Chapter 7

Sepia star system, inner system.

Sepia Prime, in flight near the SLF's logistics headquarters.

"I make it...30 or so automated weapons emplacements. The heavy kind. A few smaller turrets spread around as well, but it's clear they expect the big boys to do all the work." Said Elteria as she gestured towards the hologram of the base.

"Types of weapons?" Asked Sarah.

"Mostly surface to air missile batteries. Long range ones, probably with a few stratospheric interceptors thrown in. The rest is....I believe a few point defence batteries, and some nasty anti tank guns. Railguns if I don't miss my guess."

Sarah whistled softly. That was fit to defend a major government installation, not a terrorist camp.

"How the hell did they manage to hide this from orbital scanners?"

Elteria shrugged.

"For all the professed perfection of surface to orbit scans, you get a lot of false positives. Any kind of advanced scans mostly relies on power sources and large scale heat signatures, material scanners just go crazy due to the mineral concentrations on planets. If they shield their stuff well enough they might as well be invisible. We got them because we knew where to look, and our equipment is several thousand times better than the crap the locals got." The AI turned towards Seria. "No offense."

"None taken miss Elteria. I am very well aware of my homeworld's shortcomings. You are right, the Sepia customs fleet's gear is crap, I've seen better sensors on some civilian freighters at the academy."

Seria was an oddity, someone talented enough to actually be sent to another, more developed planet to study. In her case she'd been brilliant enough that she'd actually made it to the prestigious academies of the Protectorate's core worlds, the heavily industrialized first colonies from the initial effort by the Dominion to colonize the Thaumor galaxy. Why she had decided to come back to her backwater of a homeworld rather than finding a job with a 6 digits yearly salary was beyond Sarah, but that wasn't the captain's problem. In any case, the SLF had pounced on her as being one of the few persons on the planet with the knowledge and training necessary to maintain Dominion level military hardware, and even repair it if necessary.

"Well, thanks to you, we now know how heavily armed the bastards are." Which was the reason why Hector and his men were gearing up in heavy assault power armor. No more perdition rifle surprises, if they were going to fight such heavy resistances she was giving her men the tools and options to come out on top, no matter how outnumbered they were. "Which means that going in softly and with a velvet glove isn't an option."

Seria let out a strangled sound.

"You called what you did to camp Sygma going in 'softly'?"

Elteria smiled nastily.

"Oh yes. Captain? Your orders?"

Sarah contemplated the hologram for a second.

"The battle laser would be overkill." She pretended no to hear her AI's sound of disappointment. "We don't need a glassed crater to inspect. Ground support missiles. As many as you feel you need. I want every damned weapon emplacement destroyed before we send our people in. These guys appeared to have dug in pretty thoroughly, flatten everything on the surface if necessary."

That seemed to perk the AI up.

"Aye aye! Missile launchers calibrated. On your mark, captain."

Somehow she wasn't even surprised the AI had already loaded the launchers with the ground support missiles. For all that she pushed for vaporizing everything from orbit with the largest possible weapon at hand, Elteria was rather good at gauging the actual level of force needed and preparing accordingly....most of the time.

Sarah waited for a few seconds as she contemplated the hologram and weighed her options one more time.

"Open fire." She said softly.

*****

The SLF was indeed very paranoid. After the recent events, every base and camp had either packed up and consolidated with major installations to lay low or shut down and quietly dispersed it's combatants. Nevertheless, some sites were too vital to keep offline, and as such the SLF had set all of those vital installations on high alert for an attack. They were after all not sure what had happened to camp Sygma, other that it had gone silent, and it's personnel was overdue to arrive back to the logistics hub. They did know however that the group of mercenaries that had been killing their men left and right had descended upon one of their cells in Sylvis...with one of the members they captured who was fully aware of camp Sygma's location. It didn't take much to join the dots.

Their state of readiness and sensor network was, if nothing else, very impressive. Against the government of Sepia it would have allowed them ample time to respond to an incursion, or even a full scale attack. But they weren't facing some under equipped glorified cops with only recently earned anti-guerilla experience. They were facing off world mercenaries with weapons they could only imagine in their wildest dreams, that could shoot them from geostationary orbit on the other side of the planet if they damned wished. Or from halfway across the solar system if they were willing to put a bit of a dent in the planet.

It was a testament to the quality of their off world patron's gear that their sensors managed to detect the missiles in time, and one of their point defence turrets had the time to begin firing at the inbound projectiles. Unfortunately, those were ground attack munitions, jinxing all the way and hidden behind a cloud of ECM. The turret didn't even score a single hit.

And the missiles hit all of their targets square on.

Five point defence emplacements vanished in cataclysmic plasma fireballs, and the main sensor cluster came apart in a flurry of melted shrapnel. If nothing else, the attack was considerable overkill, the missiles sent at them were meant to bust fortified positions from a civilization whose technology was at least a hundred years beyond anything the Dominion could build. But the main threat to the missiles out of the way, the follow up salvos were more conventional ground attack missiles, rather than the plasma bunker busters, splitting into a dozen submunition at the last moment, using powerful grav drives to adjust course and annihilate a dozen positions at once.

It was over in less than a minute. The defenders didn't even get to see what was shooting at them on their sensors, they just heard the incoming missile alarm for a split second then everything went to hell. Every fortified position on the surface was just bloody craters, dotted with the pieces of their defenders and weapons alike. The 6 targets of the initial attacks were just...gone. Heavy warheads made to punch through bunkers reinforced with starship grade armor had just dug craters a dozen meters deep, reaching some of the tunnels underneath the surface and blasting enough plasma into them to kill everything within a hundred meters of the breach point.

Silence descended on the surface. Everyone that had been directly exposed to the incredibly violent bombardment was either dead or unconscious, and only a few shell shocked terrorists came back up hesitatingly...and went down almost as fast as the Eternal Seeker swooped in overhead, and Hector's 9 marines dropped down. This time they were wearing heavy assault power armor suits, juggernauts of mono mollecular armor plating, each sporting at least one tank grade weapon and enough ammunition to sustain a full battle. The ones on the surface were stunned, as none had enough wits to even aim their weapons before being mowed down. But already, some of the ready guard units from the barracks buried deep beneath the earth were responding, and insurgents emerged from concealed bunker doors.

They barely made it a step out before being scythed down, heavy combat lasers and gauss machine guns sweeping over them and reducing them to steaming chunks of meat. Then flurries of grenades followed down the tunnels they had come from, and suddenly the response teams were no more. The power armored marines split up in a trio of 3-man fire teams, and each picked a tunnel, guided by the active scans Elteria was making of the facility as she pinged the underground bunker complex with every sensor cluster she had.

The marines headed deeper into the facility, stunning every unarmed person they came across, and taking more...direct measures for those bearing weapons. Given the fact that this was a major hub for a murderous insurgency, not exactly known for discouraging their members to not go about armed at all times, there were few prisoners.

In the end however, the assault was just too violent, too sudden. The marines breached the command center and gunned down the command crew before they had the time to launch any major protocols, and from there connected Elteria in, who took over the network with contemptuous ease from it's central hub, and sealed whatever pockets of survivors remained in. Sarah would have rather the marines had taken the command crew alive, but unfortunately stun darts were of dubious utility against even the most basic body armor at the best of times, and the command crew was in full combat gear by the time the marines arrived. So had the soldiers they had left to man the defenses in front of the command center, but those were less important, and had barely had the time to realize that the things flying around the corner were grenades before they were sent back to their ancestors.

"Operation finished. All targets effectively neutralized." Said Hector as his hologram appeared on the bridge. "This is going to take a while to cleanup ma'am. I...I don't think we have the resources to do it honestly. We might have to call in the locals for help."

Sarah nodded. She'd been afraid of that. They were already strained to their limit keeping the prisoners from camp Sygma in custody, mostly by piling them into a room and putting it under one of their few, precious stasis fields.

"Very well. Just make sure to get use the computer cores and any files you find. Oh, and the highest ranking officers. Then prepare to hand over this to the system authorities." She nodded towards Seria. "Our friend here was as good as her word. We'll uphold our end of the bargain. Prepare for an hostage rescue scenario, we have to assume her family is under surveillance."

"Yes ma'am! Right away!"

"Elteria, could you get a channel to our client? I think having the governor breathing down system security's neck would help in this case."

"Aye aye ma'am. It should only take a few minutes. The advantage of being the main trouble shooter for the system governments is that at least it cuts on the red tape and blustering bullshit." The AI winced. "Although I could do without all the honorifics. The locals are starting to think we're some sort of heroes."

Sarah chuckled.

"Let's see if that lasts after the government declassifies the files and shows their people what we actually did to get those results." The reason they had been able to get their initial lead in the first place was because they'd started busting down the doors of suspected SLF members and forcibly interrogated everyone under lie detectors. That definitely qualified as a violation of due process...and for every terrorist they'd caught they'd also traumatized at least a dozen innocents.

"Fair enough ma'am. I've got the governor. I'll direct the call to your office."

"Good, I'll be there in a minute."

*****

"So, what do we have sergeant?" Asked Sarah as she set aside the paperwork she had been working on, and leaned back into her office's seat. She usually didn't micromanage the marines, and generally trusted them to accomplish any objective within certain mission parameters she gave them, but she had given her word to Seria they'd get her relatives to safety. That alone warranted a certain level of personal oversight.

"Her family is definitely under observation. I think her father is smart enough to know it too. I make it a single team of 3 guys observing them day and night, probably with some backup on call." He paused. "We could just snag the targets and run, but..."

"It wouldn't exactly be pleasant for them. And the SLF would probably take it out on whoever is close to them, thinking they're hiding them." Sarah leaned back in her chair. She wasn't usually a bloodthirsty woman....but she was extremely vindicative, and she really, really hated the SLF. Attacking a colony's vital infrastructure like that just awakened some old naval officer's instincts to protect the newly colonized worlds that were the future of humanity, and the casual disregard for civilians the SLF had showed disgusted her. "You are cleared to terminate the observation team, as well as their backup, at your own discretion sergeant."

"Thank you ma'am. We should have the targets in 30 minutes."

Sarah nodded before closing the connection. She contemplated the holoscreen that floated on her desk, and sighed. She'd thought she would be free from endless paperwork once she was out of the navy. She was so, so wrong.

*****

"This....complicates things." Carefully said Allira as she looked at the other member of the meeting. This time the businessman and military man were only holograms, as the twins had followed their mother's instructions and were currently sitting in their personal freighter, the Saltenza, almost 12 astras from the Sepia star system, about the limit at which their communication systems could reach through to the hidden relay satellite in the outer system with a tightbeam, and have it stealthily and securely relay their conversation to the SLF's headquarters.

"That is a considerable understatement I'm afraid." Said the businessman. "A lot of our ammunition and general supplies were stored there, and well....Commander Carlos was one of our best. His loss will hurt. And it also prevents you from getting the last of the shipments to us."

"Indeed. We need to start considering alternative-" Annalisa trailed off as she saw the pensive look on her twin's face. "Do you have an idea?"

"Something like that yeah. We can't do our usual landings anymore, only the logistics hub had the equipment to offload the shuttles fast enough to avoid arousing suspicion. But we still do have a lot of friends at the spaceport, and some contacts left over from the original setup..."

"You're thinking about reviving the original arrangements." The businessman winced. "We terminated those and built the logistics hub because it was too risky with the government clamping down on smuggling."

"Yes. But if we pull every string we have left, I'm fairly sure the government will be too busy congratulating themselves on their pet mercenaries' 'glorious victory' to realize this would force us to funnel gear through more conventional channels. We might have an opportunity, but...60/40 it succeeds, tops."

The businessman and the military man looked at each other, and then nodded in unison.

"We'll take that over guaranteed destruction, or having to go to ground until the TRF comes and liberates the system."

"Good. Then I believe I can stack both of the last shipments into a single operation. Proper, anti space ship missiles...and enough gear to make operation couperet possible, if not ideal."

"Thank you, Moonlight." Said the military man, addressing Allira by her code name. "You've given us hope, and stars forbid, a shot at victory."