Welp, I've truly stepped on the cat-girl's tail, Admiral Shtuklar thought to himself, staring at the holotank. He gave himself a physical shudder, shaking his head, then stood straight for a moment, looking over the protocontinent.

He turned to a second holotank and waved his hand through it, dismissing the estimations of post-battle casualties for the civilian populace. It was currently glitching due to SFC Casey hammering apart a large piece of the protocontinent so it next to useless.

He quickly put up his entire ground-side TO&E. First Lanaktallan Armor, First Telkan Marine Division, First Armored Recon, 1095 Treana'ad Ground Warfare Horde, and a good amount of other units. He quickly tabbed up a unit and designated it "First Planetary Powered Armor Assault" and moved Casey from First Telkan Senior NCO to that unit.

Being honest with himself as he worked, he admitted he had screwed up. The fact that 7th Army had been wiped out had shaken him and he had made a midshipman's mistake by just reacting and throwing everything he had at the enemy in the hopes of stopping them.

He closed his eyes for a second and remembered the time the bridge had taken a hit and the entire responsibility for a super-carrier had fallen on him as a LT JG in the middle of a heavy battle. He had reacted then too, and while his decisions had been lauded, he had always looked back on that and wondered if he could have made better decisions and saved more lives.

He brought up the RoE from several past battles involving 7th Army and stopped at the RoE for the Second Telkan War AKA Telkan Dwellerspawn War.

"RoE Update," he called out. "Transmit to all units but First Planetary Assault," he snapped. He turned and looked at the planet itself, thinking fast.

Scans were worthless so far, only showing blurring movement of a large amount of something, but other than that, nothing. He looked up the maximum range of a weapon and began working.

"Fab up Second Mantid War phasic munitions and have the guns loaded," he tapped out different areas, keeping away from the civilian centers and trying to ensure Lanaktallan and neo-sapient troops would only catch the edges. Telkan troops had high resistance to psychic so he ordered that they go to max suppression and ordered phasic munitions to be fired up on their positions. He set them for detonation at 25,000 feet. "Load and fire as the rounds come in."

"Sir, that will put our own troops in danger," Master Guns said.

"It's that or they can't see the enemy," Admiral Shtuklar said. "Right now it looks like the only ones that can actually see them are Terran troops and possibly Telkan," he wrapped up his initial plan. "Send that to the Martial Orders with my compliments, not as an order."

He shook his head, reaching back and rubbing the spines on the back of his neck flat before blinking his eyes several times.

"I miscalculated, but that doesn't mean the battle or the war is lost, as long as I do not compound my mistakes," he said out loud. He caught the eyes of several of the lower ranking officers. "Nobody is perfect. Even Grand Admiral Yulkratian made strategic and tactical mistakes."

He saw understanding in the JG officers as he continued. "Bring up SFC Casey's file, run a search for Novastar power armor."

"It's a big file, sir," Lieutenant JG Utrepnik said.

"That's why you're doing a search," the Admiral said. "Put it on holotank nine."

"Aye aye, sir," the intel analyst said.

The file appeared, massive, full of locked subfolders.

NO MATCH appeared.

"Give me a profile on Novastar armor from armory files," he ordered.

NO MATCH

"Historical database," he ordered.

THAT got matches, but a quick look through only showed deployment during the Niven RingWars, the Mar-gite Invasion, and the Lretknit Genocide. Nothing else.

"Lieutenant Hefflelu'ump," the Admiral snapped.

"Sir," the Communications Technical Officer asked.

"Get me data on that suit, the munitions it uses, and compare to what Sergeant Casey is currently using," he said. "Cross reference the Niven RingWars and the Mar-gite Invasion and any other war or battle that involved heavy civilian casualties and mass destruction."

"Aye-aye, sir," the LT said, turning back to his console.

He turned back and looked at the holotank of the world's protocontinent. "First Telkan is currently engaged. Give them the order to do a fighting reposition. Get them away from Casey. Order Casey toward this mountain range right here, the locals can live with losing a few mountains."

He typed rapidly.

The RoE update was quick and dirty as far as Rules of Engagement went.

"Attempt to minimize civilian casualties due to heavy munition deployment. Be aware that less than 30% of civilians reached shelters."

"Do not deliberately target infrastructure that poses no value to invading force."

"Avoid blue on blue, green on blue, or blue on pink incidents."

"Terminate the enemy with extreme prejudice without consideration for long term ecological effects."

"Maneuver to avoid exposing friendly units to damaging direct fire and indirect fire."

"Authorization for planet breaker or continent buster weaponry is hereby forbidden without proper authorization of a full review board."

There was more, but that was the best that the Admiral felt he could do in the limited time he had.

"Update Casey with this as soon as possible," he said, flipping it over.

The Admiral's XO moved up to him.

"You know this is going to make your review board looks worse," the Vemtrinian said softly.,

"Only politicians and fecalweasels worry about their careers when billions of civilian lives hang in the balance," Admiral Shtuklar said. "I screwed up, the responsibility is mine, and I won't find some poor midshipman to throw at the lawyers while I make my escape. In my entire career I have never done such," he looked at his XO. "And no officer worth his braid ever should."

"You could not have known," The XO tried again, reminding himself that he wore the lapel pin of a small horned demon with spectacles, a quill, and a scroll for a reason. "that Casey was what he is."

The Admiral shook his head, making sure that the junior officers could hear. "In the Space Force Navy it is too easy to think the only big guns are aboard our vessels. We even look at BOLOs and give a slight sneer at their firepower compared to our battle wagons," he said. "I reacted to the situation, concerned that each minute I 'wasted' thousands or tens of thousands of civilians were dying."

He pointed at the map. "Now, because I did not take the scant amount of time to at least slightly familiarize myself with my available assets, who knows how many civilians will pay the price," he shook his head. "No, One, the fault lies solely with me."

"Before the Terrans all dropped dead, you were the Admiral of the carrier group," the XO said, waving his hand. "You can't be expected to coordinate group assaults."

The Admiral shook his head. "No, and that is a problem. An officer of my rank should have been at least familiarized with ground assault coordination. As I well know, a lucky shot to the flag bridge could leave a midshipman in charge of any entire planetary assault," he shrugged, feeling much more at ease. "That gap in training should be brought up to TRADOC as soon as possible."

He tapped the holotank with one taloned finger. "But that will come later."

"Sir, signal from Lieutenant Colonel Smrivit," one of his commo officers called out.

"Holotank Eleven," the Admiral snapped.

The image appeared, wavering and shot through with pixelation and artifacts. The Rigellian female was speaking, but all that was coming across the audio channel was pops and hisses.

"Colonel, we do not read your audio, we have you on visual," the Admiral said. He reached out and tapped a few keys, making sure that his words were shown visually across a scroll bar at his chest level.

The Colonel cocked her head for a moment.

NO VISUAL AUDIO ONLY appeared in front of her.

"Find out why the signals are inverted," someone snapped.

"Status report," the Admiral ordered.

"Shelters at max cap STOP 2.2 billion at risk STOP Enemy prioritizes civilian 'harvesting' above engagement STOP Primary attack phasic enhanced energy weaponsSTOP Enemy using dimensional or temporal shift to make landings no space vessels needed/detected STOP." Scrolled by the Colonel's image as her lips moved.

"We understand. Have deployed Ring Breaker Class Planetary Assault Unit to attract enemy. Phasic munitions will be fired from orbit ASAP," Admiral Shtuklar said.

"Enemy harvests brains STOP Infiltration Attempts Detected STOP Uploading images/data of Infiltration Types STOP Current Force Levels are at 8 (EIGHT) percent STOP" appeared. "Cannot hold REPEAT Cannot Hold STOP."

The image wavered and fuzzed for a moment. She spoke again but only disconnected characters came across before she vanished.

"We lost her, Admiral," the communications officer said.

"Keep trying to reestablish contact," he said.

"Data packet upload from SFC Casey," another commo officer said. "Data pack only, no real-time."

"Put it up, let's see what he's facing," The Admiral said.

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

Smokey No stared at the doctor who was securing the mobility harness to him.

"General, you have two impact amputeed legs, a collapsed lung, and blood filled spiracles on your left side, as well as missing your bladearm and arm on that side," the doctor said.

"Be that as it may, we are engaged in combat," General NoDra'ak said. He coughed for a moment before looking at the Commodore. "What's Trucker's status."

"They're retuning his implants. Apparently he went through some kind of brain tissue change after he'd been in the diagnostic rig," the Commodore said. "He's conscious, but he ain't happy about it."

"Not psychic my big bruised ass," NoDra'ak mused. He coughed again then winced as pain rippled down his side. He looked at the Commodore. "He was complaining of an itch down his spinal column a couple of hours before the crash translation and reported to medical for a full cyberware diagnostic."

"Terran precognition often manifests as itching or skin tightness, correct?" the Commodore asked.

NoDra'ak nodded. "Or lightning," he chuckled, then groaned.

The Commodore put his hand to his datalink. "First Lanaktallan Armor is landing, First Armored Recon is engaged with the enemy. First Telkan is still pinned down in Casey's destruction zone. The Neko-Marines made direct orbital pod drop into a disrupted area. The Sons of Venus deployed via mat-trans."

"The Martial Orders?" NoDra'ak coughed. He gratefully inhaled as the doctor draped a breathing abdominal cover onto his body.

"Sisters of Wrath mat-transed in, same with the Brotherhood of Mars," the Commodore said.

"That's the best I can do, General. I do this only under great protest," the Mantid doctor said.

"I understand," he said.

The harness he was in lowered him to the floor then unhooked. He used the robotic legs on the harness to turn slowly. He was clumsy and ungainly, no female would ever find his dancing appealing in the robotic harness, but it was better than nothing.

"Admiral Shtuklar is updating the groundside RoE's," the Commodore said.

"Normally ground commanders would have drawn up their own RoE's, but they've got a lieutenant in charge of an entire Division who has largely been OJT, a Lanaktallan who is used to being the final military authority, and a Hikken who has only been with the Confederacy for a few years," NoDra'ak said, coughing as he moved out of the recovery bay. He spotted a Treana'ad officer moving down the corridor. "Smoke?"

The Treana'ad officer stopped, bringing out his pack and lighter. He handed it to the General. "Keep it, sir."

"Thanks, son," General NoDra'ak said, lighting the cigarette. He started moving along the corridor, heading for the elevator. "OK, here's the full mass tank question: Is the Admiral doing CYOA, still frozen, or trying to fix it?"

"Looks like he's trying to fix it and provide a teaching moment to his junior officers at the same time," the Commodore said.

Smokey No nodded, exhaling gratefully. The nicotine washed away the anxiety and the smoke pushed away the pheromones of pain and anxiety.

"All right. My implant hasn't been replaced yet," the big Treana'ad said.

"That's because you broke your skull, sir," the Commodore said.

General NoDra'ak laughed. "The worst part is, the days of the Breeding Chamber aren't that far behind my people, so when I cracked my head, my body was all 'ooh, breeding' and flooded my body with ecstatic paralytics."

"First Lanakallan Armor is on the ground. Looks like General A'armo'o is sending out scouts and trying to connect with General Ekret," the Commodore said.

"Do we have direct link with either of them," NoDra'ak paused and panted, his remaining booklung burning.

"Line of sight laser communication only," the Commodore said.

"That will only last until the debris gets too thick," NoDra'ak said, pushing himself off the wall and clattering toward the elevator. "This corridor is longer than I remember," he tapped the controls. "Flag Bridge."

The lift door pinged when it closed and NoDra'ak leaned against the wall, taking the weight off his left side.

"Are you sure you shouldn't return to medical?" the Commodore asked as NoDra'ak lit a cigarette with one shaking hand.

"I would if I could," he said. He shook his head and immediately regretted it when he got dizzy for a moment. "The Admiral is an excellent fleet commander. If there was a fight for the orbitals and system control, he'd be the man to it right now."

"But it's groundside," the Commodore said.

"Exactly."

The elevator pinged, slowly, and the doors slid open with a whoosh, exposing the Flag Command and Control. It was quiet but busy, which reassured NoDra'ak that things were at least nominally under control.

He moved up slowly and carefully next to Admiral Shtuklar, pausing to look at the map.

The icons for First Telkan and First Planetary Assault were blinking 'NO CONTACT', but the others were in contact. All were engaged. NoDra'ak was experienced enough to know the emoji for the Neko-Marines for "Am in Combat with the Enemy" as well as knowing what "DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!" streaming across the Sons of Venus meant.

"Why no BOLOs?" NoDra'ak asked quietly.

Admiral Shtuklar jumped slightly, his spines raising slightly. "Oh, General NoDra'ak, I thought you were still in medical."

"Technically, I am. I came to see if you could use me in an advisory role," NoDra'ak said, pitching his voice low.

"To be honest, General, I'd prefer if you took over theater command," the Admiral said.

"I've got enough pain killers to get a human high in my system," NoDra'ak chuckled. "My mouth tastes like licorice ice cream and flat rootbeer."

"Well, without Terran pilots for the BOLO/Terran cybernetic interface, I did not believe that the BOLOs would be combat effective," the Admiral said. "I talked to the Brigade Commander, he stated without a Terran their effectiveness would drop by nearly 48%."

"That's 52% effectiveness sitting in the hangars," NoDra'ak said. "Don't ask. They aren't the Navy. Order. Even if your order is wrong, it will not be as wrong as doing nothing."

Admiral Shtuklar turned and ordered the BOLO's to be loaded into the drop cradles.

"Let's see you op-plan," NoDra'ak said.

"Right now, with our limited contact with groundside and limited intelligence, right now it's just engage the enemy and try to force it away from the civilian populace," the Admiral admitted.

"How are they landing?" NoDra'ak said. "Is it like the Telkan Dwellerspawn War?"

"No. They just appear on the ground," Admiral Shtuklar said.

General NoDra'ak lit another cigrette. "Launch temporal stabilizers and dimensional stabilizers. While your at it, set up a stellar mass stabilizer and send out probe arrays to the surrounding planets."

"They're still getting into position. It's a big system," the Admiral said. He consulted one of the holotanks. "It'll be six hours until the entire system's temporal and dimensional stabilizers are in position, another nineteen hours before the stellar mass stabilizer is read just for deployment."

Smokey No shook his head, ignoring the slight vertigo. "Right here, put a temporal and dimensional stabilizer array up around the planet. Order the troops on the ground to activate the same systems. If the enemy doesn't have ships, isn't using mat-trans, and is still appearing on the ground, they're using dimensional or temporal shifting to bring in reinforcements," NoDra'ak looked around the command center. "Who's in charge of planetary N-space security?"

The Admiral shook his head. "Nobody. We're running on skeleton crews as it is. Most of the transport ships are being piloted by VI and eVI systems. We were able to get roughly a third of the Task Force's ships up to minimum crews, but the Flag Bridge is undermanned."

NoDra'ak nodded. "All right. Tell the BOLOs that as soon as they get groundside they're to set up non realspace interdiction methods," he looked at the holotank again. "The Martial Orders aren't tied into your warplan?"

"They refuse to interlock because I deployed Casey," the Admiral admitted without a trace of shame or prevarication.

"You haven't worked with The Idiots often, have you?" NoDra'ak asked.

Shtuklar shook his head. He was relaxing, his spines lowering. "No. I'm deep space and outer system."

"I'll handle it, you watch," NoDra'ak said. He moved forward, the robotic legs on the left side of his assist frame whining. "Guns!"

"Sir?" the Master Gunnery Mate asked, looking up.

"Throw the planet up here, with all ships that are carrying orbital bombardment weaponry," he ordered.

Admiral Shtuklar moved up next to him, watching with curiosity as NoDra'ak started assigning targets for orbital strikes. Everything from huge missile arrays to kinetic strikes to plasma weapon hits. He moved carefully around First Armored Recon and First Lanaktallan, bracketed First Telkan, put out multiple ocean hits that would swamp uninhabited islands, then designated weapons to pound the central mountains. General NoDra'ak moved slightly so that Admiral Shtuklar could change the firing order twice. When he was done he waved at Admiral Shtuklar.

"Load that across the fleet, broadcast it to The Idiots and all groundforces," Admiral Shtuklar said.

"Sir, First Telkan and First Planetary Assault are still out of contact," a communications officer said.

"We don't know that they can't hear us, we just know we can't hear them," the Admiral said.

Smokey No waited a moment, then lit another cigarette, relaxing in the harness. After a long moment he looked at the holotank.

The Martial Orders were still in the strike zones.

"Get me The Idiots," Smokey No snapped. "Put all of them right here in this tank."

"Aye aye, sir," The Commo tech said. After a moment each of the four commanders appeared on the screen.

"Why are you not responding to our warplan?" General NoDra'ak asked.

"We will not..." the Preceptor started.

"I am no longer..." the Joan said.

"DOKI!"

"WAAAAGH!"

"SILENCE!" NoDra'ak yelled. He managed to keep from wincing. "This Task Force is responsible for repelling the enemy from this world. All of you know that an interlocked warplan is vital, yet you ignore it?" he gave the Treana'ad equivalent of a sneer. "Do you think you can ignore plasma enhanced thermobaric high impulse fuel air weapons? Or a plasma strike?"

They all stared.

"Interlock right now or I'll stop caring about where you are! I have a warplan to execute and I won't stand for any bullshit grandstanding on the part of irregulars. All ground forces are in need of orbital fire support AND YOU'RE STANDING AT GROUND ZERO LIKE MORONS!" he bellowed.

His side hurt.

All of them looked down except for the Neko Marine, who started jumping up and down excitedly. Six others ran up behind her, waving placards and banners with NoDra'ak's face on it.

"You have ten minutes to interlock and clear my fields of fire, after that, I will be engaging in orbital fire. If your ships do not move to support the operations, I will be extremely upset," he said. He leaned forward. "You wish to question the Admiral's deployment of the Ringbreaker? I wholly approve, and think he should have gone in with a Gylfi configuration," the four commanders blanched at that. "But a Valkyrie configuration may work."

"But..." the Joan said.

"In case you didn't notice, you're in direct combat with NivenRing Dwellerspawn," NoDra'ak snarled. "Perhaps it might make sense to you now why the Admiral chose to deploy a Ringbreaker against the very things he was trained and equipped to fight."

More Neko Marines were waving placards with NoDra'ak's face on it. One came up behind the leader and hit her over the head with a placard.

"NOW GET IN FORMATION, PHILLIP STAB YOUR EYES!" NoDra'ak said, and made a chopping motion with his bladearm.

The communication's channel cut out.

He turned to the Admiral. "I'm starting to feel fatigue. Can we retire to your briefing room?"

"Should I bring my staff?" Admiral Shtuklar asked.

"Just your immediate theater planning staff," NoDra'ak said, stiffly moving toward the briefing room.

When he got there, he settled down in a chair, wincing as his bruised and cracked left side took his weight. The Admiral's planning staff filed in, most of them looking down. NoDra'ak waited till they were all seated, the Admiral included, before lighting a cigarette.

"All right, this isn't our finest hour, but by the time we got here the midget was already dancing and everyone ran off and left us to pay her," the Admiral said. He shook his head, his spines rattling. "Mistakes were made, mostly by me."

NoDra'ak nodded. "You've got forces on the ground to pull the enemy away from harvesting the civilians. That's a good start," he sighed, feeling the pain ease up. "Since we don't have any Confederate Army units on the ground, I ordered the new Army drop-pods to be dropped near First Telkan, to land within a hundred meters of any groups of transponders. That'll let the Marines build firebases and defensive points as well as bring more heavy weapons online."

"I didn't think of that," the Admiral said, shaking his head.

"This is your first ground campaign, you have no advisors, the chain of command was destroyed, and our most experienced troops are all dead," NoDra'ak said. "Most wars like that are lost before they've begun."

"Do you really think we'll lose, General?" a Commodore asked.

NoDra'ak shook his head. "No. I think it's going to be one of the nastiest fights we've seen in a while, but we have the Treana'ad Mobile Combat Hordes," he gave the equivelant of a large grin. "And my people had a victory rate of over 25% against the Terrans, we'll be able to give the Dwellerspawn a lot harder fight than they think."

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

"General, can you hear me?" a voice asked.

Trucker's vision came back online, his cyberoptics finished with the self-tests.