Chapter 036: Tragedy

The three most popular types of light battleships are early battleships, pocket battleships and fast battleships.

Early battleships are capital ships predating the establishment of the modern division of classes. They were built during the times of the Solar Commonwealth and the early Unification Wars to play a role similar to the modern regular battleships. Each of these venerable ships has gone through hundreds of modernizations, making them remain a threat. However the hull structure remains the same, meaning that they are extremely vulnerable to hits. They are also rare outside of the forces of Discord and sometimes the Solar Republic.

Pocket battleships are specialized convoy interdiction capital ships. They are relatively small, have much weaker armour, and their heavy artillery is significantly reduced. They still have firepower allowing them to destroy every cruiser used for convoy escort, while sending several frigates to intercept the fleeing cargo vessels, and capture the resources that they can change into supplies through their on-board factories.

Fast battleships are lighter regular battleships, sacrificing armour and general tonnage for the mobility and firepower. They are normally used during the regular fleet engagements, during which they are the agile and offensive sword to the regular battleship formations’ shield.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 9, Page 757

***

Tyra-III, Echelon Base [Underground]

23:41 24.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

Christopher Hall was mortally afraid that the presence of VIP and Sunray meant that they were going to enter the most ferocious battlefield of the whole battle, and take part in the final assault on whatever citadel the Seekers’ leadership holed themselves into.

He was correct in his prediction of the future. What he didn’t expect was that the presence of Innocent and Lith Athalia was going to change their position into the safest place on the battlefield - which was probably the reason why the medic decided to make them join him.

It wasn’t even a battle. Christopher felt like he was following two unstoppable antagonists from some slasher film, who were busy carving a way through an army of ‘protagonists’, steadily declining in numbers during the battle. Although occasionally it felt more like they were two undersized godzillas.

The Seekers did their best. Reinforced chokepoints, machine guns, one or two missile launchers, even an anti-tank gun in a longer corridor. Endless were dying by the dozen.

Innocent detected each ambush from a distance with meta-empathy, so detailed that he could pretty much see through the enemies’ eyes and figure out their exact plans and equipment. Then Athalia quickly checked the base plans on what looked like a matte grey iPad, and figured out how to ruin the enemy’s ambush. Then they went for the kill.

Innocent went all out, or at least Christopher hoped that this was his all out - if it wasn’t, then he was going to get totally terrified of the priest. When he got close without them noticing, he could kill the Endless by placing a telekinetic blockade in the middle of their aorta. Innocent himself had calmly explained that it works each time because the enemies were clones, with identical bodies that he thoroughly analyzed.

Not like it changed a lot. When he couldn’t get close enough, he had enough power to just crush the skull together with the helmet.

Athalia was, objectively speaking, even more terrifying. Christopher thought that he was a wonderful medic and a rather horrible person, but now he discovered that the twintailed nightmare of his was also a killing machine. He was just slaughtering his way through the defenders, not even breaking a sweat. Though he spent most of his time shouting orders to other teams through an earphone, and letting Innocent do the job.

They were attacked by Perfects twice. Innocent was strong enough to immobilize them for a few seconds from a distance. Once that happened, Lith closed the distance in a heartbeat and fired his pistol a few times point blank. It worked each time.

“I’m super freaking scared.” He heard Tendrik’s voice at some point. In the background, Innocent blew up another squad of the Endless. Despite the name, the Seekers seemed to have started running out of those.

“I know.” This time it was Ryan. “Five, are they scary to you, too?” Ryan just couldn’t stop picking fights with Rukh.

“I fear nothing.” Rukh replied. “But these two are making me not want to pick a fight with them.” Christopher resolved himself to tell the team’s bad wolf that this is pretty much the literal definition of being afraid. But it could wait.

One more firefight later they reached the central computer of the base.

***

EGS Echo, Command Deck

01:11 24.07.2610 STT

Commander Lena Drathari

The Echo remained untouched by the battle occuring on the planet. Together with its small and ragtag fleet it was slowly circling through Tyra-III’s orbit, awaiting the good news from its ground forces. The defenses were breaking, Lieutenant Commander Athalia’s forces were storming the base while Colonel Nowak was keeping the perimeter defense.

The Discord’s fleet was hurrying towards them, but with battleships in their midst they weren’t doing that particularly quickly. The remaining window of opportunity for an easy escape was about two days. Rear Admiral Koll (if he was in charge of the fleet, rather than the transhumans) could shorten it down by sending only cruisers, but it would still give the Echo something close to four hours.

Everything was going well. Then, out of nowhere, everything went to hell. It started when the Discord fleet launched something.

“Uhm, Captain?” She said. Keller was overseeing the ground battle, so he missed the initial information. “I need you to take a look at that. Right now.”

“Is… is that data correct?” He was surprised. Everyone would be. The Heydrich had just launched several objects. That alone would be merely insane due to the distance, but what really made it absurd was the speed.

0,9c. Nothing she knew of could reach such a speed so quickly.

“Oh, crap. I know what it is.” Captain said, before turning towards the replacement communication’s officer. His face was pale for the second time in her memories. “Link to the surface, now!”

***

Tyra-III, Echelon Base [Underground]

01:21 24.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

Innocent was getting intimately acquainted with the base mainframe in the background. Lith Athalia was playing darts with a number of throwing knives and a body of some unfortunate Endless. The Recovery Team Eight has bundled into the corner, fervently commenting on what they just saw.

That’s when Athalia suddenly froze.

“Berserk, repeat that.” The surprise in his voice was startling when compared to his earlier calm. “MotherFUCKER!” He shouted, this time in anger. This made the attention of everyone in the room focus on him. “Sunray to all, immediate evacuation. Drop everything you are doing and run back to vehicles!” He shouted into the earphone, grabbed his rifle, and stood up from the chair. That’s when he noticed that everyone was still staring at him. “Do I need to spell it? We’re leaving. In a hurry!”

Christopher wasn’t going to discuss that. If Athalia wanted him to run, he was going to. That man was now about as scary to him as Colonel Nowak and Chief Petty Officer Tiaa (if not more), and he wouldn’t try to oppose any of them either.

Even Innocent joined the marathon through the decimated interiors of the base. Athalia spent a while shouting into the earphone for the vehicles to get closer to the base, pick everyone coming out regardless of squad allegiance and run away towards the evacuation point as fast as they could.

“What is happening?” It was Tiriel that asked that. Christopher was too busy fighting for breath. Even Tiriel seemed to be on the edge of her stamina. Athalia looked at worst mildly tired, and it didn’t feel like he was running with his fastest possible speed.

“We have company.” He answered. “Discord. Probably transhumans. Up to a division, with heavy equipment. They are using some xenotech cybermagic bullshit landing craft of the Sidhe, enough to go past the blockade and land together with AA batteries in numbers sufficient to deter our orbital support and evacuation.”

It is bad. It is really bad.

“The base still has active AA batteries on automatic mode, so we need to get at least ten clicks away from it to get picked up.” Lith continued. “And if Colonel Nowak fails to destroy the batteries that they are going to deploy around our escape route, this distance might grow several times.”

He didn’t need to say that if this happened, everyone on the ground was going to die.

***

Tyra-III, 7km from Echelon Base

02:12 24.07.2610 STT

Colonel Anna Nowak

The distorted aurora accompanying the Sidhe’s landing pods sudden deceleration in the atmosphere reminded her of her own home. It looked like the triffid chemical bombardment. A massive dispersion of substances toxic to all lives but the trifid ones, the alien equivalent of terraforming as much as a weapon.

It was relatively pretty, but it couldn’t measure up to her own memories in the end. She was five years old when she saw that flower bloom in the sky for the first time, and few things can measure up to childhood memories.

The AA batteries fired. If the planet was slightly more Earth-like, their incandescent lances would part the clouds. Instead the spectacle was rather disappointing. They had only a few seconds to fire before the pods landed.

Each of them looked like a massive, glowing spear. They pierced the ground, and remained there for several seconds, before the first enemy forces began materializing around them. A variety of vehicles, some of them crewed by humans, while others transhuman in their nature.

Unfortunately for the attackers, she guessed the location of that landing perfectly. Most of her tanks managed to get to their positions before it touched the ground and now open fired at them.

It was a massacre. And not in the way that the freaks of Discord hoped for. She placed each tank company to form a perfect encirclement around the enemy position, but in a way that allowed them to fire without the threat of the round going through the enemy formation and hitting allies on the other side.

It was a shooting range. A few enemies had enough time after leaving their craft to notice what was happening. Most died instantly.

A titanic centipede emerged, sixty-five meters of composites and ceramics, its outer hull dotted with gun emplacements and missile launchers. An elder Mechanist warform, no doubt. It tried to flee, using its very low and surprisingly flexible body to scurry through the minuscule cracks in the terrain.

She considered telling her soldiers to leave that one for her. She longed for an occasion to stretch her legs a bit, and the Mechanist felt like a good fight. But they were in a hurry. And before she made the decision, one of her tanks managed to hit something important, and the Mechanist was no more.

Many rounds hit the craft, and finally it was enough to damage it - very few exotechs were capable of holding indefinitely against MAWs. It broke in a way most spectacular. The thirty meters high fountain of mangled body parts, burned circuits and blood indicated that no less than a brigade of enemies was just wrongly unloaded from the landing pod.

That was the end. No more enemies, just a sea of blood worthy of a poem. Maybe she should write one once they retreated safely?

“Berserk, do we go back?” She heard a voice. One of her tank commanders. A good soldier and a good question, to which she only had a bad answer.

“Negative.” The Echo didn’t have enough shuttles to carry everyone back to the ship in one go, unless they abandoned the vehicles. And they were running out of those. She had to prioritize. Besides, the assault team had Athalia and Innocent - she was certain they were going to get most of the soldiers out safely. “We’re proceeding to the evac zone. We’re going to hold it until the others return.”

Besides, if the enemies had more tricks up their sleeves, it was prudent not to put all the eggs in one basket.

***

Tyra-III, 6km from Echelon Base

02:42 24.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

Everything was going almost too well. They got to the vehicles, they started driving like madmen towards the Landing Zone, they seemed to have gained some ground. Athalia was running a rearguard operation with most of the remaining tanks, though he had left enough of the combat vehicles to deter attacks from a different direction.

If anything, it was a mistake of the crews of the remaining tanks and the tactical acumen of the attackers that brought the disaster. The exhumans had picked a place near a massive crevice for their trap - it was left by some massive asteroid impact which went through at some odd angle. A hundred-something meters deep and several kilometers long wound in the world.

The fleeing convoy was passing by the top of the cliff, when the attack happened. It was a former cliff - one of the Echo missiles had to hit it, changing the steep vertical line into a slightly stair-like pile of rubble. It was what saved the Recovery Team Eight from dying right there.

When the first enemies emerged from the roadside opposite to the valley, Christopher was among the first one to notice it. He fired the IFV cannon three times while screaming something incoherently - his historical knowledge made him understand immediately that he was about to play the role of Gaius Flaminius in a spectacle of a Battle of the Lake Trasimene. And he knew how it was going to end.

It was a massacre. The vehicles were pretty much lined in front of the several Mechanist warforms of various sizes and shapes that emerged out of nowhere and began laying waste to the convoy. Its fragment where the Recovery Team Eight survived the initial barrage was merely because of Christopher’s swift reaction - the massive spiderlike abomination that was supposed to tear them into pieces got three hits before it fired.

It wouldn’t have worked normally. The IFV cannon wasn’t enough to break through the spider’s armor. But its long-limbed chassis wasn’t exactly stable, and the third round hit it right in time. The spider fired, but the impact made the resulting missile detonate before the two IFVs rather than in them.

The explosion was powerful enough to push the vehicles behind the edge of the broken cliff. They began to fall down the ravine. Christopher screamed. Everyone screamed.

They were saved by the seatbelts and their adaptive battle armors. The networking of modern combat equipment was occasionally rather incredible. The IFVs detected the crash and informed the armors of its passengers of it. They immediately started moving on their own, forcing every soldier inside to take a position that was calculated to minimize the chance of breaking anything important during the next impact.

The vehicles kept rolling over sideways, going down the slope. Panicked screaming continued. The computers did their best to save the passengers, though the system was created to deal with a single crash, not more than thirty of them in a short succession.

The seatbelts held through all of that - mostly. Rukh’s one broke, but he managed to avoid the worst damage - he was tough, had fast reflexes and was well trained, with Colonel Nowak making him go through a special training for things like that. He actively worked in tandem with his armor, doing his best not to wound anyone including himself. But he wasn’t the only person whose seatbelts didn’t hold, and even when they held through the ordeal, there were still things flying around and hitting people.

Tiriel broke her right arm three seconds later. It happened simultaneously to Christopher’s rib being broken not by the lack of seatbelts but by the seatbelt itself. Two seconds later Kivanna Elsafir suffered a skull fracture when an unsecured gun hit her there. A second later Tendrik - whose seat belts were improperly locked - was finally send flying. Forcing his armor to break both of his arms, using them to shield his head from hitting the metal edge of the seat - that should have slid into the wall now that people were flying around, but its system malfunctioned due to damages - with enough strength to split his head open.

Two seconds later Nekia Sistonen broke her neck. Adaptive armour saved one more life - the IFV’s computer predicted the hit two seconds before it happened, together with the exact result of the impact. Half a second before it the armor’s medical system activated. Four metal screws drilled into her neck instantly, lodging into the bone and reaching the spinal cord itself. All remaining medical nano was pumped inside, doing its best to harden itself around the spinal cord.

Together with the screws connected to the armor (now maximally hardened around the entire neck area and the armor’s last desperate repositioning of her body, it was enough. The bones broke, but the spinal cord survived. It was akin to a bone stabilization, though one done before the impact.

She would have died regardless of all that, if it wasn’t the last impact. The IFVs finally stopped at the bottom of the ravine.

Christopher woke up among the dying out screams and moans of pain. He managed to stand up - feeling nothing but pain, almost everywhere. The vehicle was a mess. An absolute mess. The external cameras were down, so the walls were metal again. He could see Tiriel lying next to the broken driver’s seat. She was trying to stand up as well, which provoked a moan of pain and what sounded like a hushed curse when she tried to lean on her obviously broken arm.

Ryan was there too, hanging from the ceiling and held by still holding seatbelts (Christopher’s broke in the last second, but he cushioned that impact with telekinesis). He seemed to be in shock, but otherwise alright. Though he couldn’t unbuckle the seatbelts.

There was also Nekia. She was lying on the floor - which used to be ceiling - holding herself by the neck and screaming in pain.

“Tiriel.” She didn’t look at him, dazed. He didn’t have the time for that, so he slapped her in the face. The helmet absorbed the impact, but it was enough to shake her back into consciousness a bit. Christopher pointed towards Nekia, and Tiriel leaped towards the catgirl.

“Cat Five, what’s your status?” He asked. Christopher was terrified, scared and shocked, but cognizant enough. He briefly wondered if the angels had messed his hormones up to react like that to danger for a moment. Then he pulled out a knife and helped Ryan free himself from the seatbelts. By the time the engineer landed on the floor, Christopher heard an answer from the other car.

“I’m beaten up but ok.” Christopher was never so happy to hear Rukh’s voice. “Cat… fuck callsigns. Tendrik broke both arms. Kivanna hit her head hard, and is in a bit of a daze, but otherwise ok.”

“Patches… Patches unaccounted for.” Tendrik joined the chat. He sounded pained, but seemed to feel well enough to make jokes. Patches was waiting aboard the Echo for his slaves to return and pet him.

“Can you see what’s outside?” Christopher asked. Tiriel noticed that he was talking, so she subvoiced him a text message. Nekia had a broken neck, but no spinal cord damage. The armor held things in place. A lot of pain due to her neck being drilled through, but painkillers started kicking in.

Modern healthcare is no joke.

“Part of it.” Rukh replied. “We fell all the way down to the bottom of the ravine. No firefight up there, and I do not think that our side won. If the remnants of the tacnet are to be believed in, the majority of our vehicles managed to escape. The exhumans probably think we are dead.” Staying here was not an option. Enemies were most certainly going to check up on the wrecks eventually. They couldn’t miss the evac.

“All right, is there anyone who cannot run?” Christopher asked. “I know it’s going to be painful, but we need to move. Right now.”

“I twisted an ankle, but the armor compensates.” Rukh announced. “We are all beaten up but I think we can run. Just not very fast, and on painkillers.” Christopher could already imagine the hangover. The system was going to pump them full of drugs by the end of the day. “Your plan?”

“The ravine goes right in the direction of the shuttles’ LZ.” He had happened to check this out earlier, right before the ambush. “This is a very low ground, but the bottom is uneven enough to offer some cover. If we use it to get far away from the enemy AA batteries, we should get a lift.”

“Impossible.” Christopher couldn’t see him, but he was sure that Rukh was shaking his head. “Too far away, they will notice you escaping quickly and then snipe you. Our IFV’s weapon is still operational, but the main computer is dead. We can’t set it to automatic fire, but there is an alternative.”

Christopher didn’t understand it immediately. Tiriel was faster.

“Rukh, you can’t do that!” She shouted. It was the first time Christopher had ever seen her this emotional. “They are going to need you if they run into another ambush. I am less of a soldier than you but a much better marksman. That should be…” It was at this that Christopher finally understood. The realization had him frozen.

“No... no, just no!” He shouted. There had to be another way. “We’re not leaving anyone behind! I’m not going to choose who is going to die!” It was much more terrifying than the crash. Much more terrifying than anything else he ever faced.

“Burden of a commander.” Rukh snorted. “Colonel Nowak would have given you quite a talk about wasting time on pointless things. This is what we marines are for. Having to do our best to keep you useless scavengers alive is part of the Guild’s Marine Corps job description. And I’m going to fulfill that objective. Get everyone to safety.”

“Rukh, don’t make me…” He tried to speak. He knew that Rukh was right. But it was too scary of a thought to act on it. Rukh was his friend! Maybe not the best one, but they had spent a lot of time recently. The wolfman was grumpy and asocial, but once you get through all of that, he…

“I’m going to make it easier for you.” Rukh said over the channel. Christopher heard a gunshot and the wolfman’s muffled scream. Tendrik screamed too, but it was a scream of surprise, not pain.

Christopher understood what just happened before the wolfman spoke.

“I just put a bullet in my knee.” Rukh said, pain audible in his voice. “I don’t need it anymore. Now you are spared from having to make the decision. I’m immobilized, and thus the only sensible option to be left behind. Get back to the Echo.”

Several seconds of silence. Some muffled moans of pain that Christopher wasn’t sure who was making. Perhaps it was his own voice.

“I said. GET. BACK. TO. THE. ECHO!” Rukh shouted. “Want to help me, then spend some of your future time on avenging me. Now piss off.”

“What’s… what’s happening?” Nekia asked meekly. She seemed to be barely conscious over the painkillers. Bringing her anywhere without having her get shot was going to be tricky. Especially if they were also to carry Rukh.

Nobody answered her. But Christopher finally arrived at a decision.

“Team, we’re moving out.” Every word was a struggle to say it. “Tiriel’s assisting Nekia, Ryan looks over Tendrik, I’m going to look over Kivanna. Rukh’s staying.” They didn’t move immediately. Perhaps they noticed in his voice that he was trying to issue the order to himself just as much as to them.

“Chris, you can’t…” Ryan tried to speak. Christopher didn’t let him.

“Did I stutter? Did I fucking stutter?!” They had wasted enough time on this. The LZ wasn’t going to wait forever. The valley was a shortcut, but the others had vehicles. “We’re leaving now.”

***

They listened to him, in the end. Deep inside, everyone knew that this was the only option, they just needed someone to be the first one among them to admit it. Seven minutes after the crash they opened the vehicles’ door, and ran away.

It was a rather pathetic run. They were in pain. Even those without broken bones looked and felt like one large humanoid bruise. The adrenaline had managed to mostly leave their body, making them painfully cognizant of all the wounds and beatings. Yet, they ran.

Christopher barely remembered the run. It was just scraps of memories. Run. Explosion. Run. Gunfire. Run. Cannonade of the MAW behind them, tearing through several enemies trying to fire at the escapees from the edge of the cliff. And finally, once they get out of the range of enemy fire, once they finally got to catch some breath, a powerful explosion far behind them.

None of them really remembered anything later on. Just the shuttle coming down to pick them up.