CHEVALIER DE LA
CROIX NOIR
CHAPTER 6
BY ARTHUR
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We continued to vary our attacks, as yet the Navy had not got itself together which made our job a little easier, they were just not used to being under attack from small fast moving targets, I thought it was more likely they just did not believe anyone would be presumptuous enough to try it, their tactics just did not cover this type of assault.
We decided to slow our attacks, as we watched from the cover of our stealth systems, the Navy slowly began to sort itself out, as predicted, they went right back to their old tried and true defensive lines, by now there were a large number of their smaller craft turned into derelicts, while they were trying to send rescue craft out, others were almost looking over their shoulders for more of the guerrilla attacks, we did not want to disappoint them.
Now it was time for our Frigates to come in as our small unit got out of the way, for the Navy it was just more confusion as they saw very fast and well armed Frigates appear from out of the blackness cannons and lasers blazing, not only were they now under attack from slightly larger ships, they were being attacked from three sides, again their old fashioned plans did not cover this sort of fast attack.
The Frigates caused more mayhem and then turned and disappeared into the blackness before the Naval ships got off more than a few shots at the fast moving ships, as they tried to get some sort of order into their thinning lines and their rescue ships were now under a greater weight, Santos sent in both the Cruisers and larger and better armed Battle Cruisers.
There was only one thing the Galactic Navy could try and that was to flee as they saw the mass of heavy ships appear on their screens but it was already too late, as our heavy, fast, well armed ships tore into the remains of the Navy, the Frigates returned and tore into those trying to escape, the battle field turned into a slaughter house, there would be a lot of salvage from this little battle.
The larger force had now been reduced to three battered and broken Cruisers, as they looked on their screens all they could see were the debris of the battle and five very large Battle cruisers aiming their large Plasma Cannons at them, the senior officer had no alternative, over the general channel he called out his surrender, the fear in his voice could be heard over the space waves.
Santos took over as our sole Admiral.
"This is the F.F.T. ship Sargasso, I am Admiral Santos, officer in command of the Federation forces, you have breached the protocols governing the immunity of our Diplomat, as of this moment you are all subject to the laws of the Federation, we accept your surrender, all crew will trans ship to the rescue craft, you will be allowed to go free and return to your planets, all senior officers will stay on board their vessels until further notice, your ships are to shut down all drives and no transmissions may be made until further notice, any attempt to send or receive messages and we will open fire, do you accept these terms?"
"Yes Admiral, we have nothing left to fight with, we will abide by your conditions."
"I want all senior officers above the rank of Flight Lieutenant to gather on one ship, all other junior officers may go with the crew members to the safety of the rescue craft."
As we watched, all three of the Cruisers shut down their drives, there were then a number of small shuttles in the air heading towards one Cruiser, others were seen heading towards the rescue craft, as the shuttles came close to the single Cruiser, all our forces became visible, I could only imagine what the senior officers were thinking as they saw how small our real force was compared to what they had had in their Battle Fleet, as yet Santos had not uncovered the Sargasso, that was being kept under wraps until needed.
We let them wait for over an hour, as the rescue ships began to disappear into space with the survivors, Gareth sent a message to the Rim for a fast ship to carry over a thousand droids to come and get started on the salvage, they would arrive within the day.
When Santos thought the officers had waited long enough, he called for his personal ship, he would have plenty of room on it to take the officers back to the Sargasso and they would not be able to see the Jump Ship as it had stayed in stealth mode so they would not see anything until once inside and there they would then be led to the command centre where they would only see a small fraction of the technology and size that made up the Jump Ship.
I flew my ship alongside the Sargasso and had Tiger fly it into one of the vast number of empty cradles, from there I made my way to the main control room, Santos sat in a large operations chair, the group of captured officers were being held in a group by a number of armed men from the Jump Ship, there were thirty senior officers, among them five Admirals, the rest were either Captains or Commanders with a gaggle of lesser ranks, none of them looked happy with the situation they now found themselves in.
Santos looked as though he was enjoying the situation, he gave a slight nod to me and then turned all his attention on the group, it was better they did not know who I was, there were still planets out there that I needed to go too.
"Gentlemen," Santos began, "You are now prisoners of war, your actions against our representative of the P.U. who had full Diplomatic Immunity, has left us with no option but to declare war on the Galactic Corporations and their armed wing, the Galactic Navy, you will be taken from here and interred on one of our planets, there you will wait until all this nastiness is over, any attempt to escape from our custody will mean the death penalty for all of you. You will now be escorted to one of our Cruisers for shipping to the Planet, do not cause any trouble or you will never see your home planet ever again, is that clear gentlemen?"
The stunned looks on the senior officers faces told their own story, just the fact they had so easily been defeated was enough of a shock but to now be standing in the control room of what looked to be a far superior ship left little doubt in their minds that the Corporations could be in trouble, only one Admiral had something to say.
"Admiral Santos, I remember you well and also your downfall, you will not get away with this, if this is all you have to fight with then you will be vastly outnumbered, even you know the Galactic Navy can put more than twenty Battle Fleets into action, there is no way you can defeat that many, especially if they are out hunting for you en-mass as they will be after this."
"Ah yes, Admiral Coates, I remember you sitting on the board when they decided to rail road me out of the service, how does it feel to be on the other side? Even if they do find us they will have their hands full, this is only a small fraction of what we have available and you have already seen what even these few can do to one of your Battle Fleets."
It was just like Santos to lie to the man, as is said, if you need to lie then make it a huge one and be done with it, we already knew the odds but we also had far superior ships and the training of the men and boys was going fast and with precision, it was time to send these captives to the Rim, Santos had turned one of his moons into a temporary prison for any captives, they would not be sitting around, they would be put to work in the fields and mines to help our own effort, a fact they were not told of as yet.
All the captives were herded aboard one of the Battle Cruisers under armed guard, it was the last we saw of them until the end of the war, there were to be many more join them over the next Months and Years, in all it would take us quite a while and a lot of fighting before we brought down the Corporations and their ilk.
Once the Battle Cruiser had jumped from the battle site, we all set our ship for home, the small fighters went into the converted Freighters for the jump and the rest of us followed along, only the salvage droids and a soon to arrive convoy of empty freighters from the Rim would be left at the site, with luck they would gather a lot of the wreckage before there was any sign of the Galactic Navy, they did not have our advantage of Jump Drives and it would take a long time for the rescue craft to make port, even if they sent out signals it would take the Navy quite a while to arrive at the scene.
Home Base was a scene of jubilation as the returning heroes were welcomed by those who had stayed behind, Santos took most of the Fleet back to the Rim and well out of the way of any searching Navy, we were greeted back by Android Gareth with Ellis close by his side, the young boy never seemed to be far away from the little Droid and I would often see them looking at each other with blank stares, it was a while before I found out they were communicating through the Positronic minds.
I had not asked Ferris how things were with he and his little brother but when watching the two of them, all seemed good, they played like any two brothers and often were to be seen trying to tickle each other, it was a thought that perhaps for the first time in his life, Ferris had someone with a mental capacity to keep up with his own, even if the boy was his little brother.
For two weeks there was little for us to do apart from watch the production lines go back into full swing, the amount of salvage gotten from the battle was staggering, a large number of the hulls were good enough to be rebuilt and those that had too much damage were used to supplement those being fixed, Gareth also advised all crew men that they would have to visit his huge infirmary, he was going to tag their side arms with their genetic code so they could only be used by the owner, that way if anyone lost their sidearm it could not be used against them or anyone else, the Navy still only had ballistic side arms, we did not want them to get their hands on our small lasers.
Over the news broadcasts we heard all about the Battle from the perspective of the Corporations, half truths, misdirection's and downright lies filled the space waves, the declaration of war on the Corporations by the Federation was made front page news, Kratos had, as instructed, walked into the open forum of the P.U. and declared he had been fired on by the Galactic Navy and therefore in breach of the Diplomatic Code of the P.U, the Federation was now at war with the Corporations and the Galactic Navy, while they were shouting and yelling at each other, Kratos made his escape and disappeared into the void before they even realised he was gone.
Kratos arrived back at the Base with a wide smile on his face, he immediately picked up Ellis and sat him on his knee, it looked as though Kratos had decided the little boy need a big bad daddy to look out for him, the boy just smiled and snuggled into the big bear of a man, Ellis looked like a little toy doll next to Kratos huge size.
"Well Kratos, looks like you are out of a job, I don't think they will like Federation Diplomats anymore, we will have to find something else for you to do."
"I'm not in a hurry, I'll find something in time, besides now I have my own fancy ship I may be able to go out and start a fight or two and be rescued by the great Federation Navy, the scourge of space, ha, you should have seen their faces when they heard a full Battle Fleet had been lost to some virtually unknown Federation Fleet, did they get a look at the Sargasso?"
"No, Santos kept that one hidden; they should be in for a shock when he decides to use it."
"How did the salvage go, is there anything useful left of the old fleet?"
"Yes, quite a bit, our pilots did a lot of good work and took out mainly only the drives and communications arrays, we should gain at least another one hundred full ships out of it all, they had to leave some behind as the Navy nearly caught them with their pants down but they all got away just in time, Santos has the Rim workshops in full swing and Gareth has had his going day and night."
"So what now?"
"We sit and wait, the Knights will be going out soon to stir up some trouble but Santos wants us to wait until he has a couple of Cruisers to go along as backup, they will stay hidden but close by, we are going to hit a couple of the CEO planets, that should stir things up, this time we are going after some of their office complexes, another hit and run job just to keep them off balance so they don't know where or what we will go after next time."
"Sounds good, what has Santos got up his sleeve?"
"I wish I knew but it must be something, he has been training a lot of the new young teens for ground attack, seems Gareth has been holding back in the armoury, our Red Knights are going back out in the field to try to recruit some more of their fellow friends, they're sure there are still a lot who want to join us but we did not have room to transport that many, I think Gareth plans to use augmentations to turn them into ground troops so we can hit the planets."
"This thing is getting pretty big, Sargasso."
"Yeah, it's a lot bigger than I thought it would ever be, but then maybe it was needed and the only way to get some change going, those Corporations have held absolute power for far too long."
"I won't disagree with you on that one, ok time for me and the little feller to have some play time; what do you think Ellis, think you can fire my rifle yet or you going to stay with that little pop gun Gareth made for you?"
"I like the pop gun, it has a nice blue light when I fire it and it makes things really sizzle when I hit them."
"Gareth; what pop gun?"
"Commander, knowing that this event was going to get bigger, I thought it wise to have my little Brother armed, therefore I have had a special Starlight Laser Rifle made for him so he can defend himself if the need arises, his new Poppa has agreed to teach him to use it safely."
"Brother, Poppa?"
"Yes Commander, as Ellis is now attached to me through his Positronics he is my first Brother so now he has two families to keep him safe and look after him, Representative Kratos agreed to make him his adopted Son so he had a new family as his older Brother is busy with the operations of the base and of your endeavours."
"I see, well I suppose it can't do any harm as long as he is trained properly so, it's all on you Kratos and I don't want him shooting everyone he sees in the base."
"Don't worry about that, if he does shoot someone they won't get up to complain about it, just relax, the boy has all of Gareth's knowledge remember so don't get your panties in a knot, just remember who taught you to shoot."
"Yeah I do, that's what worries me."
"And what does that mean, if I remember rightly I told you not to try to shoot a Skerrit with that little pop gun you had, but oh no you had to go after that fucking thing just to make a point, one, I might remind you, that almost cost both our lives."
"Oh come on Kratos, I was only eleven at the time."
"So, is that meant to make me feel better that I had to take a dive into that bloody swamp with you under my arm and nearly lost my own rifle in the process, if I say Ellis is going to have his rifle then he's going to have it, so don't you start trying to throw your weight around or you will end up in the same place you did last time you didn't listen to me."
"I think you might have a bit more trouble getting me over your knee nowadays Kratos."
"Huh, you can keep on dreaming boy, now I got things to show my new Son so stop your yammering and go fight the bad guys or something that will keep you out of trouble."
I turned around and saw my three Brother Knights smiling widely if also somewhat smugly.
"So tell us Sargasso," Brutaria asked as he smiled wider, "Just what sort of rifle did you try to shoot a Skerrit with?"
"None of your bloody business."
"Come on, we're all Brothers here."
"Ok, it was a 125, Kratos said if it had only been an 85 the Skerrit wouldn't have felt it but the 125 was just big enough to piss it off."
"A 125, you really tried to shoot a fucking big Skerrit with a 125, no wonder you ended up in a swamp, of course it could have been inside the Skerrit so I think a swamp isn't that bad."
The sound of loud laughter filled the large common room as I turned and left to look for Scorpion, I had some heat to relieve and he was just the right tight fit to do that for me.
A week later and the Red Knights were ready to leave for Terra once again, that is, all except Snake, I had decided he would stay behind and could fill in as my Co-Pilot if anything came up, the fact he was good on the eye and very talented in bed also went a long way to having him stay.
Snake was unusual in that he had been genetically enhanced at birth, he was a member of what were called Mennonites, they had some very strange beliefs, when a man reached 25 Terran years, he was given two wives, one was marked as the first wife, she would be responsible for the home and any children born either by her or the second wife who was responsible for the gardens, animals and anything to do with working outside.
For them, once they had born two children each, they would be sterilised, the husband could still have his sexual rights but with no fear of any more mouths to feed, in the case of the other children, daughters were kept in the house until they were old enough for marriage, only the first born son stayed home, any other sons were placed in a special hospital at birth and given genetic enhancement, this was done to make them more attractive to widows or single men when their wives had passed away.
Snake had been a third son and so now he had all the advantages of his enhancement, he stood 5'11" in the Terran measurements , even now with his nanite extras he was still slender but wiry, his muscles were evenly formed and flowed under his very dark skin as though highly glossed by some magic oil, between his legs he was huge, that had been what the genetic enhancements were really for, these enhanced boys were all traded among the Mennonites so they could comfort any women who had been left as a widow or a once married man who had lost both wives.
These enhanced boys were treated very well as they were seen as a special commodity for the betterment of the community, unfortunately the Corporations had seen another chance to make more profit and had made their type of life illegal, they had then taken over most of the Mennonite land and, as luck would have it, the Corporation decided the boys could be used elsewhere, that was the reason Snake had ended up in Juvie.
Snake had made friends with a small boy from the Terran Latin Union, the boy was sixteen but very small for his age, he looked like one of the small boys that rode on animals in races back in the twentieth century, he was fully in proportion but just of small and slight build, how Snake ever managed to enter the slender butt of the boy was beyond me until I got the chance to see them in action one night, the smaller Latin boy had talents I could never dream of.
He stood no more than 5'3" tall and I could easily place two hands around his narrow waist, his butt was two very small tight globes that would barely fill a man's hands, Snake was however very well endowed due to his enhancements, on the first night I took him to my bed I had decided to measure him just out of interest, he had measured 30cm. When fully erect and I had trouble placing my hand fully around his girth, a real monster, fortunately for me, Snake had no trouble being a bottom when I wanted him.
After the other Red Knights had left to find more recruits, Snake asked if he could bring his new friend to bed with us, now I have never been a prude and it would also give me a chance to see how Snake performed with the much smaller teen, after this night I would never again say I had seen everything.
It took little effort for Snake to have the teen stripped, he was so slim but wiry and everything reminded me of a living doll, he had shaved himself so only his head and eyebrows had hair, everything else was in proportion with his small slender size, Snake quickly disrobed and his huge dark piece of meat began to instantly react, the young teen, who I was soon to learn was called by a very old fashioned name of Raul, immediately went to his knees and began, much to my amazement, to swallow centre metre after centre metre of that thick long rod until his lips were brushing the Pubis bone of Snake, Raul's throat was distended beyond belief as that thick rod pushed it to its limits, I could hear Raul breathing through his nose with practiced ease as he swallowed time after time to massage the thickness in his throat.
Snake stood above the boy with his eyes closed, a look of bliss on his young black face as Raul worked on his enhanced rod, it took only seconds for my own meat to react to what I was watching in my bedroom, Snake opened his eyes and smiled as he indicated I should strip and then kneel in the centre of the bed, once there, Snake easily picked up Raul without ever pulling out of the hot throat, somehow turned him around until the boy was now laying on his back on the edge of the bed, his throat still distended beyond belief.
Snake reached over and drew the thin coltish legs back until Raul was rolled up like a boy ball, his knees right back by his own ears, he was now wide open at both ends, not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I quickly used a little lube and pushed deeply into the hot hole now opened before me, Raul grunted then went back to swallowing and massaging Snakes huge weapon.
Once I was fully in the hot place and holding tightly to Raul's knees, Snake reached down and took the boys head in his hands, he then began to slowly withdraw until only the very tip of his glans was in the boys mouth, with seemingly little effort, Snake started to feed him the full length all over again, as he did so he held Raul's head still as I watched the boys throat expand and throb as Snake went deeper until he was once again fully inside the boys throat.
For some time Snake kept up the slow work on Raul, each time he bottomed out inside the boy, he would push him down onto my own hardness, Raul became like a small slim piston being driven back and forth from both ends, not once did he grimace or try to stop any of this strange game Snake was playing, it soon became obvious that this was not the first time Snake had been with Raul, from then on the night only got more interesting as Snake showed me positions I had never seen before, by the time morning came around both boys were well used and both were dripping a lot of juice, Snake had particularly liked being the meat in the sandwich with Raul under him and I on top.
The next month passed quite pleasantly and then the other red Knights returned, with them they brought more than four thousand new recruits, Gareth went into over drive checking and starting a short dose of enhancements, every infirmary was full and the base was now becoming full, over the next few months the boys went into training as ground troops, each was supplied with a Laser Rifle and side arm, as well as these they also were issued with another little surprise "Accidently" left on the last file on the Jump Ships construction plans, another present from the non combatant Councillors.
These were anti grav skimmers, they were powered by a miniature pulse drive no larger than your hand, they were an elongated platform about four feet long and two feet wide, at the front were mounted a pair of Starlight Lasers, the operator drove the skimmer through an interface which Gareth had implanted at the back of their skulls, it was a small socket no larger than 3 millimetres in diameter, the rider plugged the almost invisible wire into the socket and drove the skimmer hands free allowing him to carry his rifle at the ready or use his side arm in an emergency.
All the operations of the skimmer were governed by their thoughts, they could either stand or kneel on the boards or, if they tucked their legs up they could lay down, the skimmers moved very fast and the riders boots were attached via a magnetic strip which clamped down on the sides of their boots, they could fly upside down and not fall off although that position took them a while to get used too.
The last piece of equipment, the plans also supplied by "Accident" were the artillery gun platforms, these would in the long past have been called land tanks, they operated just like the skimmers but used six anti grav units under their hulls, the tanks weighed in excess of 150 tonnes, in a small cockpit at the front were the pilot and navigator, they were separate from the gunners and, if hit could eject their pod away from the damaged tank, an unlikely event due to their high density armour.
The gunners were in three turrets, the central turret held a pair of 350 Pulse Cannon, these were operated by a spotter and gunner, the use of Plasma Cannon on a tank would be foolhardy, below the big guns were two smaller turrets with a pair of Starlight Lasers, each covering an arc of 180 degrees and operated by a single gunner, the gun platforms could travel not only forward and backwards, but also sideways, the six anti grav drives giving them a manoeuvrability that nothing would keep up with, they could also climb and fly at ten metres or as low as only a few centre metres.
The trained ground forces now numbered five thousand, most were young but there were enough older hands from those who had once been Naval Marines under Santos, to watch over and train the youngsters, the first time they went to war would be interesting to say the least, especially as nearly all of them came from places few in the normal world would be able to survive in and had scores to settle.
While all this had been going on, out on the rim and in the main workshops of the base, the salvage of the first battle was quickly being converted to our own use, there were now a plethora of fighting ships coming to the end of their refits, as well as these there were now many of the old freighters converted to either fighter or troop carriers, these were also modernised gunships.
Over the months, as all this was going on, we Knights had been out to cause as much disruption as we could, we would hit one head quarters planet on one side of the Galaxy and within a week be on the other side doing the same thing to a different Corporation, there were also times we had to play hide and seek with Galactic Naval units but with our stealth modes it was more of a game than anything really dangerous and it kept them from going out to search for our own headquarters on the Rim or get lucky and find Alpha Base.
Twice we hit Terran bases of the Chase Corporation, the first time was by using all of our four ships to attack from the air, when they called for assistance from the Navy, we disappeared but then came back the next night and did the same thing all over again until the Navy showed up then we jumped, leaving them in confusion and at best very, very angry.
Mitsubishi also got hit, we followed that up on the other side of the Galaxy with a ground attack on two of the senior executives of Lloyds Corporation, another jump and then it was the turn of Kramer Corporation, we left one of their main mining stations in ruins, their main office block was just a pile of rubble as we jumped out of the area before any Naval help arrived.
These were all small hit and run attacks to keep them off guard, a tactic they still did not seem to understand, five more attacks either on land or from the air and the Galactic News casts were in an uproar, no one was safe and, as yet they had found no trace of the so called, Free Federation Traders base even though they had six Battle Fleets out looking for it.
Because of the need for speed, we had not let our boys bring their fighters, they were all with us as passengers but were involved with all aspects of our guerrilla raids, all four of our ships were drifting along in an asteroid belt as we watched a very large Battle Fleet flying by, they were definitely not taking it as a joke as the Fleet was nearly twice the number than normal for a Battle Fleet, at any one time they had close to five hundred fighters out in a screen around the large Fleet, it made me think of what the Jump ship could do to them all but, it was time to slink away and return to Alpha Base, the time for a large battle was nearing once again.
On our return, I was to find that Santos had not been idle either, he had made use of his ever increasing number of fighting craft and, with the assistance of Gareth, attacked over eight money ships, he had been so effective all Corporations had stopped shipping their money for the time being, I was sure that by now they realised they were responsible for financing their own demise, the vaults on upper level four were now close to overflowing, with Santos using his three moons to provide as much food as they could along with Gareth's synthetic foods, everyone was kept well fed and happy, it did not go unnoticed that every man or boy in the F.F.T.'s new military was now getting paid from the healthy vaults and with the auspices of the Corporations money ships.
It was now six months since the first Battle, all this time Santos, along with a number of his old friends who had held rank when they were also in the Galactic Navy, had been planning the next big strike on the Navy forces, along with Gareth they had come up with a new plan to shorten the odds against us, this time the Navy would get to see the Jump Ship in action, for those who survived, they would have something to tell their Corporations.
It was more than a week later when we got our first opportunity, all the Knights had been out to Calysto where the President of Sunderland Corporation resided; this time we let the Red Knights go indoors while we four Black Knights looked after the outer guards, by the numbers of outer guards, the Corporations were running scared, just the situation we wanted, the attack and clean up took over an hour but in the end we left quite a mess for the authorities to find the next day.
The large compound was left like a dump site, the purpose of which was to show them we had little interest in their wealth or ability to defend themselves, now, with Sega Corporation revealing who we were and what we had been trained for, the uproar for our hides went up another notch.
After we returned to our base we saw the results of our little foray, the news services were full of the horrific attack and continued to show what remained of the compound, there was even a judicious few shots of some of the bodies to stir up the blood of those watching, the next day Ferris intercepted the Corporations plans for the Galactic Navies hunt for us.
The Navy would combine two Battle Fleets into one single Battle Group, this would give them a force of well over one thousand assorted ships plus all their fighters, even with all our new ships they still outnumbered us by three to one, of course they did not have a Jump Ship nor did they have Battle Cruisers, it was time to do a little hunting ourselves.
It was our technology that always gave us the edge and we did not let it go to waste, our idea for the attack on Calysto had an underlying purpose, only ten thousand kilometres from Calysto was the Ganus Asteroid Belt, it was a very wide and deep belt that held many large lumps of rock and other floating debris, just the perfect place for some rebels to hide away in or that was what we hoped the Navy would think as Calysto was a long jump from anywhere else in the Galactic Corporations space, the possibility of rebels hiding in such a place was too good to be true, it was there we wanted to meet the new Naval Group.
Santos also came up with a plan to cause more disruption, we would also have another attack on the other side of the Galaxy, on Sega 5 no less, this one would be lead by none other than our Esteemed Diplomat Kratos, it was also the fact he had lived there for so long and knew almost every blade of grass on the planet, it was to be our first land attack using all our new forces so the new recruits got some actual battle time and had a chance to put into practice what they had been learning for the last six months.
The modified troop carriers would also act as overhead gunships when the ground troops were on the planet, they could hover over a battle field at ten thousand metres and cover anything going on below, between the four hundred Artillery Platforms and the thousands of Skimmer troops, it would be a good battle, most planets had only local militia or small contingents of Naval Marines as well as Corporation Police and Security Guards, apart from the Marines most would not be able to stand against what was coming their way.
Although the news casters had tried to keep a lid on things, there were still murmurings of dissent on some of the outer planets, this had never happened in the three hundred years of the Corporations reign, it could only go a long way to helping us and we hoped the ground attack on the outer planet would give a little more credence to the general population that they had a chance to change things, this had indeed got a lot bigger than what I had had in mind nearly two years ago.
With all the fighters tucked away in the gunship carriers, the F.F.T. fleet got underway for the Ganus Belt, all were as usual in stealth mode as they made the long jump into the area, they did not have long to wait for the Battle Group to start to show up, the Knights had elected to go with Kratos to Sega 5 it was only through the reports of Santos that we all heard about what happened in the biggest Battle yet.
The boys fighters had been loaded on the gunship carrying the Artillery Platforms as it had space to take the small ships, we only had to have a few cradles added to the bay to hold the little fighters, they would take part in the ground battle as mobile attack craft above the Skimmer troops, the Artillery Platforms were quite capable of taking care of themselves as well as having the large gunships hovering overhead just in case of surprises.
It was the weapons and defence core that notified Santos that there were only seven hundred ships in the Battle Group, with his intimate knowledge of Naval practices, Santos knew it was meant to be a trap, with his innate ability to change plans in an instant, Santos set the Core to tracking down the lost ships, it took the Positronic core only minutes to find the missing forces, the Navy had finally understood the guerrilla tactics we had been using and was trying to counteract them.
The three hundred ships not in the formation were situated on the other side of the Asteroid Belt, obviously waiting for an attack and then coming in on a blind side to assist, Santos was not about to let that happen, with quick commands he split his force in two.
Santos sent five hundred fighters into the belt where they would play hide and seek with the smaller Naval group, he then jumped three Battle Cruisers and fifty Frigates in behind the waiting force, the idea was simple, the fighters would dodge in and out of the belt using the Asteroids as cover as well as their stealth modes, they would distract the smaller force and tempt them into coming after the ships they could see, once committed to the fighters, the larger ships would hit them from behind, with luck the attack would also distract the larger Battle group and make them commit to going after the smaller F.F.T. force on the other side of the belt, it was then Santos would attack from behind and off to one side of the main force.
The Jump Ship would be positioned only five hundred kilometres from the Battle Group, for the Jump Ship it was like rubbing shoulders with the enemy, at such a close range his heavier and better armed ship would literally pulverise anything the Battle Group had, with him would be five Battle cruisers, in the rear party would be all of the remaining Battle Cruisers, Cruisers and Frigates, the mass of fighters they had available to them would set about any fighters the Navy managed to get out of their hangers.
Santos had sat off the port side of the Battle Fleet as the attack on the other side of the belt started, even at that distance it was possible to occasionally see flashes of fire in the darkness of space, the large Plasma Cannons on the Cruisers left no doubt as to what was going on over there, as he watched the Battle group with his own forces still in stealth mode, Santos saw the gradual turn to starboard, it was time for him to interfere.
Keeping all his other forces in stealth mode, Santos let the Jump Ship appear to the forces now turning away from him, on their screens they would see a blip that would look like a small force, the Jump Ship left a very big blip on any radar screen, to Santos eyes it looked as though the Battle group suddenly became a little disjointed as the turn became somewhat disorganised and his ship was spotted on the screens.
To eyes that had never seen such a large ship, the blip would have been mistaken as a squadron of ships flying close together, as the Navy settled back around towards the new threat, Santos opened fire with all his Plasma and Pulse Cannons, those who saw the opening salvo said it was like some great blue, green and red knife had sliced the Naval Battle Group in half, where there had once been innumerable large Cruisers and Frigates, after the blinding light show there was just empty space.
In the awe inspiring opening and, as the last beam of pulse light disappeared, Santos gave the order for his other forces at the rear of the shattered command to attack as he went back to his own guns, the once mighty Battle Group was now nothing more than the scattered remnants of a Naval Force as they tried to defend against an enemy that had weapons the likes of which they had never seen before.
It did not take long before the Naval ships began to shut down their drives and drift as a sign they were surrendering, as the last Frigate saw the hopelessness of fighting on and shut down his drives, Santos took note of the time, it had taken less than forty minutes to destroy the Battle Group, although there was still fighting going on at the other side of the belt, it too seemed to be lessening, it had once again been a well planned rout, it was now time to count the cost and to accept the surrender of their enemies, there would be a lot of salvage from this Battle as there had been from the first one.
On Sega 5 it was just before dawn when the gunships dropped their cargoes off, Kratos had taken them right up to the frozen North, he knew there would be no one up there at this time of the year, it was the perfect place to begin his staging, there would be many kilometres to travel before coming to any enemy held territory but it would give the troops time off to acclimatise to Sega 5, the nearest enemy base was five days away but our Skimmers and Artillery Platforms could move a lot faster than a normal transport could, Kratos led them off into the barren whiteness, the almost noiseless hum of the anti grav drives barely noticed in this white land.
We Knights flew in our ships, the boys in their fighters, we were all at one kilometre above and in stealth mode as we followed the fast moving columns below us, it was quite a sight to see them all formed up in five long lines, at the front was one of the Artillery Platforms, or, as Kratos called them Tanks', behind each Tank', was a platoon of Skimmers, they also were in five lines across and twenty Skimmers deep and then another `Tank' followed by another platoon.
The Riders had on white smocks over their Kevlar Armour which was heated by attaching a thin lead to the Skimmer and drawing heat from the small drive, their helmets were closed and the face plates not only protected their faces but they had a heads up display if needed, both the Skimmers and the `Tanks' were also painted white, for anyone not knowing they were there it would be hard to make them out in the barren whiteness of the vast wastes of Sega 5.
Our first target was a mining complex, it had a small detachment of Marines as well as the normal police and security guards, it was the furtherest complex on Sega 5 and would be good enough to be able to blood the young teens on their Skimmers, once the first engagement was over they would be better prepared for what was yet to come.
Two days later and it turned out to be somewhat of an anticlimax, one look at the forces arrayed against them and after only a token fight by the Marines, the complex opened its doors and surrendered, an attack by land was the last thing any of the Corporations had expected and they were just not prepared for such a thing, our losses were only one Skimmer and its rider was only marginally injured, he was taken into one of the `Tanks' and would be able to continue his fight from there.
We did not have a lot of time to waste, the defenders had not got any messages out so we had to take advantage of the situation, after disarming all the guards and marines, we called all the miners together and told them what was going on, as they now held the power over the mine we left them in charge, most wanted to continue mining, it was their way of life but now the profits would have to be paid to them, their guards were given the chance to join the miners of become workers down the mine, the miners had a lot of anger built up over years of slave wages and bad conditions, we left them to sort out their own new lives.
Next on the list of complex's was a larger town or more likely a small city, this was one of the many central administration towns of the Sega 5 Northern command, it was responsible for most of the Northern mines and had been the ones to make Kratos redundant from his one love, Skerrit Hunting.
Using every ounce of speed we could safely, we drew close to the town the following morning, observing from the top of a rise only a few kilometres from the town, we saw they had not received any warnings, the normal guard houses around the town still seemed to be quiet and nothing untoward was apparent as we watched the morning guard change over.
The guard houses were armed with the old fashioned lasers but the houses ringed the outer limits of the town, to the best of our knowledge there were over one hundred thousand occupants in the town and some two hundred Marines along with a thousand police and as best we could work out, there was a civilian militia of around five hundred, we could not take this towns defences lightly.
Sliding back from the top of the low rise, Kratos issued the orders for the taking of the town, the Tanks' would move quickly to encircle the town but stay below the level of the ridge until they were all in position, the skimmer troops would spread themselves out with the Tanks', the main objective of the Tanks would be to eliminate the guard houses as well as back up the Skimmers when they went in, our boys would fly low in their fighters to watch for any reinforcements and to persuade them to find cover, my Brothers and I would fly top cover and watch for any surprises, all ships were to stay in stealth mode until Kratos told them it was safe to appear, one never knew what a town this size could produce when forced to.
In less than an hour our troops were ready and Kratos gave the order for the Tanks" to open fire, the sizzling sound of the Pulse Cannon filled the morning air as the opening shots were fired, it was all that was needed to utterly destroy the many guard houses ringing the town, the smoke and explosions filled the ground around the town, their first line of defence was no more, as the Marines not caught by the sudden barrage tried to make their escape deeper into the town, the Skimmers appeared and began to roll down the ridge, the Tanks' close behind.
As I watched from my place higher above the battle ground, Panther called and told me he could see what looked like Artillery being hauled out of the barracks where the Marines were quartered, I gave him and the others the go ahead to work on wiping out the reinforcements, while the towns lighter Pulse Artillery would not be able to do much damage to the `Tanks', they could cause devastation to the boys on the Skimmers.
The battle was now in full swing as the town began to erupt with armed Police and what looked like Militia trying to form up, it was a rag tag looking bunch of defenders that tried to get to their position as the Skimmers came in at speed, the light Lasers flashing as the boys saw a target, slowly the towns part time defenders began to settle in but the speed of the Skimmers made it hard for them to follow their targets.
As I watched from above I saw what looked like a large group of fighters trying to get into the air, this was a job for my Brothers and I, diving from our superior height we set about the fighters as they tried to get into the air, as we were still in stealth mode they had no targets to fight back at and they were soon quickly over come, those that remained, returned to their base which we then set about making unusable.
The fighting in the town had got to the stage of being a hunt through the narrow streets, every corner was now fought over as the defenders tried to keep a hold of their town, it was getting to be a down and dirty fight, it was time to call in some new power that should scare the hell out of the defenders and save some of our Skimmer boys.
I called my Brothers and the boys to come out of stealth and start air attacks on the positions trying to hold out, at the same time I called for the Tanks" to begin levelling the central town area, with luck the leaders of the town would see they had nowhere to retreat to and were now caught between the Tank' fire and the Skimmers as well as now having us appear overhead.
The surrender came only minutes later, someone in the town had some common sense, as the sounds of battle faded away and those who had tried to defend the town began to lay down their weapons, I told the boys in their fighters to stay just above the town and keep a watch as we looked for a place to land.
Kratos called for the town leaders to assemble in the central square, the Skimmers also began to round up the defenders and usher them in the same direction, within half an hour the square was full, Kratos stood on the steps of what looked like one of the administration buildings as the townsfolk filled the square below.
While the townsfolk were assembling, our Med-Droids were hard at work looking after our wounded, it had not been a battle without losses, we had seventeen dead, eighty six wounded and lost twenty one Skimmers, other Mech-Droids were busy cleaning up the pieces of the broken Skimmers and placing them in the cavernous hangers of the now landed Gunships outside the town limits.
As I watched Kratos begin his directions to the massed crowd of people, Gareth came over my Sub-Space com unit.
"Commander, there are two Battle Fleets headed your way, one from the North the other from the South East."
"How far out are they Gareth?"
"The closest one is two days, the other will be about three if they keep going at the pace they are now, which to my knowledge is almost full power for their ships."
"Thank you Gareth, we will be out of here in a few hours, contact the two battle Cruisers above us to go out and lay mine fields in their projected path, that should slow them down even if we are not here."
"Yes Commander, the order has been sent."
"Thank you Gareth, now we have wounded, please make ready the infirmaries, we may also be bringing some new recruits so we will need training rooms and barracks ready for them."
"They will be ready when needed Commander."
I closed off my unit and turned back to what was going on in the square, as Kratos talked to the now silent crowd, I sent Panther and Brutaria's boy Kabbit, off to the central administration building, they knew what they had to do, Gareth had built a small unit for them from one of Ferris designs, they would penetrate to the lowest levels of the building where the main cores were, hook up the unit and it would strip and send everything in the core to the waiting Ferris via a Sub Space channel set aside for just that purpose.
Two hours later and we were cleaned up, there was now only the need to see if we were going to get any recruits from Sega 5, as Kratos was explaining what was available to those who wished to join our new Federation, something in the back of my mind began to build, it was not a good feeling, as though in slow motion, I could see and hear everything around me, it was this that saved me, never one to ignore my mentat skills, I twisted to the left as something solid struck my chest, as it zipped past it left a deep gouge in my Skerrit armour, brushed across my forearm and struck a stone wall some fifty metres away and exploded, there was little sound apart from the explosion from the contact with the wall.
I immediately went into stealth followed closely by my Brothers, the two boys on the ground activated their Shadow Suits, we all moved away from our last position, there was only one thing that could have done that sort of damage to Skerrit armour and I did not want to give them a second chance, contacting the boys still up in their Fighters, I sent them in the direction from which the shot had come from, they were to stay in stealth mode and, once they find the target to stay above it and not let them know they were found.
Using our personal com units I explained to the others what had happened, it was moments like this I thanked my lucky stars for our mind abilities, whomever the marksman or marksmen, were they were well trained, it was a pretty good guess they were a military unit, if so the boys should be out looking for two men, once they found them they were to start to look for a second pair, the military snipers always worked in units of two pairs.
Tiger found the first pair out at 3.5 kilometres, as he sat above them the others went in search of the second unit, the military snipers used the same type of .75 rifle Kratos did for Skerrit hunting only they also used depleted plutonium rounds, it was the only thing that could penetrate Skerrit armour, it had been a close call.
For the snipers to take the shot at 3.5 kilometres was not out of the ordinary, these men were trained since being very small children, there was a shooter and a spotter, they worked together in a symbiotic relationship and had done so since being not much older than four or five years, the spotter was totally subservient to the shooter, he had been genetically enhanced at a young age, for its time it was a marvel of genetic engineering, the shooter had also been enhanced but in different areas.
We were now on full alert as the search went on for the second pair, I had no doubt they were out there, the military had not changed that much, why they were here was beyond me, this was a backwater as far as most mining planets went so why would they have a sniper unit on this planet, had something changed that we did not know about as yet, we had to capture them to find out, it was another hour before the second unit was found just one kilometre away but unsighted of those in the square, it was time to make some captures.
This was not a job for our boys, these sniper teams were very dangerous, my Brothers and I set about planning how to capture them unharmed, we need information from them but did not want to make ourselves targets, we paired up and each took one unit, we would use one of our darts to immobilize them then take them with us when we left the planet in a couple of hours.
The pair I had sighted out at the 3.5 kilometre mark turned out to be not what I was expecting, I soon learnt that the other pair were the same, these were not hardened sniper pairs, they were not much more than youngsters, the oldest was no more than twenty years old and his spotter was only about eighteen or nineteen, just kids, we darted them and took them with us to one of the troopships, they would be held there while we made our way back to the base, there I would question them, it was one more small blow to the Corporations.
TBC.
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