Chapter Text
“All hands, man your battle stations!” Screamed across INTERCOM. The crew of the UNE Sofia sprang into action. The titanic Sahara Class Triton Mk.49 Engines screamed to life as the planes along the runway joined them. The runway was long, battered and bruised, but it did its job. Planes lined the hangar along the stem of the behemoth ship, crews prepared and waiting to leave. Alongside the Sofia lie a myriad of ships, ranging from the small Athens Class Corvettes, all the way up to the brothers of the Sofia, the colossal Saturn Class Battleships.
The sights of space were adorned with that of the 3rd Carrier Battlegroup, with the Sofia as its flagship. The gas giant they were parked in orbit around loomed close by, the storms of the equator, the giant rings that surrounded it, it was a spectacle.
For days now, the members of the 3rd Carrier Group had been waiting for combat. The crews of the offensive ships, defensive ships, and alike were just itching to fight. Now was that time. The hundreds of planes that lined the hangars of the three carriers that were a part of the fleet were given the green light, and within seconds, more than 2000 planes had taken off and were screaming ahead of the fleet, with Destroyers and Corvettes following them, while the rest of the fleet moved forward along with the slower Capital ships.
The star of the star system burned brightly, the myriads of planes using it as cover as they headed towards objective. Not too long after, they reached their objective. The viewports of many of the fighters and bombers were soon filled with the hulls of their enemy's ship’s.
Point defence systems onboard enemy ships awoke, swinging to face the tidal wave of small figures. Lasers and kinetic rounds raced out of the barrels and exploded mid-air, TI guided missiles flew out of their containers and raced with incredible speed to respond to the threat. Many did not impact, however, the one’s that did hit their targets, were not damaged enough to be destroyed.
The enemy did not wait for their PD to destroy the threat, instead sending out their own fighters. Hundreds screamed off the runways and quickly made their to the fray. Corvettes from the 3rd Carrier Group joined the battle, firing barrage after barrage of missiles into the hulls of the ships. Thousands impacted, creating huge explosions that were seen across the system, but the alloy armour of the enemy hulls remained strong, resisting the attacks.
One pilot of the Kyiv, a fighter of the 3rd Carrier Group was making quick work of enemy interceptors. Missiles took off the wings, making pulls only possible in the zero-gravity nature of the battlefield. Most of them impacted, exploding devastatingly. The fighter took a sharp left turn, its engines kicking into gear.
“Target in sights, delivering payload!” the pilot spoke, an enemy ship coming into view. With a press, the bomb bay of the fighter opened, releasing 6 Poseidon Class Torpedoes. Dropping innocently and racing towards their target, the fighter pulled upwards, looking towards the ship, they saw an explosion rock the hull of the craft, its yellow colour shining as bright as the Sun behind it.
“On you! 6 o’clock!” came across INTERCOM, the pilot of the fighter quickly making a sharp turn, evading a missile. They made evasive turns, releasing countermeasures to temporarily blind the pursuer, and to make sure they couldn’t lock.
“Pulling a climb-dive, distract that motherf*cker!” the pilot told their comrades across INTERCOM. Two came to their aid, flying past and dropping countermeasures to confuse the enemy fighter. Firing potshot missiles and making no real attempt at real destruction, the Kyiv moved in for a dive, climbing high and then dropping low. The viewport filled quickly with the enemy fighter’s hull, and with a quick lock and a quick click of a button, a TI guided missile released off its rail and impacted.
Another added to the tally.
The fighter flew above their enemy, racing away and heading for base. Cruisers, their armoured and strong hulls making their way past as the Kyiv dropped its throttle and turned engines off, releasing landing gear. The silver fighter, splattered with a myriad of coloured paint, screeched along the runway, runway crew running to catch the craft.
“Reload, reload!” The pilot yelled as they got out of the craft’s co*ckpit, gesturing to runway crew. It wasn’t long before bombs and missiles were loaded onto the plane’s wings.
“Your Typhoon is ready, get back out there Witch!” An officer called to the pilot, walking over to the craft, her engines kicking to life.
“Hey, out the way, you don’t want to become runway lubricant, do you?” The pilot giggled, “I’ll be back soon enough. I got another strategy.” The pilot maneuvered the craft around, turning it to face the endless expanse of space, the battle raging on in the distance.
“Don’t tell me it’s...”
“I said nothing!” They got back into the craft, slamming the co*ckpit down and kicking the engine throttle to max.
“God damnit, get that pilot!” The officer screamed to runway crew; they were far too slow to intercept the fighter’s take off sequence.
Far, far too late. The craft’s nose lifted, the pilot gripping the steering mechanism tightly as they pulled it up. Pushing the throttle forward to WEP, their body jerked back as the engine responded violently, kicking out a tonne of afterburner. The Kyiv lifted into the cold space, the plane tilting away from the battle in the distance and towards another objective, Reach.
The world gleamed like a diamond, her light blue marble waves visible from outer space. It didn’t take long for the nimble Typhoon to reach the lone planet, nor did it take long for its enemies. Destroyers and Cruisers were firing volley after volley at each other, missiles streaking across space like a streak of paint, but paint didn’t explode, normally, at least.
The Typhoon jerked to the side, the pilot awakening from the sight of the planet by a scream across INTERCOM. “UNE Translucent to UNE Typhoon-Class Fighter Kyiv, move your ass or we’ll crush you!” The pilot looked behind them, the colossal figure of the UNE Translucent, a Volga-Class Frigate. It was adorned with battle scars, her armour worn and torn. A sudden burst of light came from the front of the Frigate, a single missile. The Kyiv followed the missile like a moth to a flame, peeling off before the missile made contact with an enemy, the explosion bright enough to blind.
The explosion illuminated the visor of the Witch, they lifted their visor for a second, their bright blue eyes mimicking the marble waves of Reach. Their hair fell down their shoulder, a light brown, contrasted at the end by a bright blonde, like the explosions that rattled the skies above the beautiful planet. They flipped their visor down quickly, kicking into WEP again, they flew into the centre of the orbital battle. Lances and kinetic rounds soared, shields buckled, and armour fractured, it was a cacophony of metal and fury.
Pushing forward, evading PD rounds and missiles, the view of Reach came into the viewport. The sight of the giant razorback mountains, peaked with a soft white and a hint of pink as the atmosphere refracted the star’s light. It was to die for, or maybe not, the Witch made that decision a while ago. Without warning, as the orbital defences of the planet opened fire upon enemy hulls, the plane pushed towards them. Huge kinetic rounds screamed into space, impacting the red-painted hulls of enemy ships, directly contrasting the blue-painted hulls of friendlies.
Pulling into an atmospheric entry run, the Kyiv kept picking up speed, engaging WEP and screaming past more orbital stations, some left untouched amidst the carnage of war around them. Then, suddenly, from the sky, thousands of small pods exited from Cruisers in orbit.
Blue paint, friendly troops. The contrails of the pods were a light blue, entirely different from the yellow usually seen by normal contrails. The pods plummeting to the planet, entering the atmosphere, creating a bright yellow shield of plasma around the cylindrical objects. Following instinct, the Kyiv kicked into gear and followed them, activating the atmospheric entry run. Engaging air brakes and killing engines, the Kyiv’s wings rattled, the heavy payload upon them daring to break off.
This wasn’t meant to be done.
However, it can be, and will be, through whatever means, it would be done. It flew past the falling pods, screeching below the clouds and finally entering the calm landscape of Reach. The Sun perched through the calm atmosphere, refracting pink light off the peaks of mountains, and reflecting calmly in the water below. Trees waved in the distance and animals grazed the hill.
It wasn’t like this everywhere. Just a few kilometres away from this serene landscape, war was raging. Fire and smoke billowed from the ground, accumulating in the atmosphere below the clouds. Water was saturated a deep brown and green, and the mountains that once bore beauty, were ugly, nowhere to be seen, hiding themselves behind the deep grey smoke. At the centre of it all, lie the city of Hopeful.
It was a harrowing site, the once proud city engulfed in smoke, gunfire and explosions emanating from the war-torn ground every few moments. It was sights like this that made it entirely worth it. Inside the co*ckpit of the Kyiv, the pilot looked to their forearm, a holographic display flying outwards.
‘UNITED NATIONS OF EARTH WAR GAME:
TEAMS: BLUE TEAM: UNE 3RD CARRIER GROUP
UNE 29TH CRUISER SQUADRON
UNE 9TH RAPID RESPONSE FLEET
RED TEAM: UNE 7TH FLEET
UNE 63RD CRUISER SQUADRON
UNE 23RD DESTROYER SQUADRON
UNE 99TH RAPID RESPONSE FLEET
SCORE: 5-2
BLUE OBJECTIVES: TAKE HOPEFUL CITY – REACH, ARMY
TAKE PORT ANGEL – REACH, ARMY (COMPLETE)
TAKE HOPEFUL CITY ORBITAL DEFENSE BATTERY – REACH, ARMY
SEIZE REACH ORBITAL DEFENSE ARRAY – REACH, ARMY, NAVY (COMPLETE)
SEIZE TAVANDER COMM RELAY – TAVANDER SYSTEM, NAVY (COMPLETE)
SEIZE TAVANDER STARBASE – TAVANDER SYSTEM, NAVY (COMPLETE)
SEIZE TAVANDER HYPER RELAY – TAVANDER SYSTEM, NAVY
SEIZE SYSTEM DEFENSE STATIONS – TAVANDER SYSTEM, NAVY (COMPLETE)
DESTROY ENEMY FLAGSHIP – TAVANDER SYSTEM, NAVY
ENDS: 05:30, REACH LOCAL TIME
War games were common, but they rarely included the three main branches of the military, the pilot thought it was stupid. Despite this, there was only a few more hours left, they thought Blue would win, but the tides change a lot, and ‘destroying’ the flagship is worth a lot, these are only temporary. There was a target in sight though, Hopeful city, the current battleground. Pushing full throttle, the Kyiv quickly accelerated to the city, the destruction evident. Smoke and fire swallowed the city, tanks milled through and fired occasional shots, these weren’t the real targets.
From the air, the orbital pods split through the clouds, parachutes opening above them hopelessly failing to slow them down. The ground below them was war-torn, craters filled the land, and the roads of Hopeful were destroyed. Impacting the ground with a metallic thud, the doors of the pods burst open and flew across the roads, as six soldiers stormed out of the pods and opened fire in front of them, with friendly support behind them.
Above the fire fight, a UNE-SAC-TS-32 Stork came in close, it’s door opening to reveal a manned machine gun. It opened fire and more soldiers leaped out from the open door, their boots impacting with the ground softly, sprinting to cover with their rifles in hand. The churn of the 25mm machine gun splitting the ears of nearby soldiers, bullet casings impacted the ground with a quiet, metallic clang, as the engines of the ship above them creating a loud metallic screech as it pushed itself away from the ground, dust and dirt swirled around the thrust and it lifted off into the sky, leaving the battlefield relatively quiet before an orbital trooper fired a rocket launcher. The rocket streaked across the sky, painting it with a yellow and white contrail before impacting with the wall behind the enemies with a catastrophic explosion.
“Fall out soldiers, fall out!” One of the soldiers yelled, their right soldier plastered with a rank, that of Lieutenant. Their uniform was the regular army grade Lieutenant gear, their camouflaged uniform and helmet blending in with the chaos around them.
‘LT. INDIANA’ was on their uniform, the gold plate standing out amongst the green and grey. Their hair was a long bright blonde, messy and untied. Their eyes were a golden brown, as brown as the mountains that lied a few kilometres away, though hidden, they watched over the battleground. Soldiers pressed forward, backed up my suppressive fire from soldiers defending seconds earlier, shots rang out and impacted shortly after, shell casings hitting the ground softly. However, things were going south, quickly.
A tank rolled up the street opposite the soldiers and fired her machine guns. Bullets ricocheted off concrete and metal, but it wasn’t enough. The real firepower came seconds after, the deafening boom of the tank’s enormous 200mm cannon. The shell impacted shortly after, a cloud of debris and dust flew around the soldiers as they ducked, the concrete walls collapsed onto the road, ruining cover for many, above, the thunderous roar of fighters, followed by another roar filled the sky, accompanied by the sound of missiles streaking across the sky. Explosions rattled the area and debris fell from the sky.
Surface to air missile sites from beyond the city unleashed their deadly payload, missiles streaking into the sky, leaving a white trail in their wake. High in orbit, the massive kinetic rounds fired from orbital stations impacted enemy ships high above, some unlucky ships had their shields knocked out, others were knocked out entirely, forced to wave the white flag. Some rounds missed, some were so unlucky to the point where they entered orbit around Reach, impacting the ground later. Troop transports flew into the city, circling buildings and dropping troops. Orbital pods impacted the ground with tremendous thuds, releasing special forces troops into the fray.
“33rd Platoon, move out, move out! Avoid that tanks barrel!” Indiana yelled, as they did, the tank swung its barrel around and fired upon another barricade, machine guns joining in. “Go! It’s reloading!” They stood up, firing at the tank and enemy infantry around it, pushing their legs towards the façade of a nearby building, the rest of 33rd platoon joining in. The dedicated machine gunner came last, suppressive fire keeping the infantry surrounding the enemy behemoth pinned down as they rushed inside the building. Indiana kicked the door down, glass shattering. They stepped inside and pointed towards the staircase. “MG, up there now! I want a firing line facing that door! Rest of you, find defensive positions and await allied support, we’ll make a breakout then!”
“Yes ma’am!” The machine gunner responded, gripping their machine gun tightly and knocking another soldier’s arm. The soldier followed and the two set up a defensive position on the stairs, lying down and aiming the deadly 25mm barrel towards the destroyed door. Itching to pull the trigger of the war machine. The older soldier lied down beside him, clutching an ammo box. They weren’t live rounds, luckily.
Soldiers meandered around, knocking over drawers and other furniture in the building. The place was a bar, the Zach Ubriaco. It was a prestigious bar, being one of the most widely recognised around Reach, and the UNE itself. Reach was a hodgepodge of cultures and ethnicities, with Italian being one of the largest, at least in the civilian areas of the planet.
The bar had been spared the terrors of the war game for most of the round, but war leaves nothing untouched. The bar had been turned upside down, its large bar to the left, adorned with obsidian and gold decorations, had been turned into a position for troops to defend themselves against gunfire. To the right, furniture had been knocked over and moved into the style of a military standard infantry barricade, minus the concrete. Music blared from above and the door to the dancefloor had been completely torn off its hinges, the lights from inside mixing in with the golden light of the outside. The carpet was thrown away and the stairs were barricaded, a machine gun placed atop one of the chairs lying on the stairs.
Outside, enemy troops prepared to breach, noticing the door was smashed in. One of them grabbed a standard FG-32 and threw it inside. A flashbang.
