Aschen Marine's Story

The sergeant watched the exchange quietly, holding the door for them to leave.

They were wasting fuel by dawdling.

The Marine Sergeant Promptly raised his disruptor rifle as the knight approached Ayla.

"Step away from the confessor! Now!" The Marine sergeant shouted, the whine of his disruptor rifle evident.

"Delta-One to Rosa Actual, we have a hostage situation, Phoenix is Jeopardized, repeat, Phoenix is Jeopardized!" He shouted into his radio, while centering the knight firmly into the holographic sights of his rifle.

This was beginning to spiral out of control, fast.

The Marine kept his weapon primed, and aimed. "Let her go, I will not tell you again!" He demanded, while the rest of the squad moved around the bar, checking weapons and moving into position, one prepped an Antimana grenade, and crouched low near a window.

Two more Marines readied their weapons at another window, ready to move in.


"Delta One, Rosa Actual... no change to the situation... requesting additional assets. Subject has Emperor, and Confessors hostage, send everything you've got! I don't care what it takes!"

Nagala's voice echoed in the Marine's earpiece. "There's a Rev S en-route to your position, but we're operating around the Imperium's fleet, they won't be able to deploy at full strength, do what you can to extract the Emperor and his staff, Imperial Viceroy and the Quorum are holding an emergency session as we speak.

The Marine looked to his rifle confused, the sights and power indicator had gone dark, and his radio had gone silent.

The men around the bar were seemingly undergoing similar problems, their weapons ceased to function, and the VTOL had gone silent.

The only thing still functioning was the antimana grenade, as it was immune to all magical influence due to it's anti-magical nature.

Two Snipers had moved to an adjacent rooftop, armed with beam rifles and outside the strange effect, they were struggling to get a good shot through the windows.

The Marines outside had thrown their weapons down by now, and were backing up away from the walls of the bar, unsure of what to do.

One Corporal picked up the still active Antimana grenade, and in a moment of 'aw screw it' armed it and pitched it through the window of the bar, baseball style, hoping that if would pass through whatever strange magical distortions that were forming.

If it did, the device would emit a powerful pulse of energy that had a disrupting effect on magic, and caused considerable pain to magic users. The pulse of energy itself was like an anathema to magic, tearing magical essences asunder.

The Marines outside stood scratching their heads at the now gone building.

"This is not good." The Sergeant said.

"Rosa Actual, Delta One.... we lost them... mission failure.."

With the bar returning to reality, the Marine Sergeant and his men moved quickly into the bar, some were powering their weapons, others moved to recover the weapons that had been discarded.

The Sergeant moved quickly to Prince.

"By the gods, youre okay!" He said, placing his hand on Prince's Shoulder. "Let's get your out of here."

Gaining the upper hand, the Aschen fleet continued to press against the machinations that held their world, thousands of ships against the blackdrop of space engaging, and unleashing their fury of munitions against their enemy, this culminated as bright flashes of light in Blackrock's night sky.

But something more urgent grabbed Admiral Whitcomb's attention, an energy spike somewhere on the surface of the planet below.

Gritting her teeth at the sudden spike in detectable slip-space energies, she turned towards the display, and then towards her tactical officer.

"I've got Tachyon emissions coming from the planet..." She hadn't even formulated a viable ground assault, but her eyes were narrowed squarely upon the tactical display. "We need to put boots on the ground, anyway... I want Adepts of War, and Shock Troops in their drop pods and ready for deployment. I want it yesterday!" Whitcomb shouted.

"Admiral! Magnetic temps have reached nominal; primary alignment is complete, and graviton induction is at thirty nine percent, and climbing!"

"Prepare neutronium slug for insertion! Energize gravity compression sleeves!" A Technician called out.

"Neutronium slug removed from gravity envelope, initializing transfer to primary graviton assemblies!" A Second technician confirmed, as his eyes watched the displays.

The air within the Reverence II's CIC was tense with anticipation, the singularity gun had lined up, and the Aschen were preparing to unleash one of their most powerful weapons against the CORE.

---

On the surface

Dozens of dull booms, tremors, and shockwaves filled the cave complex as Aschen forces dropped onto the surface, dozens of orbital drop pods impacting the ground in a cacophony of activity.

Hatches popped in sync from the now landed pods, echoing with audible thuds on the hard, barren desert ground, four men per pod, Aschen marines each and every one of them, along with two-men per pod Adepts of war, whom towered over the soldiers.



Several moments went by, and a dozen heavy pods landed with deafening cracks, gravity decelerators kicking up massive plumes of dust. Inside each pod was a single Myrmidon Heavy Battle Tank, with dozens of pods hitting the ground, the Aschen soldiers of the 4th Armored Company had completed their deployment.

Captain Decurion checked his maps, which were comprised of intense geological scans of the local area. "The Anomaly is here somewhere... readings indicate they were deep underground." The Captain said, while his men gathered around a prefabricated command post that deployed from one of the massive drop pods. It was an entirely self contained, automated, and unfolding command center that could be deployed from orbit to seize quick control of surface targets when Reverence insertion was too dangerous, or unavailable.

"Once the prefab deployes we'll move out, line up the tanks and Second platoon to move on the city here..." The Captain said, pointing to the map. "Third platoon will move into the hills, there's likely cave entrances there... you'll make your way into the caves, and attempt to locate the source of the anomaly... We don't have much room for error here, check your Cuirasse gear, and make sure you're ready for that singularity to drop, because when it does, it's game over for these machines, and the shockwave is going to liquefy your insides unless you're in cover..." The Captain called out.

"We'll have exactly one Millicenton when that cannon's ready to fire; I'll call over comms!"

Gesturing to the horizon, the Captain gave the order.

"Move out!"

Hundreds of Behemoths were there already, accompanied by local forces, soldiers, engineers, and anti-ship guns, which prevented anymore drop pods for landing and started bombarding the enemy ships orbiting the planet. C.O.R.e quickly surronded any ships coming in, and starts bombarding them with hundreds of the easily made Space charges, and starts to tear apart the ships with the engineer bots, when done the ships were made C.O.R.e or used as scraps. "The rascist Aschen Empire will not take the planet" SSome C.O.R.e would say as they fell. The C.O.R.e would not give up to a pro-organic Empire, such as the Aschen's.


The Angel decender finally started to activate. It shot off one of the many weopens. It made a force like a large solar flare. It would destroy anhthing that got close to it, it was shot off at the main ship, the only way it could survive, is if it moves, and even then, it would most likely cause some damage. C.O.R.e then sent 500 space charges behind the flare, and were tasked with chassing and blowing up any thing that had somehow escaped the flare.

Hundreds of Behemoths were there already, accompanied by local forces, soldiers, engineers, and anti-ship guns, which prevented anymore drop pods for landing and started bombarding the enemy ships orbiting the planet. C.O.R.e quickly surronded any ships coming in, and starts bombarding them with hundreds of the easily made Space charges, and starts to tear apart the ships with the engineer bots, when done the ships were made C.O.R.e or used as scraps. "The rascist Aschen Empire will not take the planet" SSome C.O.R.e would say as they fell. The C.O.R.e would not give up to a pro-organic Empire, such as the Aschen's.


The Angel decender finally started to activate. It shot off one of the many weopens. It made a force like a large solar flare. It would destroy anhthing that got close to it, it was shot off at the main ship, the only way it could survive, is if it moves, and even then, it would most likely cause some damage. C.O.R.e then sent 500 space charges behind the flare, and were tasked with chassing and blowing up any thing that had somehow escaped the flare.

Hundreds of Behemoths were there already, accompanied by local forces, soldiers, engineers, and anti-ship guns, which prevented anymore drop pods for landing and started bombarding the enemy ships orbiting the planet. C.O.R.e quickly surronded any ships coming in, and starts bombarding them with hundreds of the easily made Space charges, and starts to tear apart the ships with the engineer bots, when done the ships were made C.O.R.e or used as scraps. "The rascist Aschen Empire will not take the planet" SSome C.O.R.e would say as they fell. The C.O.R.e would not give up to a pro-organic Empire, such as the Aschen's.


The Angel decender finally started to activate. It shot off one of the many weopens. It made a force like a large solar flare. It would destroy anhthing that got close to it, it was shot off at the main ship, the only way it could survive, is if it moves, and even then, it would most likely cause some damage. C.O.R.e then sent 500 space charges behind the flare, and were tasked with chassing and blowing up any thing that had somehow escaped the flare.

Unfortunately for CORE, the countermeasures, along with the decoys, and the sheer number of dropping pods made target acquisition on them difficult. They tore through the blockade with relative ease, dropping drone decoys behind them, fooling the engineer bots.

Admiral Whitcomb watched the display with intent, while the Reverence's Shields shrugged off incoming ordinance with relative ease, culminating in brilliant white flares of energy welling up with each weapon impact.

"Athena carriers report targeting solution; we've incurred losses deploying ground troops, but all ship commanders report ready to proceed to the next phase of the operation." Lieutenant Kestral reported, passing the dataslate to the Admiral.

"Very good." She replied, grasping the console. "We'll wait until the Athenas launch their payloads, and then we'll mop up the stragglers."

Her eyes briefly went up to the display, they were going to have to give their ground troops some room to breathe, which meant taking out the ships in orbit; with everything synchronized through the Aschen's tactical datalink, it was time for Admiral Whitcomb to give the order, and put an end to this fight.


Since no major Aschen vessels, other than the nearly imperceptibly fast drop pods approached the Core Blockade, the Engineer bots, and their following space charges were dispensed with rather quickly, and easily by the Aschen's Aegis cruisers, which threw up thick, dense fields of flak, and shrapnel. Their aim was to shred any machine that dared get too close to the field of fire. Those that weren't dispatched by the Aschen aegis cruisers, would find themselves being hunted, and engaged by Aschen Apollo, Viper, and Raptor Talon star-fighters under escort by thousands of Furie class drones.

The Aschen fleet moved into position, and the next moment would come with sheer overwhelming destruction.

Thousands of Aschen Athena missile carriers unleashed their payloads, roughly two dozen Thunderbolt missile systems unleashed from their silos, these missiles traveled a short distance, before vanishing and re-appearing near the Core Fleet around Blackrock.

Thousands of High-yield tricobalt MIRV Warheads unleashed themselves from the thunderbolt missile housings, traveling an additional distance before detonating in massive tears into subspace, likely engulfing Core Ships by the thousands, and carving massive voids in their formations, tearing them asunder and bringing ruin upon them in an instant.

The Aschen ships followed up with a precision salvo of ordinance from their Ajax, and Hercules long range missile batteries, engulfing those that escaped the initial tricobalt explosion within the equivalent of a small supernova, quantum plasmid warheads detonating by the thousands across the remaining Core positions.

The Aschen in orbit weren't finished, as the Reverence began final preparations to unleash it's Singularity gun, even as the Angel Descender opened fire.

Whitcomb watched the displays intently, gritting her teeth and calling out.

"Shields double front! Divert power from weapons batteries and instruct the crew to brace for impact!"

The Solar flare like weapon impacted the shields of the Aschen Reverence II like a mighty hammer, and the shields flared brilliantly in protest, but they did not give way.

The Reverence II bucked violently, as the shockwave traveled along all thirty kilometers of it's superstructure. Sparks showered all around the CIC, but damage was minimal.

"Shields are down to seventy five percent! Secondary shield arrays are down!" A Tactical officer called out.

"We can't keep taking hits like this!" The Lieutenant called out.

"Gravton flux capacitors are charging... fifty percent and increasing." Kestrel called out from his display.

"We have more ordinance incoming!" Another tactical officer called out, and Whitcomb gritted her teeth.

"Where the frak are my aegis cruisers!?" She called out, while thousands of Furie drones, along with Raptor Talons moved between the Reverence, and the Engineer bots, and space charges, creating a buffer zone of destruction, likely tearing them to shreds with their 30mm MEC-a6 Kinetic energy weapons.

With the operation executed, the battle for blackrock was likely suddenly turning into the Aschen's favor.

---

On the ground the Aschen were ready for a fight, the moment their pods deployed the behemoths that were close by would be met with the fierce resistance of an Aschen war adept, whom unleashed a hail of 20mm heavy magnetron rounds that were easily capable of tearing through metal, and flesh alike. With hundreds of adepts on the ground thirsting for combat, the Behemoths would likely find themselves quickly overwhelmed. Aschen troops held their ground in the coming onslaught, and with the orbit cleared of enemy ships, Century, and Vindicator tactical bombers could make their way to the surface, unleashing their High-explosive payloads against ground based Core Targets.

The Aschen were determined to reclaim their world.

A rapid succession of impacts cause the cavern to lightly shake. Popping loose several sections of the roof and setting them on a short round of travel down to the damp dirt below. Hadleth looked up as his eyes scanned the upper terrain and his tongue flicked in annoyed anticipation, his com once again speaking up. "We are reading seismic activity in your area runner. Is everything nominal?" Hadleth shrugged for a second as he began to respond. "It's just the neighbors acting up again..." A common occurrence at this point unfortunately, both something that he had been going out of his way to avoid and ignore altogether.

He was far enough below the ground level to be safe from what was transpiring up above. However the sudden shift had caused everything with a heartbeat to flee the immediate area.
"I'll make my way to the next ark system. Radio silence until then will be advised unless an emergency arises." He communicator is silent a few moments until the voice returns.[/color=teal]"Agreed, nest is going silent until further notice. Out"[/color] The sound of his communicator pops out one last time and once again he was alone. A situation that he was not at all at odds with.

His eyes cast up once more as a sliver of light breaks through the ceiling of the cave over head and his eye catches the sky for only a split second. The route behind him having closed up right when the commotion began. He quickly weighs the notion that is coming over his mind. Seeing that he is only a few dozen meters below the surface and that only meant that a few hundred tons of rock where residing over him. He makes the decision to climb.

The jets on the back of his armor began to whir up as he takes three long steps and jumps. The initial burst carrying him up to a short ledge, while the second sends him careening up to a secondary outcrop. Off this jump he pulls his carbine and begins to fire several burst into a target location. Shattering away much of the already crumbling rock and holstering once again before digging his claws into the collapsing ceiling and pulling himself up. His arms and shoulders began to barrel a way through the ground above. The dirt had very little choice but to give way to his own path, pushing up as all he could do was keep his eyes situated on the beams of light that could be made out in the shifting darkness ahead. Were it not for his physical prowess, his own progress would be slow going, yet it seemed like he was almost born to such a function. This was despite the fact he had done so on more then one other occasion before.

As he climbs, a broadcaster is triggered from his suit. A call being sent out from his ship to come and meet him, knowing full well he would be in need of a quick extraction.

Rome looked blankly at the Aschen bomber "Do they realize we have defences for that, right? I mean, we are a space race of Humans. We have to deal with bandits, militarys, and whatever else, all the time. I mean common sense?" Rome talked to his War General. The General looked back "Maybe the Aschen are smart, but not intelligent?" Rome smiled "Most likely, and one other thing, they do realize WE cleared this place of the hostile C.O.R.e., we never attacked them, all we did was liberate the civilians, and they just bombed towns, filled with refugees, right?"

The Aschen bomber was completely useless against the R.F.E. ships, though it did destroy some old Militia ships, but the highest kill rate was the Blackrock civs, which totalled in 5,000. 1 R.F.E. soldiers was killed, and 7 Militia R.F.E. were killed

Rome looked at the Aschen forces in orbit of Blackrock. "This is why we help." Rome said. He suddenly got a report on his screen, people were in outrage that the 'glorious' forces of the Aschen bombed towns that were just recieving food and water from the people that just helped the Aschen re-claim a planet, and thats how they treat them. The R.F.E. had just gotten over 4,000 recruits from just one section of Blackrock, and the news was spreading fast.

Captain Ashia Nova's head snapped up as several bombs were dropped upon the Roman-Militian ships. The big ones were barely even hurt, though it did destroy some of the more flimsy Battle-Fighters.
Ashia's head snapped towards a group of R.F.E. soldiers who were standing around, staring in amazement at the Aschen bombers, including the one who had insulted her. "What are you lumps of muscle standing around for?!" she barked, startling the soldiers. "Get in your battleships, on the double! Move!"
The woman soldier sneered at her. "You cannot tell us what to do, pig. We were around before Rome decided to let you in. You have as much say as-"
The captain's backhand caught the soldier in the jaw, the force knocking her over.
Unfortunately for her, Ashia had been wearing her Gauntlets.
The soldier stared at her incredulously, as if she hadn't been disciplined by her captain but by a farmhand. "ON YOUR FEET, SOLDIER!!!" Ashia shouted, and she scrambled up, putting her hand in a salute by reflex. "You want to win this war for your emperor, you can't run around acting on every petty impulse! Now, get in your battleship and fight!"
The soldier and her allies scrambled away. Ashia was a little surprised at the force behind her voice. She'd never had to discipline her soldiers so harshly - her Militian troops had always jumped at her every word. To be honest, however, it had been quite liberating, especially with that rebel. She'd have to do something about her.
No. Focus on the battle at hand, she thought to herself. Smoothly turning around, she walked calmly towards a hulking War-Fighter that was waiting for her. A number of her personal guards, appointed to her by Rome, stood at attention, as well as a couple of engineers. These flocked to her as she entered the War-Fighter and the gateway closed. "Captain Nova," one said excitedly. "We finished redesigning the battlesuit that would work in conjunction with your Gauntlets of Doom."
"Good," Ashia said, still walking briskly. "Bring it here."
They wheeled the tube holding the battlesuit over, and Ashia climbed in. Immediately, the suit opened, and as she stepped in the parts began clamping down and tightening to suit her form. She stepped out, and the engineers gasped.
The suit was made of a hard, form-fitting plastic-metal alloy, colored white. This shell was nigh-impervious from most regular lasers and plasmas, and more importantly protected her from the various harmful parts of outer space, such as asphyxiation, ultraviolet rays and radiation. Over the base shell were more cosmetic grey-and-forest green ones, mostly cosmetic but also offering some minimal protection. Her helmet was white, with a dark visor and long, white, Mohawk-like ridge along the top of the head. She wore a dull green mantle with a clasp that was a cross between the RFE and Militia symbols; a planet with a red star on top of it, cut through the middle. The plastic-metal alloy shone, especially on the gauntlets - which were plated over her Gauntlets of Doom while allowing them to function properly - and the large boots, which included gravity drivers to aid her flight.
"It's beautiful..." a guard murmured.
"Which one, me or the suit?" Ashia asked. When the guard started, she smiled mischievously. "Kidding." The guard let out a nervous laugh. "I was talking about the suit, ma'am. I meant no disrespect."
"No offense was taken," the captain reassured. "Now, enough dallying. Time to move."
As the soldiers and engineers bustled around, Ashia climbed up towards the elevator-like airlock at the top, specially suit to the task she was about to do. It was going to be a bit hard, since the last time Ashia had done this had been back when all this had started, almost three months ago.
A memory of the young Sara popped up, and Ashia pondered for a second where she had gone. Then, the airlock opened, raising Ashia onto the top of the War-Fighter as it confronted the Aschen's B2X Century Bomber. Using the gravity drivers, she flew into a more strategic position.
Then, using the Gauntlets of Doom, Captain Ashia Nova blasted a pure, red-hot beam of plasma directly towards the heart of the Bomber.

Rome got a report of what Ashia was doing by a unkown soldier in her guard.

"Ashia, this is Rome, what the hell are you doing? Do you even have a escort with you? I swear to God, if you do ANYTHING stupid... Just remember what your promise was..." Rome waited for a responce from Ashia.

The Century Bomber continued to ascend into the sky, and it had quite the head start by the time the Battle-fighters had managed to get off the ground.

“Tango One, bogeys inbound on your six...” The Aschen radios chirped, and the trio of Raptor Talon starfighters began to enter combat formation.

Icebrand, Nacho, Husker, on me! The lead Talon pilot called into his radio, as the Battlefighters closed into their position.

The bomber pilots too were aware, as gunnery crews moved towards their turret emplacements, which swiveled to life along the length of the Century Bomber. At that moment, as Ashia closed in, the Raptor Talons broke away, flying in multiple different directions.

“Squadron, check... we have the target, weapons free!” Icebrand called into his radio.

Spinning around, Icebrand oriented his fighter around, and back towards the approaching Battle-fighter.

“We got a figure on the hull... I’ll try to target.” Icebrand reported.

The Century began to open fire, rapid-fire Voram-Thraxon A-6 MECS system that propelled a thirty-millimeter projectile at hyper-velocities. These projectiles peppered the battle-fighter, and were easily capable of penetrating the armor Ashia wore, though, even if the armor could stop the projectile, the sheer kinetic energy imparted would liquefy her insides.

“Target lock, fox one away!”

One of the Raptor Talons launched a missile, which seared towards the Battlefighter, drawn by the heat of it’s engines. The shaped charge would detonate on impact, this was timed at the moment Ashia fired her plasma beam, which meant it would likely miss the bomber entirely.

They had reached the altitude where Aschen ships in low orbit were garnering targeting solutions on Ashia’s fighter, if she continued to give chase, she would find herself up against an Aschen aegis cruiser, ready and willing to take her battlefighter down.

The Aschen Empire had established near total orbital supremacy over blackrock, and it was clear from the vast numbers of Aschen warships in orbit.

—-

Admiral Whitcomb was watching the displays rather intently, as EVE Fed her the data in real time.

General Nabaal was already planning her ground campaign, and the last pockets of resistance would soon surrender, or be wiped out.

The Aschen would make one thing clear, the rebellion against their authority would not be tolerated, calls for the RFE and the Militia to surrender were beginning to propagate across the planet. Those who joined the RFE after the bombing found their shanties burned to the ground, and their families executed.

Things would only get worse once General Nabaal arrived.

Ashia got a holophone prompt as she was flying around and trying to dodge the kinetic missiles the Aschen were sending her. Her plasma beam would have hit perfectly, but the Aschen had performed a maneuver which caused the laser to only hit a bit of the rear - a little bit damaging, but not nearly so much as it could have done. Overall, it had little effect on the bomber, which continued to pepper the RFME troops.
"No, Rome, I do not have an escort and I do not need one," Ashia said sufferingly. "I can handle myself, so you focus on the ground combat while I worry about the aerobatics. Besides, it would have cost way to much to make two or three more of these suits. I'll be fine, I promise." Then, after a moment, she pitied him and said, "I love you. Be careful."
She then switched off the holophone and focused on dodging those kinetic missiles. She had to pull a bit of bait-and-switch, and finally managed to throw them off course, but it had taken way too long. The Aschen began to gain ground. Ashia cursed softly. I need to figure out how to reduce their numbers. If we can whittle them down, we might have an advantage. But how? she wondered.

Once in range of the Aegis cruiser, it opened fire, sending up a thick wall of explosive flak towards the battlefighter, while the Century Bomber made it's final approach into a Reverence I Assault carrier.

At this point the scale of the Aschen occupation made itself evident, there would be no whittling down their numbers, because they would keep coming.

This was made clear as another grouping of Aschen ships winked into view in the distance, General Nabaal's fleet.

General Nabaal's fleet was immediatly under fire from countlless C.O.R.e. ships coming for reinforcements to re-uplink their forces on the planet. The hundreds of C.O.R.e. ships could not be destroyed easily, neither could their billions of troops that were coming as a never ending onslaught. General Whitecomb's ship was also being heavily bombarded.

--------

Down on Blackrock, some of the C.O.R.e. ships hit, and causing an immediate battle between the two. During the madness, Rome transmissioned all troops this simple message,"Blackrock is lost, either to C.O.R.e., or the God damned Ashcen. Get to a evac zone, my battalion and I will guard it untill all are gone, then we will follow. Good bye, and Godspeed to you all." And with that, all coms were cut with Rome, even between Ashia and him.

With that, all 23 battalions retreated, ecept that of Rome's.