[C2] X Nakgari system

On the verges of coordinate 0C002 Caption Destrak analyses the prelim assessments to the habitable planet from the command office on board the colonisation command ship.  One of two currently in commission. This accompanied by combatant forces of the Nagarian navy as a protectorate or even offensive role to any natives on the planets surface. Destrak, a young caption yet been in the navy long enough to become cynical about command appointments, stares to the lieutenant for his assessment. A lieutenant informs Destrak  in the landing brief:

"We won't know  of any enemy underground forces until we get down there, sir. The environment can support us, mainly natural landscape, hills, forests but we can still land on the plains to make it easier for the landing party."

Destrak : " Then why do we carry this recon modules if they don't fucking tell us what's down there? (He sighs then orders his fleet sergeant.) Sergeant, prepare the drop force,  send the rangers in before we put the walkers down just yet. If there's anything worth fighting I'm not wasting that amount of assets."

Lieutenant.: "We need to send the embassy ship and-"

Destrak: "Whatever's down there is being terminated lieutenant. If we can't see it from here, then anything thing  aggressive down there I don't consider a threat.  As long as the air is breathable and the landing craft have a soft surface we're landing today. Don't worry. "


In the assembly hangar Nagarians run to obtain weapons, armour and equipment then to embark on their pre-assigned drop vessels. Crewmen suited up in battle suits and calibrated weapon systems before getting in the drop vessels. The assembly hanger was rife with orders being shouted, weapons being withdrawn from racks and men running to the vessels to be strapped in. Smaller Dascan crew help ensure landing craft and armour suits are working and in shape.




The sergeant gave the conformation from the appropriate chain of command that the men were ready for movement. He then passed the message to Destrak. The main colony ship fires from its bottom hull numerous drop vessels , containing infantry and Battle suits. 1 Battle suit and 20 infantry each, each with assault weaponry and other items of kit that usually used for combat operations. Keeping in mind the  biological threat the flame throwers were taken. Within the vessel the noise of talking men and the ship falling through the atmosphere. The skies where now covered in pods that looked like dots from the planet's surface.



One of the  squad corporals commanding the vessel party shouted:

" Approaching 400 metaars! Lock and load! Remember! Spread out and lock down harbour area!"

The soldiers cocked their weapons and the Battle suits powered up to the sound of hydraulics hissing and machinery moaning over the ships heavy rattling and bumping of equipment. The ship met the ground with a heavy thud and crashing of metal shell parts from the exterior of the ship. The Ranger corporal  led out of the vessel door and behind him the other men and Battle suits. This was present around places of the landing area of responsibility.  They were met with the scene of natural beauty and stunning untouched landscape which contrasted the thuds and bangs of mechanical landing craft scarring the planet's surface and the presence of armed Nagarians fortifying perimeters.
This was followed by another wave of vessels .Vessels of armoured walkers were hitting the  ground. They unfolded revealing a 40 foot fighting machine which extended its previously folding-in weaponry. With the initial landing done without any serious problems, the next task was the regroup mis-drops and secure perimeters and be ready for the support ships.  This was easily capable to troops on the planet's surface with long ranged radio systems and mapping reconnaissance from satellites and other ships. Using walkers and light weight troop transports, men and resources were transferred to their appropriate AOR. Over a radius of 600,000 metre squared companies of recon and mechanized infantry and armour assets set up patrol harbours and landing cordons for supportive companies.


VATAC3500 Combat Walker

All happening as planned, within no more than a few hours.  Destrak sits down from the command screen and table holograph module in the command office. He video calls Fleet commander Gaskas for his update on the landing operation:

"Commander, I have seized the area requested, all companies reporting no immediate threat, a few mis-drops around the AOR but nothing that cannot be handled with some transport squadrons, requesting permission  to commence phase 4 of Operation 'Manas'."

Gaskas was accompanied by other navy colonels and other political staff. He  smiled to Destrak through the video link over the good news.

"Again you impress me, Destrak. Insure your sergeant keeps the men on the ground on point. With no threat becomes boredom, complacency breeds contempt. If no movement from aggressors within 2 days, spread the lines to how you see fit. Something will be there captain. Nothing goes this good.
Yes permission to commence phase 4, alert the mining and logging teams when they are safe to land but not any sooner."

Destrak: "Thank you Commander, Caption Destrak , out."

Space over the Habitable Planet
Nakar Fleet

Any advanced sensor in the area, which there were none, would detect a disruption of energy in the nearby area. The disruption would then spike with power, and the Nakar Navy would jump in.

The Flagship, UINV Foreix Politico, led the fleet, 4 cruisers and 3 frigates accompanied it. On the lavish bridge of the flag ship was High Space Admiral (Maxima Spaxvanadaxiat) Banion Bloodbrokk. He chewed on a plumpet (A Nakar game-bird) leg, and proceeded to bark orders angrily at his fleet staff.

"What do you MEAN multiple contacts you fools?" he said, demanding and answer.

"Admiral, they must have gotten here before us, the signatures match those of Nagarian vessels."

The admiral scratched his chin. "Damn, if I fire on them, I will break this fragile alliance, and Declamatorious will cut my head off, and probably fertilise my wife's eggs." he stared at the ground in thought.

"Scan the planet for any sort of life signs we can pretend to save."

"I already have sir, nothing."

"Damn, damn damn. Minerals?"

"In abundance sir."

"DAMNIT. Okay, I have a plan. Prepare the vanguard on tubes one through seventeen. Prepare a mangotek. And establish a long range transmission so those bastards can hear us."

In the hangar decks, Nakar vanguards were being forced into the landing craft and abruptly shot out of the craft flying through open space, various titles were exchanged as the creatures abruptly vomited in the landing craft travelling extremely vast, watching the contents of the ships lunch float around inside the craft. Back on the flagship, a colossal drill looking object was fired from the ship at the planet.

"Mangotek away admiral."

"Good, without interruption we'll be mining this planet bare in a matter of weeks. Makesure the mangotek operates underwater, I want the sea water on this planet brought to other colonies, and we need more water on the ship for desalination purposes."

"Without hesitation, admiral." He paused, then a light flashed on the admirals administration exosuit. "Admiral sir, you are now able to cast a message to the Tal-Nagarian fleet."

"Very good."

++ Tal-Nagarian, whoever so you represent this day is conflicting with the will and needs of the honourable Declamatorious. In conventions 45 and 67 of the Nakar foreign directives states that any such interference with the wishes of the head of empire at the time is subject the malice of the admiral or authority figure be it general or otherwise at the time. I'm sure you understand that this is not just a planet for a mining op or lumber milling alone, this is a rare world with rare oxygen. We want this planet, you want this planet, until our leaders give other commands we will share this planet, or we duke it out and kill each other over space, I've already shot my marines and Mangotek out. The Mangotek drill has nuclear devices on it which can devastate this planets eco-system in one stroke. So either you share, or we wreck this planet for both of us. Declamatorious is adamant about conjoining our futures, this is a good place to start, Maxima Spaxvanadaxiat Varrax out. ++

A worried lieutenant runs toward the command office going faster than automatic the shuttle doors on board. He shouts for attention as the Nakar transmission came through the shared officer up feed. He rushes into the office and sees Caption Destrak leaning over the command module with bleeps and tings with new messages of other officers and NCOs wishing to be briefed.

Lieutenant says sharply: " Sir, did you hear the transmission , the Nakar-"

Destrak  just as sharply: " Yes, I fucking heard it! "

Lieutenant:: "Does Gaskas know yet sir?"

Destrak: " Yes he's been informed; I'm awaiting an O group in 10 minutes, ( Destrak calms himself, steps back and stands up straight, with hesitation he informs the lieutenant.) "Signal a warning order to the  frigates and ground troops. Tell them the Nakar are taking us on."

Lieutenant: "Sir the nuclear threat most be handled immediately, the troops on the ground won't matter."

Destrak said with confidence: "No self respecting Nakar high admiral in his right mind will nuke a mineral rich planet with no native resistance.."

Meanwhile on the planet's surface Nagarian ground forces whom had just settled in the accommodation now run for their stand-to positions. The sound of klaxon alarms and intercoms of the news echo through the harbour areas.  The infantry content with the excitement:

" Well it's about time right?"

" Well yeah I thought we was just gonna be shooting animals or trees or somethin', but Nakar (he scoffs) the officers are too kind for once."

The command module flashes and instantly Destrak answers the call from Gaskas with Tal present in the background of the video. He stands back from the scream projection awaiting the order whether to comply with Nakar or prepare for his first full scale war.
Gaskas reassured the captain and released him of any anxiety.

" Captain, your orders are to stand your combatant forces down. The Nakar do have claim unfortunately  to the lands. The new alliance sees that they are friends and business partners. Tal himself sends his honourable regards  for your professionalism, Destrak.  Remember that comprises, acceptance and understanding are sometimes our greatest weapons but do not be intimidated be them; and they will try to intimidate you . "

Destrak sighed, freed from his worries and flattered by his superiors he smiled.

" Understood commander, thank you, Destrak out."

With that said. Destrak called upon all forces to stand down. Not only that but also prepare a warm welcome for the Nakar mining and security teams. The ground forces began to build accommodation with spare building resources for the Nakar as instructed by their superiors and once again the rifles would be replaced to the rack. There was annoyance and contempt through the ranks after the excitement but this would calm down soon enough.

02C 'Philadelphia' Solar System
Philadelphia III (Habitable Planet), Low PIII Orbit
Boeing B-23/S Stratobomber Deep Space Recon Variant
6th Air Force, 21st Deep Space Recon Squadron
Mission: Early Warning
Days in Stealth Rotation: 37

"They really don't waste any time, do they?"

That was a notion Captain Emily Pavel had to agree with; the two alien fleets had wasted absolutely no time in mass invading the planet, and over the course of less than an hour, they had deployed some kind of harvester rig into the ocean. And the B-23's one hundred million dollars' worth of surveillance equipment had caught every second and every detail of it.

With fuel supplies short and the original Early Warning Detection Network destroyed during the Second Stellar War, the Coalition had resorted to planting stealth bombers in systems adjacent to its worlds as vanguards. The vehicles could stay in stealth for months with their two-man crew surviving on dehydrated food rations and an extremely efficient waste recycling system, and the modifications, namely the removal of most of the strategic weapons package (each B-26/S could only carry two Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles) and the inclusion of a powerful C4ISREW communications, surveillance and electronic warfare package had turned the once lethal carriers of mass destruction into deep space listening posts.

But there was another reason the Coalition was keeping an eye on Philadelphia III: it had been eyeing the planet since the Second Stellar War, since the terran world's atmospheric composition, temperature, radiation levels and water composition were all ideal for life. The presence of life implied a rich hydrocarbon layer, gigantic reserves of oil and natural gas that would power vast industrial production facilities without the need for fusion power. It was an easy way to kickstart the Coalition's economy again, and it was certainly not willing to lose it to a bunch of ugly aliens.

"That they don't. You got the intel?"

"All of it. Establishing connection to the relay sat now, data upload should take a couple of minutes."

"Make sure the xenos can't detect it, Andrew."

"Relaaaaaax! We are sitting in a multi-billion dollar stealth surveillance machine, our quantum comms alone are worth God knows how much. The aliens won't sense a thing."

The Captain's Electronic Countermeasures Officer and co-pilot was slightly more optimistic than her, but she knew he knew what he was talking about: the Coalition had learnt a lot since the Second War, and one of these lessons had given scientists the push to advance the electronic warfare capabilities of the military. Quantum communications were slow to deliver data, but the compression ratio had been pushed all the way to the theoretical limit, and then some.

"Got it. Make sure to include the logs from the transmissions, the computer's translation is very sketchy."

"Transmission away, we are downloading a response now. Alright, it's a receipt acknowledgement... Wait, second message coming through. It's a simple text file, barely a tenth of a kilobyte."

Without any delay the Captain's fingers danced on one of the many touch screens before her, bringing up the downloaded response.

Quote :

...EMERGENCY ACTION MESSAGE...

FROM: UNITED SYSTEMS NATIONAL MILITARY COMMAND CENTER, XE-52
TO: USAF SURVEILLANCE FLIGHT 11884 'REAPER'
SUBJECT: ALIEN INVASION ON PHILADELPHIA III, 02-C
REMARKS:
1. RECEIPT OF EARLY WARNING TRANSMISSION ACKNOWLEDGED.
2. STRATEGICALLY CRITICAL SUBJECT TO BE DISCUSSED BY USM JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF IN EMERGENCY SESSION.
3. SET CONDITION 2SQ.
4. ENTER TARGETING PACKAGE 188243/F ON MIRV-1, MAX YIELD.
5. ATTEMPT TO MATCH WARHEAD SIGNATURE WITH TAL-NAGARI SIGNATURES.
6. AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

...EMERGENCY ACTION MESSAGE...

"...what the hell are they thinking?"

The Captain did not share the Lieutenant's questions: she suddenly understood what Command was considering. What little intel they had on the two nations, and the conversation, suggested a very fragile relationship: Command was going to try and goad them into fighting each other. The USC did not particularly care if the planet was nuked: they had spent centuries refining the art of working in the middle of nuclear fallout, and the hydrocarbons would be safe.

"Just get the nuke ready. We might have to use it."

02C 'Philadelphia' Solar System
Philadelphia III (Habitable Planet), Low PIII Orbit
Boeing B-23/S Stratobomber Deep Space Recon Variant
Days in Stealth Rotation: 38

((Stop it with the constant time skips. I was on vacation and consider your February 22 post void.))

For almost an entire day, the stealth bomber remained perfectly concealed from the Nakar search parties due to one critical fact: it was designed to withstand such scrutiny from the far more advanced Zeleniyan search and destroy systems. After centuries of being in a cold war with the Slavic nation, the Coalition had been left with the fruits of research into stealth and electronic warfare: the bomber, aside from its regular AI, had a secondary artificial intelligence dedicated to maintaining stealth cover at all cost.

A visual scan for the bomber would be literally impossible: with space being infinitely vast, not even the best of AIs were capable of telling apart an object deploying dynamic camouflage from the dark background, or in the bomber's case, the small comet it had concealed itself next to. And since RADAR was practically the only means the Nakar had of searching for it, the bomber did what it knew best: it confused sensors by merging its signature with the comet's, and used advanced EWAR techniques to conceal its transmissions to Command as background noise.

On the 19th hour since the last emergency action message, the bomber crew finally received the next set of orders: they were to send one last record of Nakar landing sites and then do nothing. And that was exactly what it did: everything on the ground was mapped and transmitted back to XE-52.

---

02C 'Philadelphia' Solar System
Philadelphia III (Habitable Planet), Low PIII Orbit
USCS Prospect
Class: Retriever-class Mining Barge
Register: Planetary Resources Corporation
Bridge


Three hours after the bomber transmitted the exact landing locations of the Nakar back to its home base, the Coalition made its move, although not in a way anyone would expect. Dozens of ships jumped in low orbit around the planet almost in unison, although when scanned, they did not give out a military signature: they were civilian mining ships, although they appeared to be loaded with nuclear drilling charges; a device commonly used by the Coalition.

A lone transmission was sent out on all local channels, a gruff male voice contained within it:
<"Attention all alien forces, this is Peter Womack, Chief Operations Officer for the Planetary Resources Corporation and current commander of this mining expedition. Because you have not registered your claim with any of the responsible authorities, and due to its close proximity to our border, your stay on this planet is unlawful at best. However, as we do not wish for conflict, we will not take any military actions and will instead contest this transgression through the proper legal channels.">

<"In the meantime, we wish to inform you that we will commence mining on any and all available landmasses and underwater reserves which you have not begun exploiting as of this moment. Do not play with us and try to expand rapidly, we have the current readouts, and as our mining processes involve high-energy nuclear blasts, any personnel you have in proximity to the sites we are transmitting to you right now would do best to retreat to a safe radius.">

<"Any attempts to attack this peaceful, civilian fleet will be treated as casus belli and prosecuted accordingly by our private military contractor escort. That is all. Happy drilling.">

Without wasting time, the ships begun launching dropships towards the ground, escorted by some PMC-owned fighter interceptors and UCAVs. That is not, however, the primary purpose of the mining ships: one by one, half of the ships begin reconfiguring their hull to deposit the heatshields on the front, and commence retrograde burns to re-enter.

Nakgari
Orbit over Nakgari
35 Miles from exclusion zone over Milimatum Shipyards.

((I'm going to pretend I didn't see that, and give you that the shipyards are now jumping in at the same time you are. There is no time skipping here, only real-time changes. This story and the basic game rules don’t bend for you.))

Obviously there was no side of the planet the Nakar weren’t covering, so there was no case of the humans getting anywhere before the Nakar or the Nagarians could intercept them.

<:: ALATUM, ALATUM, RADIOLOGICAL ONE, DETECTION.

The bridge of the Alien Consilium was lit up like a fireworks factory. A sharp sent message from the Nakar is sent towards the human side.

"Cease and desist. We are currently exercising our right to place a restriction on both sides from taking action on this matter until such actions are decided by the galactic council, in such favour, we have set up a spherical exclusion zone that you will breach in 32 seconds. This is your first and only warning, you will cease your entry and forfeit this planet until the galactic council has spoken. All replies and calls are recorded. This planet is a reserve and no-such nuclear operations will occur on it as they would disturb the native fauna; something also documented in the council laws. By breaching our exclusion sphere you are ignoring the democratic processes of the council and you will force us to disable your ships and tow you away from orbit. We will not dance to your tune; any of your fleets that follow will be met with galactic response."

The extremely fast voice capture is shot at the US Civilian ships from the various Nakar warships. Before Peter Womack had opened his mouth, let alone started transmitting, the Nakar had sent interceptors streaming towards the drop-ships. From planetary patrols came much of the same to physically block the ships getting through to delay them from landing. Not only that, but the dropships had another thing to look forward to the Nakar had deployed minelayers in the upper atmosphere to further discourage the humans entering the exclusion zone. Due to the bases already sent in the Nakar had the humans locked on in almost every area, not only that but several ships were recorded to have started filming. A Nakar civilian shield ship had begun to move over the landing site that the humans had instantly seemed to start going for. Nakar ground formations were automatically sent to 3 projected landing sites the humans were going to use, and had started to mobilise.

Commander Varrax stopped recording his microphone line and looked at his Nagarian counterparts in the command centre. "Cross that line humans.... bring your fleets with you and see what happens."

The Humans could presume that due to the guns locked on them, the PMC escort being outnumbered and the anti-fighter purpose vessels in orbit in such abundance, the minute anyone crossed the exclusion zone, the Nakar would disable their ships, let alone the Nagarians. The Nakar had the numerical and combined arms advantage. Gunships, ship-to-ship bombers, Air superiority craft and interceptors.

As the Nakar sent this message, almost every gun in the system locked onto the civilian ships, paired with that, a few Nakar civilian ships jumped away to courier.

02C 'Philadelphia' Solar System
Philadelphia III (Habitable Planet), Low PIII Orbit
USCS Prospect
Class: Retriever-class Mining Barge
Register: Planetary Resources Corporation
Bridge


"Sir, the aliens are moving in to intercept the landing ships."

So they were not going to let this go down peacefully, or at least as peacefully as Chief Operations Officer Womack would have liked. It was a true shame, but it was not something he could help; the Coalition had planned for that contingency as well, in fact, it was considered to be a 'win-win' scenario by Command: the Nakar would either back down and let the USC do its thing, or they would be justifying an attack against the planet, both of which would have the same result. At that point, the hydrocarbons hardly even mattered: the Coalition simply could not let an alien base stand this close to its homeworld, not when the lives of millions were at stake.

"Retract all manned dropships, keep jump drives on hot stand-by. Have all the drone ships continue upon their present course."

Almost in unison, a quarter of the dropships heading towards the surface reversed their path and begun zipping straight for the hangar bays on the civilian fleet, escorted by the fighter escorts that had brought them this far. The manned dropships were the ones that carried the technicians and engineers necessary to kick-start mining, but the drone ships could do some preliminary tasks: they could establish a secure zone on their own, deploy combat androids to patrol and also defend themselves and the resources they had targeted using attack missiles. But the Coalition knew that they would not make it to the ground: a quick simulation by the Prospect's artificial intelligence had come up with a 14% survival rate for the ships, and that only went as far as touchdown.

And then the Nakar would destroy them, that much Womack knew. And his fleet would jump away, perhaps with a few losses, and then the Coalition would be obligated to strike back; and proportional response was not something it was known for. With its surface colonies already destroyed in the Washington and Chicago Holocausts, the Coalition had absolutely no reason not to use its vast and unused stockpile of ISBMs, a stockpile that it had been building for four centuries: already, the Armed Forces had escalated to DEFCON 2.

One way or the other, the Coalition was keeping the planet.

It was not even about resources by that point: the planet was a strategically critical area. To allow the Nakar to maintain it would mean signing the death warrants of everyone on Europa.

"Manned dropships are en-route to the hangar bays, robots continuing upon present course. ETA to landfall four minutes. Fleet's drives are spooling and have been set to emergency evac coordinates Alpha."

"Excellent. Appraise Europa of our situation, and make sure we are filming this."

Of course, there would be no way to prove that the dropships were unmanned: their reactors were built to conveniently overload in the event of a crash, destroying all evidence of the craft save for the video footage it would transmit during its fall. The Coalition was ready to proceed with its plan.

Varrax picked up his microphone and hailed the human ship. “I congratulate you for retracting your ships. But you haven’t been through enough, retract your remaining dropships immediately or face the consequences.”

“Shit, they don’t seem like they’re going to stop.” The captain said as he felt the milliseconds fall from the hour glass.

“What do we do captain? What do we do!?” said a deckhand, eager to not die.

The captain scratched his chin, thinking back to his civil war days.

He grabbed the line and quickly got the air squadrons one on the horn. He snapped his fingers at the drone commander on the ship and motioned for him to listen in.

---

Akhawk One, Boarding Squadron “Renvirs Own.”

<:: You want me to do WHAT?! Oh gods above!

The Varrax barked down the orders from the microphone.

“Do you have ANY better ideas Spaxcon?”

As the USC drone dropship group flew through the great Nakar field of vehicles it was amazing nobody hit anything, but that’s not to say the USC would make it through the screen, or even the atmosphere.

The air-force of the Nakar, that had converged such on the USC units above the atmosphere were going to great, great lengths to avoid war, despite the whispers of their Tal-Nagarian counterparts in their ear, no matter how eager, no matter how bloodthirsty the USC had become in their will to use the ISBM. Varrex knew the outcome to this war;

“The Nakar have the numbers, and at the end of the line the flag flying high in the nuclear ash would be Nak-Nagarian, but it wouldn’t be the first time was drenched in the blood of their own side, the flag had parts missing that would never be replaced.”

Varrax was on in the ear of Spaxcon once again. “You and your boys MUST not fail, you’re the frontline team for a reason. You will be working with Aekor Wing in order to try and pull this off.”


The Nakar air fleet, including boarding vessels, fighters and construction drones went over the USC dropships, utilising their short range shields getting closer and closer, physically blocking the USC ships until they were matching vectors and slowly closing. The precision here was extreme, heightened by both mad adrenaline and fear, the Nakar were facing annihilation in the face of these dropships, and this crazy plan was all they had left to a path of peace.


If the USC tried to deny the boarding they would have to fire first. The Autolock on the BVTOL legs would predict the vectors of any evading USC ship and match time accordingly to secure the breach, this was, after-all a ship designed to board. The great 8 synthetic legs latched onto the USC dropship. With the Nakar at the boarding parties were all extremely nervous. Going face to face with an enemy was enough however, in space, with a few mere minutes till atmospheric re-entry it was slim at most. As soon as a USC dropship was gripped by the great arms of the dropship, whilst EVERYTHING was being broadcast, the dropships would activate their atmospheric boosters, lightly at first, and increasingly stronger, in order to alter the course of the dropships.





Accompanied by this the magnetic locks on the dropships were secure, these great Nakar boarding vessels weren’t going to be shaken by turbulence or even point defence. The marines on the dropships all had their helmet cams activated as they begun drilling through the cockpit reinforced glass, even if it was shielded with some mesh, it had to be far lighter than the standard USC armour for the dropship, coupled with this, the Nakar atmosphere pressure balance tubes had the cockpit covered. This was being all recorded live from the fighters that circulated the craft were life broadcasting the information to the Alien Consilium, which was then adding English captions, which was then, further, tachyon gating it to the Armistice station for the Armistice races to watch.
Everything the Nakar was doing was explained by these fighter pilot captions, with every third or fourth sentence ending with “due to the fact we are eager to avoid war.”


The light drones landed behind the boarding ships, and using their magnetic limbs crawled along the ships in rotation and began to actively disassemble the engines and leak their components into space. The whole incident was extremely absurd, the drones would stay out of the engines backfire, maglocked onto the dropship in the case of any bumps or shakes. And go at the engines of the USC ships like piranhas, carefully ready to trap any fire exhausts within the ships, explaining their insertions on the data feed to armistice. Among small things were the Nakar transmissions of a noticeable power difference between the dropships heading planet side and the dropships turning away, on the data-feed showed up.

<:: Weaponized dropship? No response from dropship. Energy anomaly detected.

As all this was going on. Varrex finally opened coms log again. “Peter Womack. This is Spaxvanadaxiat, we are attempting to make your ships leave with peaceful coercion by disabling their engines and quite literally driving them away. We have just been informed that according to galactic law we have overwhelming support for the claim on this planet, in our majority, we are statistically closer to Nakgari than you are, verifying our claim. This therefore authenticates the Nakari and Tal-Nagari claim. You must accept this humility, surely you must see the deaths of us all in this, a nation such as yourself cannot possibly afford another war?! Recall your vessels immediately or assist us in altering their path, surely you can see that you will die if your nations wishes for war are fulfilled. Think of your children, think of our children, will you be the man who put BILLIONS to the torch? Do you hear me!? There is no glory in genocide, that's exactly what this is.”


Having been given a window of 4 minutes, made longer by the counter-active engines of the boarding ships against the drop ships, and the work of the drones, and the outnumbering Nakar vessels, combined with the reasoning skills and active camera work of the Nakar, also combined with the soldiers that were probably about to pierce the cockpit glass (and any shielding they might have put up) of the bots drop ships and expose them for who they were. It would only take one drop ship to be broken into for the whole plot to unravel. The USC knew that much. The likelihood that the drones would be discovered at this point was looking more and more favourable for the Nakar.

((Might want to edit the post, because the shuttles are Boeing 878s. They lack a cockpit window, it's all done through cameras. Most USC ships are the same, really, look at their warships. Windows are pointless.

In addition, the 4 minutes includes ~30 seconds of re-entry and ~30 seconds of slowing down after. During the actual re-entry anything not perfectly aerodynamically balanced would be torn apart, which means both the dropship and the boarding ship attached to it would be vaporized.))

(( Help me out here, okay, then just presume they targeted an area that they presumed would the lightest armored area and/or the fastest area to drill through, with some other ships drilling on different parts just in case one boarding party drilled through the wrong hold. The 4 minutes would be severely delayed due the the counteracting thrusters misguiding the re-entry of the boarding ships due to the fact they're bigger, and nearly surrounding the drop ships. Afterall they're designed for fleet combat. As for if, and that is an if, any ship was to re-entry, every drop ship utilizes mag lock. If that wasn't enough, they're also legged and tracked, with the centre of the legs being adaptable anyway, because they're at the front of the ship, they're pretty much controlling the vectors of the ship. Humour me here it was the best I could do. ))

02C 'Philadelphia' Solar System
Philadelphia III (Habitable Planet), Low PIII Orbit
USCS Prospect
Class: Retriever-class Mining Barge
Register: Planetary Resources Corporation
Bridge

"...are they insane? What could possibly be the point of this?"

Peter Womack shared the surprise of his sensor officer, but he did not care much for the reasons behind the Nakar boarding attempt: they were obviously trying to legitimize their claim over the planet, but what they did not know was that the Coalition's drone ships were far more adaptable than the aliens would have hoped: what they lacked in maneuverability they made up with in intelligence, coordinating with each other in perfect harmony by moving into a tight formation so that the Nakar could not access the vulnerable parts of their armor, not without risking a fatal crash, and the larger boarding ships would be unable to fit in the tight gaps.

The goal was to buy time; once inside the atmosphere, the drones' job would be done. The destruction of a single machine was enough to justify the aggressive attack on the planet, especially when considering that it was right next to the Coalition border. Any Nakar vessels attempting to latch onto the electric-reactive armor of the dropships would find themselves shocked with arcs of electricity, arcs powerful enough that they could melt entire missiles in a fraction of the second: the drones were not going quietly.

But even with the measures the Coalition took, the drones finally managed to get a hold on some of the dropships, and the formation begun to fall apart; time had been bought, but not as much as Womack had hoped. It seemed as if the plan was a failure, but then, something strange happened.

The Nakar started cutting through the armor.

Of course, they were cutting blind: there were no available schematics on Coalition dropships other than crude drawings, due to the tendency of Coalition spacecraft to self destruct after fatal crashes, and for decades the details of the machines had remained a tightly guarded secret. The drilling was everything the USC could ever ask for, it was Christmas and New Year all at once, it was the perfect opportunity to gain a justifiable cause of war. They didn't even have to do anything: the Nakar drones had begun to disassemble the engines.

The General Atomics GAX-992 Magnetohydrodynamic Plasma Engine was one of the most advanced large lifter engines designed by the Coalition: it was known for pioneering the design of single-fuel spacecraft propulsion. Before, Coalition craft had to carry two different kinds of fuel for their sublight drives: Helium-3 or another fusion fuel to produce electricity in the main reactor, and then a gas to serve as reaction mass. This greatly limited the range of the craft; the solution came in the GAX-900 series. Instead of carrying two fuel types, the engine and reactor assembly were merged into one. Superheated plasma exhaust, which included the ionized spent fusion fuel, was focused into a narrow beam using electromagnetic fields and then accelerated out of the craft. The engine was known for having a perfect safety record in normal conditions...

...but it did not play well with live maintenance. Because the reactor and thruster assembly were one single system, the bulky machinery had to be kept electromagnetically stable by a series of sensitive coils. Under normal conditions, the entire assembly contributed to maintaining electromagnetic balance, and the engine was powered down before maintenance could begin. With the tiniest breach in the casing integrity, the machine could no longer maintain containment, and it was prone to spontaneously breaching.

Especially if the power was ramped up, like when trying to maintain a course while being towed in the opposite direction.

"Increase dropship engine power to max. Disable auto-shutdown measures. Now, get me the xenos on the radio."

As the drones begun removing parts from the engines of the craft, no noticeable change happened on the hardware level; on the software of the drones, however, alarms were raised and then suppressed by an outside transmission. The machines made no change in their approach, other than congregating closer together using their powerful RCS thrusters. But even though no change in sensor readings could be detected, plans were already in motion: the drones were expending more and more of their available energy to maintain containment, all the while they boosted power to the main drive in a reasonable attempt to fight back against the towing.

<"Spaxnat- Whatever, Nakar commander, this is Womack. Let me remind you that this system is only one light year away from our homeworld, while it is much further from yours. If you want to play the numbers game, because your use of the term statistics is blatantly wrong, then we are entitled to this planet by proximity. And please stop trying to play this off as you wanting peace, we both know this is a publicity stunt. You invaded a world on the edge of our territory, a world we had been carefully planning to acquire for years, and then you speak of 'humility' and dare try and push us away from our rightful land.">

<"Now, you forget who I am. I am not a member of the Coalition military. I have neither the desire nor the authority to order a 'genocide'. My only actions here have been to claim what belongs rightfully to this Corporation, and to the people of the Coalition. You are the one who is attempting to UNLAWFULLY board FOREIGN commercial vessels, an act of war by all accounts. Anything that happens from this moment forth is solely your responsibility. Withdraw your boarding ships and allow the shuttles to-">

Before the message could finish, however, another message breached the airwaves; this one was coming from one of the dropships, and even though the transmission was garbled, it sounded like a man, a scared, cornered man begging for help.

<"MAYDAY, MAYDAY, WE ARE LOSING REACTOR CONTAINMENT! I AM DECLARING AN EMERGENCY, WE NEED TO-">

And then, the dropship that the transmission originated from was vaporized in a blinding flash, a sudden spark of superheated plasma and radiation that was released from the breached engine; the one megaton blast of the reactor was released as pure thermal and kinetic energy, with the liquid shrapnel from the machine melting through the hulls of nearby craft, both the dropships and the Nakar intercepting, and in turn triggered another explosion in the tightly grouped drones; and another, and another. Within seconds, all but two of the drones had been annihilated, with the remaining two losing power from the EMP and then exploding a few moments later as their reactor containment systems failed in turn.

And it was all broadcasted on live television throughout the galaxy, including by the Coalition's own news networks. The civilian ships seemed to panic as the frantic voices of captains and pilots filled the airwaves, demanding that Womack give the order to jump. Some ships jumped without even waiting for confirmation, their crews fleeing to the safety of the highly guarded Europa system. Seconds after that, Womack's voice was transmitted one last time before his ship jumped to safety.

<"...all vessels jump out... all vessels, just jump out, emergency evac coordinates Alpha, we have to get the hell out of here!">

Within minutes of the Nakar withdrawal, another jump signature appeared in close proximity to the planet, giving birth to a Coalition deep space probe, built much like those used for surveying distant alien worlds for colonization. Without making any effort to conceal its position, it circularized its orbit around the equator and commenced a high-power sensor sweep, identifying all Nakar assets in the system to confirm that they were withdrawing their forces. Unfortunately for those still on the planet, the machine was not satisfied with what it saw, apparently.

A mere few seconds after its arrival, and provided the relatively defenseless probe (protected only by its armor plating and some point defenses) was not attacked, it established a secure link to Europa and begun exchanging data with the computers there: the Nakar had withdrawn a significant portion of their forces, but they seemed to have left units on the surface, something which the USC had explicitly stated was unacceptable. With the missile silos being authorized for the ISBM strike, it would take less than forty minutes to strike the surface with the full force of a nuclear attack.

So the intelligent machine broadcasted on all local channels, hoping to reach an authority figure, or to make the last of the workers flee.

<"NAKAR WITHDRAWAL FROM TARGET WORLD INCOMPLETE. NUCLEAR STRIKE IMMINENT. PLEASE STATE INTENTIONS.">