Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

The soldier checked his gear, as he loaded up for the mission. Captain Reynolds had disabled a cruiser that had warped in while the Enterprise was bombarding the planet with those drone prototypes of next-gen weapons. His team and several others were now preparing the board the disabled cruiser, and eliminate the crew. Personally, he suspected the capture mission was for the science division, as he had seen the scans. The cruiser had lost power, but her main shield generators were still intact. Something he knew they had never gotten a good look at. Something to do with how that system usually got fried long before a ship became disabled.

Finding his rifle in order, he started checking over his armor. Making sure it was combat ready before he put it on. It had a few scratches and marks from previous battles, but it was very much still in combat order, and his rank markings have remained quite legible. Even if they weren’t much-needed thanks to the built-in hud. The hud was standard issue, and gave the wearer ready access to tactical data, including several short-range scanners that allowed a small mini-map in the corner to give him data on both enemy and friendly positions. The hud would also give him data on his weapon’s status, and provided a targeting system that would allow him to accurately aim without bothering to look through the sights of his weapon. Speaking of weapons, like all suits his contained a built-in weapon. Two of them, one of them was a back up wrist cannon, while the other mounted on the otherside of the same arm was a plasma blade.

The most important little item on the hud was linked to sensors that monitored his armor and his health in real-time. He would always be able to tell at a glance the status of his armor. In fact, there was even a warning alarm that would sound if his AIF was low, and a second one for depleted. That section also monitored his available power levels, so that he wouldn’t be caught unaware if the power pack failed. That was very important since modern armor was largely junk once the power failed. In fact, it was so heavy that without power the suit couldn’t even be moved, it relied on an internal exo-frame to augment the wearer. An odd contradiction of words, but accurate. Still even with that limitation the suit was incredible as it effectively turned the wearer into a super-soldier. A walking juggernaut that would be nigh impossible to stop. Kind of like that sci-fi shooter where you play as a super-soldier. Only everyone can use this armor, and not a rare group of genetically augmented soldiers as was the case with the special armor in that game.

Of course even today that game still had a highly celebrated cult status, and it had spawned countless series, and movies as well. Putting thoughts of that aside, he donned his armor. A process that quite simple, you simply stepped into it from the rear, and the armor would close and seal itself behind you. The augmented suit wasn’t something that could be put on easily without some kind of assistance, and the suit came with that built-in. His suit secure, he settled his helmet on, and ran one last check. Finding everything optimal, he grabbed his equipment. Settling several grenades on his belt, a few spare power packs, a plasma cutter, a couple of breaching charges, and even a spare medkit. While the armor contained its own internal medical system and was even able to inject him with a dose of nanites if needed, it was standard practice to carry a medkit. All in all his kit weighed a few hundred kilograms, of course, that was including his armor which weighed about half a ton, hence the need for it to augment the wearer. Otherwise, no one could use it without being some kind of genetically engineered superhuman.

Not that he felt the weight of it right now, and too think it could have weighed a lot more if they had used the same materials the ship’s armor was made from. Knowing how good this armor was made him feel quite safe. Combined with his trustworthy XR-471 and a few grenades, and backed by his bodies and he was an unstoppable force. The armored Marine left the room to join his squad, it was time to kill some scally bastards.

CIS Drakul’s Sword 12-24-000 SDE, 1537 hours:

The Marine step through the breach in the hull, and took a quick glance around. While his buddies worked their way in. Their shuttle had landed on the hull just a few meters aft of this breach. One of the Coto’s torpedoes had blown open the hull here, and vented this section to space. That made this a very convenient entry point for boarding the ship. He noted an emergency bulkhead to his left, and another further down the corridor to the right. Both impeding further progress into the ship. Thankfully they could just blow them open, especially since neither one was a blast door, and their armor contained its own life-support systems allowing it to function as a spacesuit, and not just really good personal protection. Although that function was mission vital to many operations, and as such was practically a design requirement. Most models of combat armor included independent life-support systems.

He signaled the entry was clear, and his fellow marines worked their way in. While he set a breaching charge on one of the two bulkheads. Someone else set another on the one opposite. They had a few squads here so they would be splitting up, heading both directions. They had a few key targets to seize, even if they were about to be largely useless. They needed to take the bridge, main engineering, the armories, and the local security stations.

The crew would likely already be on alert, and ready to put up a fight, but not everyone necessarily was equipped for outer atmosphere combat. There was a good chance that many of them were still getting into environmental suits able to protect them from the harsh environment of space. As such simply blowing emergency bulkheads like this would work to their advantage.

As soon as everyone was in position, they detonated the charges. Blowing open the bulkheads, and allowing the air to rush out into space. A quick glance down the now open corridor showed it was clear, but he noticed a second bulkhead now dropping.

He wasn’t surprised, that was why they needed to reach a security station, to override the bulkhead controls. They only had so many breaching charges, and a plasma cutter was much slower at getting through these emergency doors. The marine signaled, and the whole squad rushed to get under the door before it closed.

He dashed across the corridor, and ducked into a slide just before hitting the closing bulkhead. A quickly glance revealed the rest of the squad made it before the door closed. They will need this open later. He glanced at the mission clock they had about twenty minutes before the cruiser’s remaining power systems failed. By which point the emergency systems would likely fail, but not all of them. Mechanical systems, or those with their own emergency battery. Those emergency systems likely wouldn’t fail.

That was why they needed to take a security station. From one of those stations they would be able to override the emergency protocols. The doors according to the briefing required power and therefore had their own batteries. They could maybe rip them out, but would be better if they simply disabled the protocols remotely.

The group made their way down the corridor, each of them keep an eye out for contacts. Ahead of them a door opened, and a lizard stepped out. He was in full body armor, and armed. All he saw was a pistol, but he might have more. He fired, a quick burst aimed center mass.

The burst punched through the armor, and vaporized flesh. The lizard flopped to the ground with nothing but a charred hole where his belly used to be. The intense heat of the energy bolt even cauterized the wound, and as such he wasn’t even bleeding. His life reading remained, however, so one of his buddies shot him again this time the burst disintegrated the lizard’s head, killing him.

That fire attracted some buddies, as a few more popped out of rooms to engage them. Each of the hostiles took cover where they could, but it did them little good. As his squad advanced, and took them out in rapid short order. These Cathamari weren’t even equipped properly. As such they represented no threat at all. All they had was a standard ship security package, which translated to low yield plasma pistols, some combat armor, and a couple of grenades. Some of them had a proper combat knife in addition to the rest of the kit, but that didn’t mean anything. Most combat knives didn’t do so well at penetrating modern armor. The laminated polymors while not as tough as a laminated titan alloy plate were still able to deflect a blade. At least a normal blade that is. His plasma blade could do it though.

Reynolds shifted in his command chair as he listened to the reports from the boarding parties. They had breached, and were now encountering some minor resistance. The Cathamari were attempting to defend their ship, but honestly they weren’t equiped to fight off so many marines.

Already several groups had achieved their first stage objectives. It seemed they would have full control of the cruiser soon enough. He wasn’t entirely sure what Countryman wanted this cruiser for, but he was glad to report that their primary objective would likely be secured.

Especially since his marines were mving through the ship so quickly and efficiently that the Cathamari were struggling to slow them donw. Holding their ground or conducting sabotage wasn’t possible. They couldn’t even blow the ship up in time, especially with the systems failing.

He of course had a few teams moving to secure the Cathamari antimatter storage pods, and main reactors. Anything that might contain antimatter needed to be secured to ensure that the antimatter wasn’t released or lost. If an incident happened with that volitile fuel they may lose the ship. That was one of the big reasons he was not about to simply declare the boarding action a success just yet, even if things were going quite well at the moment.

Of course it helped that they had caught the cruiser unawares, and even better they were not equipped for heavy ground combat or this sort of boarding action. All they had were a few plasma rifles, and a fair number of plasma pistols, along with some anti-personnel grenades. Some had combat knifes, and armor, but here was a clear lack of heavier weapons. The armory kit they were working on was actually pretty tyical of early war Cathamari cruisers. Then again the ship itself was also from a class he hadn’t seen since the early months of the war.

In fact it was of the same class as those first cruisers encountered by the infamous TFS Hammerhead. It was a Ravager Class battlecruiser, a respectable ship on paper, but vessels of that class fared poorly against comparable human equivalents. The Hammerhead for example had nearly destroyed four of them on her own, and it was only by a fluke accident they managed to criple her. If not for that lucky penetrating hit, they would have lost all four of them, and subsequent battles proved that. It was why in the later months the backbone of the Cathamari invasion was not the Ravager class, but the Battle Claw class Battlecruiser.

Both designs look similar at first glance, but that is only on the surface. The Battle Claw trades a large number of heavy plasma cannon banks for a much larger torpedo bay, and additional launcher tubes. Her shield grids have been reinforced, and she mounts thicker armor. In addition, her engines have been modified to give her more thrust. In many respects its quite obvious that the Battle Claw is based on and likely intended as a successor to the Ravager. As such it is perhaps not surprising that surviving Ravager cruisers ended up in unimportant border systems as patrol ships.

The Battle-lord, looked away from the blast door securing the main entrance into the bridge. It had been roughly fifteen minutes since they had confirmed intruders aboard the ship. In that time, he had lost over half his crew and three quarters of the ship. Whoever these aliens were, they moved fast, and were very deadly. It didn’t help that they were clearly better equipped as well. Not that there was any helping that. Command always outfitted him with outdated second hand equipment at best, and never anything really useful either.

He was actually lucky that he had a case of rifles to hand out to his troops. Not that he much trusted his luck. The whole fact that he was here, waiting for hostiles to breach his bridge just showed how unlucky he was. Speaking of the hostiles, internal sensors showed a cluster of them just on the other side of that door. Along with a few of his own ship’s security.

Before he looked away again, that cluster of friendlies all vanished at once. At the same moment he heard a rapid whining sound, rather distinctive in fact. It sounded like rapidfire lasers being discharged in very quick succession. Although the sound was a bit muted thanks to the door, although not completely. He looked back at the door, and tried not to stare at the hole in his blast door. The one a blue bolt had come through moments ago. Thankfully no one died to that, but one of his warriors did get grazed in the arm. The battlelord had made note of this incident already, and already planned to berate the fool who installed substandard blast doors in his ship. Assuming he got through this, which he very well might not.

Suddenly the blast door disintegrated. Superheated fragments of the substandard security door rained outward into the room. No one was stupid enough to be in line to be hit, protected by what cover was present on the bridge. He himself was using a console, which held up well enough. He held his fire. For a moment, until he saw movement. Then he opened up with his pistol, the others followed suit.

Blue bolts came back from the attackers that he still couldn’t see clearly. He never did get a chance to. He ducked behind the console, just before a few bolts sailed over his head. Before he could count that blessing he was greeted with searing pain in his belly. He glanced down, his belly was gone, nothing but a charred hole. He looked towards the console that was his cover, and their was a gapping melted hole through it. The world faded away. His last words a curse about substandard shipbuilders.