Chapter 12

Sepia star system, inner system.

Capital city of Landing, Governor's Palace.

"You know, I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that this place is mostly underground." Commented Sarah as she stepped over yet another guard body. That particular soldier had been manning what appeared to have been a fortified checkpoint, and the small pile of SLF corpses in the hallway was a testament to how hard the gubernatorial guard and his comrades had fought. "I understand the paranoia, but why doesn't anyone ever has a nice, exposed lair so we can shoot them from the Seeker? Or at least get coms from our people topside?"

"Precisely because people would simply bring a ship and shoot them to pieces. Besides, if that kind of thing happened we wouldn't be paid nearly as much as we are." Retorted Hector as his point man, corporal Larry, stopped at an intersection, quickly scanned the next hallway, and gestured an all clear.

"Fair enough sergeant. Can't blame me for trying now, can you? After all, do you have any idea how much your boys and girls cost me in victory beer?"

The series of chuckles on the com net made Sarah smile. Everyone was tense as they descended into corpse strewn underground level after level, and getting everyone a bit more relaxed could only help. There was a point where you could get so focused that you'd miss something after all.

"Well, hopefully tonight we'll make your bank account just a bit smaller because of all those beer expenses captain."

This time Sarah joined in the laughter as they continued advancing through the complex. The place was a freaking wreck, although thankfully so far the civilian bodies had been limited...and usually only in the expensive outfits she'd seen the local members of the social and political elite wear during her welcoming party. That indicated that at least the SLF wasn't just massacring everyone they encountered, which was good.

After all, if they'd been willing to kill every innocent on their path, they might have been crazy enough to bring a portable fusion bomb with them. Even Near-Verge power armor had it's limits after all. Besides, if she'd read the governor right, she probably had a shielded, nuclear proof shelter at the bottom of the palace, making anything short of a full scale saturation bombardment by a ship of the wall or a sustained bombardment of strategic bunker buster missiles ineffective. It was amazing what you could do when you repurposed starship armor and shield generators and buried them under hundreds of meters of soil and rock after all.

"Indeed sergeant, indeed."

They continued through the corridors for a few minutes, only exchanging some banter and short reports, before the point man raised his fist as they neared an intersection, and everyone stopped.

A few seconds passed in silence as the point man crept to the edge of the intersection.

"Larry, what is it?"

"I don't know sarge. Scanners picked up something, it looks li-"

The com dissolved in static and Sarah instinctively dove for the ground as the hallway turned into a sea of fire. Her implants automatically took over, and the captain shivered in her armor as combat drugs began coursing through her veins, her nerves suddenly redundant as supra conductor cables took over, perfectly merging her body and armor into a single whole.

She got back up in a single smooth motion, her rifle already pointed at the place where her computers estimated the attack came from.

Her computers had guessed right, as through a hole in the corner of the wall she saw the face plate of one of the SLF's suits of unpowered combat armor. Despite the utter lack of emotion that could be conveyed by a slab of metal, the wearer still irradiated surprise.

Mainly because despite eating what appeared to be a direct hit from a single use anti tank plasma gun, Larry was still up...and didn't even look singed. That was mainly because his shield generator was specifically designed to take that kind of hits and keep on going. It wasn't perfect -if nothing else, it could run out of juice like any ship's shield, and collapse if it took too much damage-, but it was a hell of a lot better than anyone would expect mercs to wield.

Sarah was fast, but her marines were even faster. She finished aiming her rifle and pulled the trigger just in time to vaporize the tiny chunks 3 pulsers and 3 gauss rifles had reduced the enemy soldier into.

"Ambush! Spread out! Sally, grenades!"

A volley of cylinders flew through the intersection, and a volley of laser bolts answered...only to end abruptly as the handful of plasma grenades detonated.

Those grenades had been made to pierce High Verge power armor. The SLF's Mid Verge combat armor didn't even stand a chance.

Larry cautiously threw a sensor drone into the hallway, before nodding.

"They're all out. Guess what I detected was the plasma gun spinning up." He stopped. "That was a good ambush. A good anti power armor ambush. They were clearly expecting me to avoid exposing myself, and brought something big enough to just blast where I was likely to be."

"No one said they'd be incompetent, just less well equipped that we are." Said Hector as he stepped into the intersection, and shook his head. "Poor bastards, I don't even know if they realized what hit them. Alright people, they know we're here, let's drop the casual approach. Sensor drone at every corner, intersection, and if you have a doubt about a signature just throw a 'nade at it, got it?"

"Sir yes sir!"

*****

"Major? We've lost contact with perimeter team theta. They reported approaching contacts and preparations to engage, then...nothing."

The major grimaced as he looked up at the lieutenant.

"It's them. Pull back all perimeter teams, and concentrate our forces. We'll only get one shot at this."

"Yes sir!"

*****

"It's too quiet."

Sarah chuckled at her sergeant's comment.

"Want to be any more stereotypical sergeant?"

"No ma'am. But still, I expected at least encounter response teams by now."

Sarah nodded, then grimaced.

"I'm ready to bet that they don't have them. You're right, most people would have sent people to intercept us, if only to buy themselves some breathing room and a bit of intel. But we took out their logistics hub remember? They probably don't have all the gear they want, especially when it comes to killing power armor. Under that kind of strain, there's only one viable tactic..."

"Concentrate everything at a single chokepoint, and try to knock us out in a single engagement. Or at least hold us off until their friends have finished what they came here for."

"Indeed."

They continued for a few minutes, before Hector called a halt.

"Alright. We're nearing the main reception room. It's large, spacious....and access to the governor's personal quarters goes through here." They'd managed to get a decently detailed map off of public information terminals. It didn't include whatever bolthole the governor had arranged for herself, but it gave them some idea for where to look....notably because the lowest level was entirely occupied by the governor's personal residence. "Even the servant access corridors and maintenance passageways pass through here."

"Perfect place to block us then?"

"Indeed. Larry, drones."

The corporal worldessly nodded, and tossed a few spheres into the air, before sending them buzzing down the hallway.

They rounded the corner...And vanished as the wall behind them exploded from the sheer amount of firepower thrown at them.

"Well, that answers that. Scans?"

"Not much sir." Admitted the corporal with the faintly distracted tone of someone communing with their implants. "The drones barely got a scan before they got vaporized. I make it....3 fixed weapons emplacements, at least, hiding behind a barricade. Nothing as heavy as the fusion gun, just regular laser cannons. Mid Verge power signature." Laser cannons that were still made to blow tanks to pieces, grimly reflected Sarah, and had the firing rate to chew threw even their Near Verge power armor if they stayed in their line of sight for too long. "The rest looks like small arms. A lot more gauss weapon signatures that I expected, and given the impacts I'd say perdition lasers as well. A lot of perdition lasers. No solid numbers, but I'd be surprised if there's less than 30 people on the other side of that barricade."

"The barricade, how tough?"

"Looks like furniture and some quick setting concrete, plus some coverfoam." Sarah could almost feel the corporal's wolfish grin. "Nothing that will stand up to our guns."

Everyone nodded. Concrete might look like an excellent material to hide behind for the Sepians, but once you went beyond a certain level of technology it sucked, badly. Even neoconcrete, the tougher version everyone used if they had the money and tech, was pitiful against sustained fire from high tech weapons like pulsers and heavy gauss rifles unless you were willing to layer in several meters worth of the stuff. Coverfoam was even worse, it was made to intercept Dominion level laser fire, and even then not that well. It's sole selling point was that it was semi smart, and you could just slam a grenade or a charge down and bam, you had a premade defensive position in place in less than 15 seconds.

"Right. Let's test this out before we throw everything at them. Sally, 3 grenades, aim for the emplacements if you can."

"Yes sir!"

Larry pulled back as the other corporal jogged to his position. Fortunately the hallway they were in was separated by a good 5 meters of dirt and rock from the ballroom itself, and while that didn't completely protect them, it would at least buy them time as the SLF tried to dig through the obstruction. And the grenade had a low power anti grav generator that would enable them to hit the barricade at that range, even without the power armor's enhanced muscles.

Sally stopped at the intersection, and crouched down, carefully setting a trio of plasma grenade in front of her, before pulling out several sensor drones and letting them hover out of sight, and Sarah nodded in approval. If she sent in the drones first, the enemy would fire at them...and realize they were a distraction only too late.

The corporal waited for a second, probably double checking her programmed plan in her implants, before disappearing in a blur of motion.

Several things happened nearly simultaneously: the group of drones sallied out, the enemy opened fire...and Sally threw her grenades, before falling back cursing madly as a series of sharp cracks sounded in the ballroom.

"What is is corporal? Report!" Said Hector as the stream of profanity continued unabated.

"Sorry sarge. But these bastards have a fucking point defence gun, anti grenade. The grenades just...vanished."

"Damn it."

Sarah winced. Point defence weapons to counter grenades and such relatively low velocity projectiles weren't impossible, but they were expensive as hell, especially the mobile ones. It wasn't that the weapon itself was particularly pricey -a good laser rifle would do the trick-, but the computers had to detect the projectile and neutralize it in a fraction of a second at best. That was a pain in the ass to make good enough to be worth it, especially in tight spaces.

"Sergeant, your assessment?"

Hector audibly sighed.

"We don't have a choice ma'am. If we want to get to the governor, we'll have to go through them, and with this thing that means doing it the old fashioned way."

Sarah nodded grimly. She might be worried about payment issues if the governor was killed, but they had made enough of an effort no one could reasonably blame for backing off an waiting for reinforcements. She'd been told the army was mobilizing after all. But...

They'd passed by a lot of dead people on their way here. Too many. By her calculations, at least half of the guests for the governor's little cottillon were dead...And that included most of the damned parliament, and virtually every high ranking official in her government. If the governor died, there was good chance the government for the Sepia system would just collapse. That meant not getting paid, and on top of that it would result in one hell of a mess she really didn't want associated with her mercenary company, not even counting the innocents that would get caught in the crossfire.

"Alright sergeant. If you think you and your boys and girls can do it, we head in."

"We can do it ma'am. And I have an idea how...."

He trailed off as his helmet pivoted, it's optical sensors aligning with the fusion gun, and Sarah smiled.

Oh the SLF was in for a world of pain.