[Eastern Edge of Washington, DC, 37th Infantry Battalion]
Lieutenant Colonel Lance Freeman, a veteran of three wars and an uncountable number of brush fire conflicts, faces something he’s never given thought to, until now. His battalion is dying around him. Slowly, to be sure, but surely, and nothing short of a miracle will save them. ‘It’s just pure bad luck,’ he thinks. A couple hundred Alkarin troop ships landed behind them, and another couple hundred in front. Now, they are surrounded and fighting a losing battle on all sides as they close in on his position. Not to mention, far more of the Alkarin warriors are using weapons other than swords and knives than has ever been reported in previous engagements. Plus, they are also using plasma weapons and wearing armor now, not that it even slows down the 15 mm fléchettes the Commonwealth Army uses as primary weapons. Still, quantity has a quality of its own, and their position is slowly being overrun.
‘That said, we’re going to take these fuckers with us. One way or another,’ he thinks bitterly. ‘But that isn’t going to stop every last one of us from dying.’ He isn’t bitter about dying, just the loss of his troops. That, more than anything else, in his opinion, is shameful, and his biggest failure.
Taking a moment, he checks his helmet display and sees that he’s down to 16, no, 15 now, troops, including himself. ‘15 out of 500 highly trained and dedicated armored troops,’ he thinks as he hoses down another group of far too bold Alkarin, turning them into a cloud of blood and flying chunks of flesh, but not before one with a plasma rifle burns down another of his troopers.
His computer display says that they’ve killed 10,281 of the fuckers, and yet, there’s no sign that they’ve even noticed the losses. Wave after unending wave for the last 3 hours, they’ve just kept coming. The Warlocks have taken a reaper’s toll of the fuckers, too, but even they have sustained heavy losses in the fight.
When it’s down to him, his XO, and the Sergeant Major, he makes a call to the Warlocks. “Any Odin unit, this is Whistler Actual, over.”
“Whistler Actual, this is Oden 2, over.”
“Odin 2, we’ve lost this front. I’m ordering a Starfish strike on my position, over.”
“Whistler, say again.”
“I said we’re done. There are three of us left, and there are still thousands of Alkarin warriors closing on us. I want an antimatter strike directly over my position. They may have killed us, but they aren’t going to get to enjoy their victory. Acknowledge my order, over.”
“Roger that, Whistler Actual. Starfish strike on your position. BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. All stations, all stations! Starfish! Starfish! Starfish! Any friendly unit within 20 kilometers of Eastern DC has 15 seconds to hunker down or clear the area. Break. Colonel, it’s been a pleasure, over.”
“The pleasure has been all mine, Odin 2. We’ll see you in hell. Out.” He switches the link over to the battalion channel. “People, it’s been an honor being your commander. No one could have asked for better…”
A 50 kiloton antimatter missile air burst blossoms over Eastern Washington DC, vaporizing a large portion of it; taking with it the last of the Commonwealth soldiers standing, several hundred civilians, and thousands of Alkarin warriors.
◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇
Colonel Franklin’s display darkens as the missile explodes over Eastern DC and quickly sends a silent prayer for the souls of the 500 troops that were stationed there.
He’s distracted by a call on the Division channel a moment later. “Kraken, this is Athena 1, over.”
He wonders, ‘Who the hell is Athena?’ Until his computer pops up a notice of who they are. “Athena 1, Kraken Actual, go ahead, over.”
“We are ten kilometers out from your position on a heading of 89 degrees. We’re your reinforcements, and need coordinates for an LZ, over.”
He sighs as he thinks, ‘Too bad you couldn’t have been here an hour earlier. We probably wouldn’t have lost Eastern DC and our troops there.’ “Computer, send them coordinates for 500 meters behind us.” Then thinks, ‘not that they could easily miss this clusterfuck of a battle.’
“Roger. Sending now,” his suit computer replies.
“Athena 1, you have your coordinates. Be advised, the Alkarin have us surrounded, so your LZ will likely be hot, over.”
“Roger that. We’ll have our Warlocks clear the area.”
Less than thirty seconds later, centered on the LZ, a half-kilometer square area is saturated by cluster bombs, turning any living thing not in advanced armor into expanding clouds of blood, meat, and bone.
Franklin turns to look, and his suit computer reports 100 Peregrines quickly disgorging their troops. The 3,000 fresh troops sort themselves out and quickly join the fray. After the Peregrines have retreated to safety, their escort Warlocks join the fight. Other flights of Peregrines drop off their troops to reinforce the 23rd and 30th Battalions.
A half-hour later, he orders the 12th troops to fall back so that they can resupply and take a breather for a few minutes before rejoining the fight.
Their armor may be able to carry several hundred thousand fléchettes for their M-92s, but they are finally down to the bottom of the barrel, or as in some cases, they’re empty, and have had to resort to their M-21 swords.
◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇
[Tuesday, December 21]
[0319 Hrs Local]
After the last of the Alkarin warriors finally fall, the battle for DC has cost the lives of 3,691 troopers, and uncountable millions will need to be spent to rebuild the historic city. Thousands more troopers will be crippled until their nanites can replace their missing limbs or repair other severe injuries.
The Peregrines are ordered back to pick them up while the remaining troops rearm and rest for a short time. Until they are deployed to the next battle.
Over the next month, the same scene replays across the world, with only minor variations. In only 14 instances has the commonwealth military been defeated in detail. In every case, it’s because their lines were broken and the Alkarin were able to mix in with the Commonwealth troops, preventing them from bringing to bear the heavier firepower of the Commonwealth military. The Alkarin may have won those battles in the short term, but as Commonwealth troops are freed from other engagements, they are surrounded and exterminated.
◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇
[Sunday, January 16, 2078]
[CMCC Command Center Briefing Room]
As I enter the room, everyone stands and salutes. On my way to the seat reserved for me, I state, “You may be seated.”
My bodyguard, Jason, pulls out my seat for me, and I sit down, crossing my legs comfortably as I do. Everyone waits until I’ve situated myself before they sit down themselves. Then, General Chambers says, “Major, you may begin.”
Major Daniels taps a button on the podium in front of her, which changes the image behind her.
“As you can see, casualties for our forces were far higher than originally projected for an invasion by the Alkarin. An exact count of casualties on the Alkarin side is impossible because of our use of tactical antimatter weapons. Our best estimate is that they invaded with between 190 and 300 million troops. None of them survived. Our forces’ casualties are nothing to discount, either. The nanites reduced the number of our KIA’s to 32,602,829. Persephone believes that without the nanites, our casualties would have exceeded the Alkarin’s.”
She taps the podium again, and the image changes to a list of civilian deaths.
“Civilian deaths are high in some areas, and nonexistent in others. The shielding for the bunkers stopped every direct attack, but we never imagined them using earth penetrating nuclear weapons to destroy civilian bunkers. The shockwaves collapsed several bunkers into the voids they created after detonation. After the first few attacks, it took us a few days to break enough AA units free to deploy to each bunker and stop further attacks. As such, civilian deaths were far higher than military deaths. Persephone doesn’t have an accurate count, but going by who was supposed to be assigned where, and the amount of people we were able to rescue from the bunkers, we lost approximately 91 million civilians, approximately 8.91% of our population.
“This is due to several factors. One: They came with a far larger force than we ever thought they could. Two: This was possible only because they have colonies we knew nothing about. Three: A major change in tactics employed by the Alkarin. And finally, four: their use of armor and heavy weaponry, which up until now, they have rejected in favor of what they deem to be honorable combat.”
She taps the button again, changing the image. “This is our analysis of the armor and weapons they employed this time around. Both are several generations behind what our forces use, but with the number of warriors they deployed, well,” she shrugs, “quantity is a quality of its own. Even so, our armor and weapons far outclass theirs, and will for the foreseeable future unless they somehow make a technological leap, which is highly doubtful given the information provided by Ambassador Ke-Vol.”
“How forthcoming was she with information?”
“Your Majesty, she answered every single question we asked her. Though, as she said, she isn’t all that familiar with how their warrior caste operates, other than mere surface observations. She spoke at length about the worker and religious castes. She stated several times that innovation by the workers is highly discouraged. Their society is almost static in that sense. As far as our AI, Sherman, could tell, she was completely truthful in all her responses.”
She pauses for a few moments to see if I’ll follow up with another question. Then, she continues, “In every single engagement with them, our forces were outnumbered by no less than 30 to 1, and in some cases, 100 to 1. Our heavier firepower was the deciding factor in almost every engagement with them.”
I ask, “And, what about their fleet? Specifically, did we recover any intel about their other colonies?”
“We’ve recovered several intact data cores. Information is still sketchy currently as we are still in the process of deciphering them, so we haven’t recovered anything about their other colonies, but we’re still sorting through the mountains of data they’re providing.”
“Any new weapons development for their fleet?” asks General Chambers.
She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t say new, just different. Their primaries up until now have been plasma cannons with large kinetic secondaries. We’re seeing the opposite in the fleet they deployed. Apparently, they’ve figured out that between the attenuation and our ships’ shielding, plasma weapons aren’t that effective against our ships. Though, they still do quite a bit of damage to our strike fighters, fighters and bombers. When they can hit them with them, that is.”
General Chambers says, “Hmm… Then, there’s no new innovations for them.”
She holds up a hand and tips it back and forth in a so-so gesture. “I wouldn’t say that exactly. The armor on some of their ships is a new type for them. Persephone, and several of the other intelligence AIs, believe that it’s based on the titanium-ceramic armor our ships used originally. Stronger than what they’ve used up until now, but again, well behind our own armor. As for their weapons, their laser power has improved by about 20%, they are using larger nuclear armed kinetic weapons, and their fighters are now armed with nuclear missiles as well.”
“So, they are learning and improving, albeit slowly?”
She nods. “All the intelligence AIs agree that in terms of warfare experience, we have them beaten hands down. What I mean is that humans have been fighting wars for tens of thousands of years, so we have a culture of warfare, and we’re damn good at it. According to Ambassador Ke-Vol, the Alkarin had no culture of warfare up until roughly 400 years ago. Even then, the race that enslaved them only managed to do so due to their pacifist nature and by dint of their technology. The AIs believe that had the Kathark tried to enslave humanity, we’d have lost many people due to their technological advantage, but simulations show they’d have found themselves getting their asses handed to them. Please, excuse my language.”
A short chuckle comes from many in the audience, me included. I have no reason to doubt her statement. I know all too well just how stubborn and vicious humans can be.
“Reading Alkarin history and their medical study of the Kathark, the average teenage human female far outclasses them in terms of strength and ferocity. The closest analogy to them on Earth would be an oversized Koala… That’s all I have for you at the moment. Next up is Major Paget, who will be talking about the steps we are taking to begin clearing the wreckage and rebuilding. Thank you for your time.” She bows to me, says “Your Majesty,” and walks back to her seat against the wall while the Major replaces her at the podium.
Patreon
Crack their planets and turn them to mining sites is also a good idea.
Tftc