[WarMachine]

Part 6, cont'd


ABOARD THE ATTACK TRANSPORT MYRMIDON

THE YAHREN 7348, 19th Day of B'Kra

PLANET CANCERIA, THE COLONIES OF MAN

Commander Marius watched the tracks of his reinforced Viper squadron as it streaked planet-ward. He knew from long experience that the Cylons would be severly lacking in response capability without Basestar support.

He'd had Gold Squadron, mostly Cancerian themselves, fly top cover for Krait Squadron; they would deal with any Cylon Raiders that got airborne, and would be out of Krait's way; Marius was a firm believer in the concept that pilots either flew close-support or air superiority; trying to do both was a bad idea.

Marius tried very hard to maintain his professional detachment. Canceria might not be home, but he had grown to adulthood on Gemon watching Canceria rise at sunsdown.

Although he knew it to be completely irrational, he felt guilty to be alive.

"Captain Zavala," he said, to his Bridge Control Officer, "Colonel Ashoka, please."

"Yes Sir," Zavala replied. A pause. "Colonel Ashoka, Sir."

Marius nodded. "Colonel?", he said into his headset.

"Sir," came the emotionless reply.

"Colonel - land the landing force."

"Land the landing force, aye." A series of clicks, followed by a general push. "All landers, proceed to STOMP."

There was no reply from the thirty-six combat-assault shuttles, simply acceleration, as they began their rapid descents behind their force of covering Vipers following their prearranged "Ship To Objective Maneuver Plan".

The 47th was one of the oldest Colonial combat units in continuous service; they had been formed as one of the first one hundred infantry battlegroups the Colonies had recruited following Unification, over two millenia before. Up until the Destruction, the 47th had been one of the Top Ten ground units, in seniority.

Very shortly, Ashoka reflected darkly, they would be the only unit.

Within the thirty-six combat landers, over thirteen-hundred Colonial Infantry sat in silence. Normally, there would be a great deal of gallow's humor; it was a tradition of Colonial Infantry for hundreds of yahren. Now, they sat in morbid silence, knowing that they would be assaulting a Home World - something never done in Colonial history.

What was worse, they knew, was that it was only a holding action; they would never again come back here...and those unable to make it to the limited seats on the ships woudl be at the mercy of whatever Cylon forces showed up behind them.

*****

PLANET CANCERIA
VIKRAM CITY PORT, LOCAL MIDDAY
19th Day of B'Kra

As the lander group passed through the stratosphere, Ashoka keyed the mic again. "Battle Lead to Hammer One: Feet dry...Grainy." This told the Myrmidon that they were through the stratosphere with no losses.

It appeared that the Cancerian Defense Groupments had hammered the Cylons hard; the region around Vikram City, Canceria's capitol, was littered with the remains of Cylon Raider craft. The antique CDG artillery was now firing in place, not bothering to shift position after every shot, as Krait squadron strafed the Cylon perimeter forts at the spaceport relentlessly.

As the combat landers roared low over Vikram City, Ashoka was able to see on the monitor feeds how the dirty, hungry CDG troops were cheering wildly.

Poor bastards.

There was very little Cylon groundfire as the landers grounded inside the port's fenceline. Before the blast-wash from their retro-burners had settled, ramps thumped on the ground, and Chimera battle-sleds rumbled out, swivelling their multiple laser cannons about, searching for targets.

Close behind them, hunched over to make themselves as small of a target as possible, came the Colonial Infantry teams; the teams spread out in their six-person groups quickly and raced for any cover at all, as the combat landers boosted, lasing anything that looked like a Cylon position, groping for altitude.

Each infantry team was built around a large weapon, either a single-shot laser(called the 'Can Opener', it fired a laser bolt of the same strength as a Viper's cannon; it was designed to kill armored vehicles with a single shot), or a heavy, rapid-fire laser for use against massed Cylon infantry(the 'Splat Gun', from the sound it made when firing). Those grunts who wielded these powerful weapons were armed with laser pistols, in case things got too close.

The other troops were armed with the Mark XX laser rifle. Standard equipment for over a hundred yahren, the 'Deuce' was a little over a metron long, and weighed two kilons. Capable of scrapping a Cylon at line-of-sight out to two kilometrons, it also had a stun setting for use in crowd control(which had been used rather more often than it should have been by planetary security forces).

All of the weapons had what looked like a second, shorter barrel underneath; this was an electro-mag grenade launcher: a stubby grenade, sixty millimetrons across and eighty long, was muzzle-loaded into the launcher; when the trigger was pulled, a huge electrical charge was dumped onto a reaction plate whose negative side faced the grenades' negatively-charged base. The recoil was terrible, but it worked: a Solenite-loaded round would tear a Cylon battletrack to shreds.

Even though their helmets contained line-of-sight radio-lasers, the troops of the 47th's Assault Group maneuvered in near-total silence, broken only by the explosions of breath from heavy exertion, and the occasional shot. To the uninitiated, it appeared as with the troops were waving to each other; it was actually a complex, one-handed sign language...very few of the 47th's troops - all of them in the follow-on support groups - were in their first fight.

The veteran infantry of the Assault Group swept into the port's ruins, their ash-colored uniforms melding with the surrounding stone and ferro-crete; what few Cylon Centurions were left were cut down ruthlessly. After a little over a centar, all teams reported no resistance...only then did Ashoka respond to the CDG unit leaders' plea's for information...