders remain, and send equal parts to Joyous Gard, Rhuckh, and Baramua. Be silent and swift."

"If we divide our strength," said Govannon, "It will be that much easier for them to overwhelm us."

"Our strength was not divided today," said Anikar. "And thanks to Kertai's heroic efforts it was more united than it was ever before, and it has still availed us little. A quarter of our own are dead and New Constantinople has been mortally wounded and ruined. We can no longer afford to stand and fight."

"Then you mean..." said Govannon, uncertainly.

"Our fleets will only stand to offer distraction to the enemy should they come hunting for us, and allow my people to escape," she said. "Just long enough."

"Then it will still be a diaspora," he argued. The plan did not sit well with him.

"They cannot wipe this whole galaxy clean," she said. "For all the enemy's strength if they arouse enough alarm against themselves, eventually the avalanche will come down upon their heads. If I lose my people in the stars in the process, then it must be let be. We are broken today. We go underground, and we act to preserve our lives rather than our land... which can also be killed. Contact our allies, those involved in the transport of refugees. Make sure they know where to take our people."

Admiral Govannon nodded, defeated.