All is Fair. Ch. 01

She waited a few seconds for the various flight leaders to acknowledge her transmission before turning her attention back to her own wing. "Duck?" Sabre six's face appeared on the screen, her remarkable good looks still clear despite the flight helmet and screen resolution. "I want you to hang back on the strafing runs and keep an eye on your scope for enemy fighters; I don't want us being caught out when we are on our runs."

Visibly disappointed by not being able to score any ground kills, she nodded nonetheless. "Roger, One. I've got my eyes peeled."

"Don't worry about your kill count. If nothing comes after two runs, I will rotate you out. Everyone will be getting the same shot at scoring some kills today."

"'Cept you," Joker grinned. "You will be down in the muck with the rest of us racking up your tally."

"The burdens of command, Five, the burdens of command." She smiled at Joker's laughing face before turning her attention back to the task at hand. "Alright, let's do our first fly-by, see if we can't have a look-see at what is waiting for our boys. Sabre wing on me!"

********

Stevo. 3

It was loud in the dropship cabin. The craft had been rocked and buffeted by flak bursts for what seemed like an eternity, despite only being a few minutes. Mixed with the dull roar of the engines, the noise in the cabin would have overwhelmed the hearing of any normal human. But Stevo - along with the rest of the three-eight-one marines - wasn't normal; one of the upgrades they had received was augmented hearing. Perfect for stealth missions and security patrols, it gave them the ability to filter out background noise and focus on sounds they wanted to hear. In this case, Stevo was listening to the half-whispered conversations between the pilot and the company captain.

"How many have we lost?" Captain Santiago asked, his head craned to the side to peer out of the cockpit at the rest of the formation.

"So far? Twenty-one." The pilot answered somberly.

"Twenty-one?!?" Santiago gasped, snapping his head back with a look of disbelief and horror on his face. "That's almost a fifth of the first wave's landing force! What the fuck happened to sporadic and light AA fire??"

The pilot just shook his head. The Captain at least had the decency to realize that those twenty-one dropships didn't just hold marines of his company but also friends of the pilot flying his.

"Fuck!" The Captain exhaled deeply, patting the pilot on the shoulder. "Alright, Lieutenant, keep up the good work. Get my boys down in one piece, and you won't pay for another drink for the rest of this deployment."

"Roger that, sir."

********

Almark. 3

"Holy fucking mother of Santa Claus!" Joker gasped, his face appearing on Half-pint's screen. "Are you seeing this?"

Seeing it? It was impossible to miss! The beach and the hills overlooking it were filled with enough gun emplacements to bring down a shielded battleship if they were aimed upward. The wall of laser fire that they could lay down would eviscerate the dropship formation in a matter of seconds if they followed their assigned flight path to the landing site.

"Dropship control, this is Sabre One," she barked into her comms unit, ignoring Joker for the time being.

"Sabre One, this is control; go ahead."

"This is an urgent redirect. The dropships must descend to a lower altitude over the ocean and fly in low to the beach. Extremely high numbers of AA weaponry covering their current approach vector, over!"

"Errr... that's a negative, Sabre One. Intelligence reports very little anti-air capabilities at the LZ. That is why it was chosen."

"Then get one of those assholes to fly down here and check it out for themselves. If the dropships follow their current descent path, they will be flying right at them; you will be looking at a total loss! It will be a fucking turkey shoot!"

There was a pause over the radio, presumably as some very worried-looking officers scrambled to process this new information. "Roger, Sabre One. A new decent vector has been transmitted to the dropships. They will reach their approach altitude fifteen miles out to sea and approach at low level from there. Thank you for the intel. Pass on our regards when you blow those rebel bastards to hell."

"Not a problem control. We are just about to start our attack runs; we will be sure to pass on your best wishes."

"Happy hunting, Sabres. Control out."

"You heard them, Sabre wing," She called into the radio, the almost feral excitement at upcoming combat starting to stir in the pit of her stomach. "Time to introduce ourselves."

"It's about goddamn time," Joker grinned at the screen. "I was starting to feel a little antisocial up here."

"Five, don't make me swap your spot with Duck."

"Roger that, Sabre five. Shutting the hell up."

"Adda boy." Almark chuckled to herself. Joker was a pain in the ass, but - as the saying went - he was her pain in the ass. He made inappropriate jokes, had zero respect for comms discipline, and a lot of people would call his attitude toward his superiors a lesson on insubordination, but when it came down to it, he was a solid pilot, he was cool under fire, he followed orders, and was the sort of wingman you would want covering your ass when the shit hit the fan.

"Holy shit Half-Pint," Lurch laughed over the radio. "Getting Joker to shut up; that's an Imperial distinguished service medal right there."

"Fuck, it's at least a Hero of the Imperium medal if I ever saw one!" Duck added with a laugh of her own.

A burst of static over the radio silenced the jokes. "This is Scimitar flight, beginning our strafing run over the eastern side of the LZ."

Emylee clicked her thumb over the comm switch. "Good luck and happy hunting, Scimitar One, Sabre flight starting our strafing run over the western flank." She let go of the toggle switch with her thumb and switched back to intra-flight comms. "Alright, enough with the comedy act; it's game time. Form up on me, and follow me in. Weapons free! May God have mercy on their souls, 'cause we're going to have none!"

********

The broadsword fighters were marvels of modern technological engineering. A single-seater, multi-role, atmospheric, and stellar fighter, it was capable of performing almost any strike craft mission short of heavy bombing runs. It was a sleek, aerodynamic design with swept wings and a narrow fuselage reminiscent of humanity's earlier jet fighters. Heavily shielded but lightly armored, it relied on exceptional speed and maneuverability to out-perform and evade enemy interceptors and anti-strike craft defenses - be them on the ground or bolted onto the sides of capital ships - but with its four rotary-barrelled, rapid-fire laser guns and two heavy plasma cannons slung under its wings, it was capable of dishing out an extraordinary amount of firepower for its size.

Short of having a single means of propulsion, the Broadsword actually had three. Its conventional plasma/ion engines were capable of giving it astonishing bursts of speed. Only needed to be used in short bursts for forward momentum and acceleration in space; it was also capable of providing thrust for upwards of 1,600mph in-atmosphere. For maneuverability, it relied on retro thrusters dotted all along its hull, which diverted some of the thrust from the engines to quickly change direction.

Where the real genius of the Broadsword's design came into its own, however, was in the inclusion of antigrav thrusters. In space flight, these thrusters were useless for anything more than slight, low-speed course corrections and takeoff and landing from carriers. But in atmospheric flight, they really came into their own. Able to counter the gravitational pull of the planet and coupled with a remarkably strong inertial dampening system, it allowed the fighter to maintain the same levels of maneuverability in-atmosphere as it had in space. In the hands of a well-trained pilot, this craft could fly sideways, backward, or in any direction it wanted, using its forward momentum to maintain flight while pointing its weapons systems at whatever target the pilot liked. More than that, without the concern of crushing the pilot under staggering amounts of G force, the aircraft was able to change direction at an eye-watering rate. Able to fly at 800 mph in one direction, flip over, and then accelerate to the same speed in the opposite direction in less than a few hundred feet without any of the adverse effects this would normally have on a pilot. To say that this level of maneuverability made it a formidable dog-fighting craft was an understatement of biblical scale, but more importantly, it allowed the fighter to race across a battlefield while still being able to keep its guns on target even after passing it. The overwhelming majority of the craft's weight was dedicated to providing an airframe strong enough to withstand these maneuvers, with second place going to the weapons.

Nowhere near powerful enough to go up against shielded capital ships, its primary function was to sweep an area clean of enemy fighters and bombers before - in the case of planetary operations like this one - using its plasma cannons to attack ground targets. With shields able to shrug off all but the heaviest of small arms fire, the only thing the fighter needed to worry about were heavier AA emplacements or Anti-Air missiles - neither of which were fast enough to keep up with the speed and agility of this well-rounded fighter - and other fighters.

The strength of the shields, however, was also the fighter's Achilles heel. If the shields were knocked out, either by enemy fire or a systems malfunction, the Broadsword became extremely exposed. The armor was paper thin. Pound for pound, the marines about to land on the beach were carrying heavier and thicker armor than that protecting the pilot and the rest of the aircraft. The standard operating procedure drilled into any broadsword fighter pilot was a simple one. If the shields failed, you got the fuck out of the area using the vastly superior speed and then headed back to the carrier as quickly as the engines could carry you.

Considering that this level of shield failure had never happened, the pilots who flew the broadswords quickly fell in love with the strike craft.

********

Verdant balls of fire erupted from the trenches and the reinforced bunkers as thousands of plasma bolts from hundreds of ground attack fighters punched into the defensive lines. Somewhere at the back of her mind, Flt Lt. Almark was questioning how the rebels managed to get so many men and static defenses in position in time for the landings. Either they were much better prepared than she had imagined, or there were a lot more of them than anyone expected, and all of them happened to be just in the right spot.

Yanking her flight stick to the right to avoid a burst of optimistic laser fire blasted into the air, she followed the stream of red dashes back to its source, put the domed bunker under her crosshairs, and pulled the trigger. The airframe rocked a little as the plasma cannons unleashed their glowing green munitions, and Emylee watched as they smashed into the fortification. She didn't fully understand the physics involved with those weapons, but she understood enough to know that the penetration power of the shot was governed by the strength of the magnetic constrictor field around the bolts - easily being enough to punch a square-foot hole in the shell of the fortification - before the actual plasma was allowed to detonate. That was the source of the terrifying viridescent explosion that blew the bunker, and the rebel soldiers inside it, to pieces. Concrete, chucks of reinforced masonry, broken AA weapons, and broken bodies were tossed into the air, some of the larger parts raining down on the surrounding earthworks and crushing men before they could scramble out of the way.

She almost felt sorry for them... almost. Her obedience and loyalty training had taught her the penalty for this kind of treason, and she was happy to be the fist of the Emperor's retribution.

"Die, you rebel bastards!" Joker howled over the comms. "It's like shooting fish in a barrel. I'm gonna need a gun-cam review to be able to count my kills at this rate."

"Wait, we're counting ground kills for the rankings?" Duck asked in dismay from her place circling a thousand feet above the battlefield.

"No, Duck, we're not." Emylee chuckled as she strafed a trench line with laser fire before turning an anti-armor cannon into a melted, twisted pile of metal and body parts. "I think Joker is just getting a little carried away. Only priority mission targets and air kills are counted."

"Oh thank fuck for that!" Buzzkill answered. "To be honest, I'm not sure I could live with myself if Joker got a higher score than me."

"Again," Joker grinned.

"Yeah, yeah. You got lucky," Buzzkill groaned with a roll of her eyes.

"You're Sabre five for a reason, fuck nuts," Saddlebags teased him.

"Yes, okay. Knocking up that Admiral's daughter may have been ill-advised," Joker grinned boyishly. "But god damn, Sooo worth it. That girl could suck a golf ball through a garden hose and was dynamite in the sack. Besides, she literally begged me for it!"

"She couldn't have known you very well then," Lurch winked. "I can't imagine any girl begging you to go without protection if she did."

"You'll get no argument from me on that one." Joker laughed, a green flash reflecting off his visor as he finished off another enemy position. "And no, I met her less than ninety minutes before she was begging me to become a daddy."

"She didn't call you..."

"Oh yes, yes she did," Joker winked at the comms unit before leaning sharply to the right. "Whoo, the... erm... The laser fire is getting a little thick over here. That last batch zinged my shields a bit."

Snapping straight back into professional mode, Half-pint barked out the question. "What's your shield strength, five."

"Shields holding at seventy-four percent."

"Seventy-four?" Saddlebags asked, the joking banter replaced with immediate and evident concern. "That was a lot more than a zing."

"Agreed," Almark nodded, turning her broadsword to the area Joker was staffing. "Five, pull up to a safe altitude and swap out with six. Duck, you're in."

"Roger that, One," both pilots answered immediately and almost unanimously. Even if nobody said it, the fact that Joker wasn't arguing and pleading to stay in the fight, and the fact that Duck wasn't gloating about replacing him, was more than enough evidence that things were getting hairy.

"No more idle chat; focus on the mission. The dropships will be on the final approach by now. ETA can't be more than ninety seconds."

********

Michaels. 2

Colonel Michaels took another glance at the battle map and frowned. Thanks to the skill and professionalism of the air wing, his wave of dropships, along with the two before it, would be entering the combat zone some thirty miles out to sea, well outside the range of the Flak cannons. Only the first wave had to weather that particular storm. The destroyers may have rained down all kinds of holy hell on those positions, but that was no guarantee that they had all been silenced. Sabre One had already been earmarked for a medal for her actions, not only in getting the first MAC rounds on target but for her revision of the descent vectors that undoubtedly saved hundreds of lives.

Flight controllers could be a petulant and stubborn bunch, but she had sliced through their intransigence like a plasma blade through butter.

That, however, was not what had the Colonel frowning. His battle map was refusing to cooperate. The interactive table in front of him should already be showing a 3D, topographical, holographic map of the combat zone, complete with all known enemy positions and the location of friendly forces. He should have been able to see, at a glance, the layout of the terrain, bottlenecks, strategic weak points, and traps. Instead, he was only able to see a top-down, two-dimensional rendering of the area with zero information on enemy positions, next to no details of the terrain, and very limited indicators of where his own forces were. Someone was going to be put up against a wall and shot for this degree of fuck up. All the wonders of modern technology, the best Marine Division in the Navy's history under his command, a target personally ordained by the Emperor himself, and he was reduced to reading a map and guessing his force's layout like a fucking savage.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it at that particular moment. Not for lack of will but because he was currently strapped into his seat in the command center of his modified Monitor IV battle tank, slung under the belly of a Condor Dropship about fourteen miles above the ocean of a rebel planet. The Marines had been using the term 'Snafu' for centuries, but he could only marvel at how relevant it still was.

Situation normal: All Fucked up!

He huffed and sat back in his seat. Until he got on the ground and could assess the situation for himself, he would just have to listen to the radio chatter and trust the Marines to do their jobs. From what he could gather, half of the fighter wings had commenced their strafing runs, and although AA fire had been much more robust than expected, losses were at a minimum. The rest of the fighters were escorting in the dropships, the first wave of which was due to touch down at any moment.

The first wave's job, albeit a dangerous one, was relatively simple. Secure the LZ and engage any enemy targets that posed a direct threat to the rest of the landing. The second wave would join them, pushing out to secure the beachhead. The third and fourth waves should then be able to land with comparative ease, and, from there, they would break out of the beachhead in force and advance on the rebel stronghold. Once the local forces had been destroyed, the 381st would hold their position until being relieved by the reinforcing divisions being brought in on the heavy carrier Colossus in a few days time.

Four days of hard fighting. That is all the three-eight-one had to prove that the experiment had been a success. When the Colossus's task force arrived in the system, they would take over ground operations, including the long-term occupation of the planet, while Col. Michaels' division was shipped back to the Goliath for the long journey home. But all of that would have to wait until after the bloodletting, and Michaels couldn't afford to be distracted right now. All he could do was follow the blips on his malfunctioning map as the dropships approached the beach.

The first wave hitting the beach; a truth as valid now as it was during Earth's first, second, and third world wars, was the fact that they often suffered enormous losses. Softening up the enemy defenses with naval bombardment and air support helped their chances, but it was rarely enough. Those men would be facing everything the enemy had to throw at them. Michaels had been at Signus IV, he was in the second wave that day, and he still had nightmares about the things he had seen. There wasn't much left of the first wave by the time he landed; entire regiments had been wiped out to a man, and those that were left were in no position to continue the fight. His wave had replaced them, and he had been shown the full horrors of modern military combat. As bad as the massacre had been, it was also the catalyst for change. Sweeping improvements to the command structure, vast technological overhauls, and the rapid implementation of upgraded equipment had made a huge difference. The Marines of today were not only more formidable than they had been back then, but they also had a lot more survivability. Still, a first wave was always going to be a first wave. He glanced back at the map as his first wave approached the beach. A lot of good men were about to die.