"This is planet Dalcor. It's the principal staging area for the Mulluran Order Police and the central processing area for all non-Mulluran slaves. We liberate this world, we do a lot toward not only ending the war but ending a lot of suffering."
Tarik turned toward a display of a map of the planet as he briefed his unit commanders. "Samurai squads will land at these points," he said, as the points flashed green on the screen. "These correlate to the major Order Police bases on the planet, and preliminary scans show thousands of non-Mulluran life signs in those areas. Conventional forces will take the planetary capital," Tarik continued as the capital flashed in gold, "and the Ronin, Hornet, and G'kra Fourth Fleet will take on the orbital defenses."
Tarik had chosen this moment to attack because the Order Police's fleet elements had been dispersed to deal with the widespread rioting that was now taking place in most of the Mulluran provinces. Comm intercepts had also hinted at a slave uprising on Mullura Prime. This war may be over with soon... let's hope, he thought.
"Any questions? Yes, Captain Degataryev."
"Can we expect air support?"
"As
you know, the Samurai powered battlesuit was designed with combined arms operations
in mind. The Banshee, Hammerhead, Snake, Le'Matya, Mugato, and Killer Tribble
Squadrons are available for air cover for the Order Police bases. The Rhino
heavy transports will provide air cover for the attack on the capital city.
In addition, the fleet elements will be available to provide fire missions if
absolutely necessary."
"Thank you, sir," Vladimir said as he sat down, all the while wondering how General Tarik managed to keep a straight face while uttering the phrase 'killer tribble'.
"Any other questions? Very good. Armor Group One will take the base at 42 degrees north latitude, 121 degrees west longitude. Armor Group Two will take..."
That had been two hours ago. Now, Vladimir and his platoon found themselves beaming down into what looked like a grassy plain, not unlike the steppes of Russia on Earth with the sole exception that the alien grass was purple and not green. His tactical display showed him that the Order Police defenders had wasted no time in setting up their defenses: troops, tanks, and transports formed concentric rings extending up to five kilometers from the base.
"All elements -- Mongol Hunt. Sergeant Benson, move 180 degrees opposite my position and coordinate the formation from that side. Let's move out!!!"
With the ability to run nearly 100 kilometers per hour, the battlesuited troops spread out to either side of Vladimir with almost parade-ground precision. It was not the first time Vladimir had found his prior experience with the Kirov Ballet useful in his current occupation: maneuver warfare and choreography had much in common.
At Vladimir's signal, the deadly ballet began.
Vladimir ran up to an Order Police tank, deftly dodging the disruptor blasts from its muzzle. The armor was tough, but a direct hit from one of those would have easily finished him off. The phaser cannon on his right wrist made short work of the tank commander, who'd foolishly remained standing upright through the cupola as Vladimir began his attack. While the tank crew was stunned by this assault, Vladimir grabbed the barrel of the tank's main gun and twisted it upward. The driver attempted to use small arms on him, but the lower-powered disruptor blasts were easily dispersed by the armor's energy net and their energy recycled into the suit's batteries. Vladimir dropped back what would have been twenty paces for an unarmored being and fired a missile at the tank. No more tank!
On the opposite side of the circle, Rob Benson was having his own adventures. His training on the Samurai battlesuit had informed him that the suit operated as a positive feedback mechanism: the action of his own muscles was amplified by the suit's sensors. In berserker rage, Rob found himself nearly exceeding the suit's design specifications! Rob had ripped the turret off one of the Mulluran tanks, grabbed its commander, and thrown the unfortunate individual fifty meters before ripping through the rest of the crew with the Anti-Borg Cannon on his left arm. Another tank turned to fire at him, but Rob dodged the blast in the nick of time as he dropped, rolled, and came up in front of a third tank. A blast from his phaser cannon tore through the weakly-armored underside of the tank. This is too easy! he thought as he moved on.
Meanwhile, above the fracas, Hammerhead Squadron was swatting the Mulluran air support down like flies.
"Scratch one!" Ryan MacLeod yelled over his comm. "Surfer, three bogies at two o'clock!"
[Got 'em, Cowboy! Talleyho!] his wingman, Jake McIlhenny, replied as he peeled off and went after the two incoming Mulluran fighters.
Ryan continued his own flying and fighting, strafing a tank that had caught one of the ground attackers unawares. The armored fighter gave him a thumbs-up as he flew by.
"Just watch your ass out there, jarhead!" Ryan said, mostly to himself, as he spotted the Mulluran aerodrome.
"Fek'lhr, Tiger, Surfer -- we've got the enemy airbase at twelve klicks west of here!" he called out.
[Roger that,] Captain Morgan Bicardi replied. [Stay on station -- Tiger and I will take it out!]
Damn, just when I thought I'd get in on the fun! Ryan thought. Then he looked to the north.
A large complex was spread out over the horizon, looking like nothing so much as row upon row of animal barns. Order Police could be seen on the ground herding people into the buildings. Most of the people weren't moving very quickly and had to be prodded rather forcefully.
"Computer, magnify," Ryan ordered. Suddenly the Taelons didn't look so bad anymore. A screen appeared in his heads-up display. Dear God, what's going on here? he thought. "Record and transmit to FleetCom. Hammerhead Four to Samurai One-Six, do you read?"
[This is One-Six, over,] Vladimir's voice replied.
"You guys better move it here -- we've got some ugly stuff going down." He told them about the concentration camp. "If these guys are anything at all like the Nazis were, we know what's coming next!"
[Acknowledged... Lieutenant, please corroborate my readings,] Vladimir asked as he sent a stream of data to Ryan.
"Dear Jesus... they're doing it! The sons of bitches are doing it! That's a goddamn fusion bomb they're going to set off!"
[Bozhe moi! Locate that bomb now!]
"Computer, locate fusion weapon! Tune phasers to minimum yield required to destroy!"
Another icon came up on his display. The bomb was directly under one of the slave barracks.
Dear God, please forgive me for what I'm about to do, he prayed as he pressed the firing stud...
"Samurai Three-Six, what the hell is going on down there?" Tarik yelled as the map in the CIC indicated a nuclear explosion in the southern hemisphere.
[Mullurans... prisoners... bomb... destr--] The signal cut out.
"It looks like a forty-megaton blast, sir," an aide reported.
"How about our people?"
"Hard to tell. Most of Armor Group Three was within the blast radius. VMF 62 report two aircraft lost, but it's hard to tell... the ionosphere's seriously crapped up right now. Even subspace isn't working for that part of the planet."
"Flash transmission from VMF 58, sir," another officer reported. "You want to see this."
Tarik pulled up the transmission. He saw brief images of Mulluran guards herding starving, filthy beings of all descriptions into barracks. "Now we know what they're trying to cover up. FleetComm to all ground units -- be alert for presence of fusion weapons in forty-megaton range. Neutralize if at all possible; otherwise evacuate immediately!"
Ryan wanted to turn away as the barracks went up in flames, but he forced himself to watch. Two hundred for twenty thousand... a fair deal, provided you're not one of the two hundred, he thought as he watched for signs the Mullurans might keep the captives from escaping the burning building. He continued to orbit overhead, but his onboard phasers couldn't touch the guards without killing more prisoners.
"Hammerhead Four to Samurai One-Six... I need ground support on the double!"
[Acknowledged. Beckham, get to the prisoner compound at once!]
Ryan watched in satisfaction as a battlesuited figure bounded over to the slave compound and immediately began having his way with the guards. Some of them he didn't even bother using his weapons on.
Lieutenant MacLeod's timely action saved the lives of over eighteen thousand civilians, all of Armor Group One, and probably his squadron. The evidence he helped preserve will prove invaluable when we try the Order Police commanders, Generalissimo Francona, and any and all other Mulluran government officials responsible for war crimes. Even in light of the fact that some civilians were killed as a result of MacLeod's action, he deserves the highest possible honor that can be accorded by Starfleet. Given the Kobayashi Maru scenario in its truest form, he performed to the highest expectations of the service. However, MacLeod's personal makeup would never accept honor so tainted. Indeed, for any officer in Federation service to do so would cheapen the values for which we purport to stand.
In light of his service record to date -- but not specifically for his actions at Dalcor however worthy some might view him -- I recommend Lieutenant Ryan MacLeod for early promotion.
--From the after-action report of Brig. Gen. Tarik
after the Battle of Dalcor
It was the ugliest moment of my life. The first, last, and -- thank God! -- only time in my entire military career in two universes I'd ever deliberately fired on civilians. I may have saved everyone else in that camp, but those two hundred sixty-five beings that were incinerated in that barracks still haunt my dreams to this day. Some people thought I should have gotten a medal for it. General Tarik to his credit never raised the issue. If he had, I'm sure I would have shoved it down his throat. And I'm pretty sure he knew it.
--Maj. Gen. Ryan MacLeod, SFMC (Ret.)
The Mulluran War: A Pilot's Perspective
(Starfleet Academy Press 2421)
By late afternoon, the planet had been secured. In the most lopsided battle in Federation military history, the Marines had lost just over five hundred to the Mullurans' thirty thousand. If there was any doubt in anyone's mind of the effectiveness of the powered battlesuits, it was permanently laid to rest. The only battlesuit casualties were from Armor Group Three, which happened to have been too close to a nuclear explosion.
That forty thousand of the people they'd been sent to liberate had been incinerated instantly, and another five thousand or so had been killed in other ways by their captors, would be something that would haunt everyone for years afterward.
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