mostly one sided, with the lizard colony’s shields
coming down within a minute and the defense tower another 20 seconds later.
That ended the orbital threat, for no missiles had been fired from the surface,
oddly enough, but then again the Sentinels had enough anti-air weapons to knock
them down with ease, so Liam wasn’t sure if this colony didn’t have them or
wasn’t choosing to waste them.
There were numerous defense turrets across the city,
but it was impossible to determine exactly what they all were when some were
buried beneath armor plating until they were revealed. At this point Liam
didn’t care, and quickly reset the power flow away from the shields and into
the weapons in order to give the Sentinels full firing capability. Targeting
the beams himself, he began to cut the colony’s buildings apart, starting first
with the defense turrets and hangars, then moving on to the other buildings
while the wisp cloud that had been hiding underneath the city shield began to
grow and disperse, running off to other locations around the planet.
There was no knowing how many other lizard bases were
concealed on Varasiss, and with some luck they might lead them to one. He
didn’t expect the enemy to be that sloppy, but you never knew.
The Star Force fighters patrolling the planet were
ordered to keep their distance and let the lizards run while the Sentinels
bombarded the colony, then moved on to the others. Once they had all of them
torn to shreds they’d begin hunting down the remaining units across the planet,
and there was no point in risking further engagements until that was completed.
After several hours of bombardment Liam redirected the
Sentinels to the pair of colonies remaining that had overlapping fields of
fire, knowing this would be the bigger test. Based on the data from the single
beam he knew there wouldn’t be a mathematical issue with taking them down, but
still there was always an opportunity for surprises, and with the pair of
phaser beams reaching up to strike back at the Sentinels came the missiles from
both colonies.
Liam turtled up and deactivated the cleansing beam,
routing full power to the shields and point defense weapons, weathering the
missile storm until it eventually ran out and knocking down most of them before
they could hit. When they ceased and only the ongoing phaser strikes continued
he reengaged the cleansing beams and began hammering against one of the two
cities’ shield discs.
It took a while to knock it down, then the tower, then
he did the same to the second colony, but he managed it all without so much as
a shot hitting the hull of either defense station. Afterwards he turned the
firing control over to other gunners and let them methodically rip apart the
two cities while he left the nexus and headed to the command ship’s sanctum for
a good long run before catching a few hours of needed sleep and returning to
the bridge to oversee the next colony attack.
Meanwhile the ground troops were out and about in
numerous locations, hunting down and safing the
underground tunnels in the colonies that had already seen combat and were now
nominally in Star Force hands…though all that meant was a handful of scouts
looking for lingering enemies. The planet was huge and now full of ruins,
without enough troops to properly occupy each site. From the reports continuing
to come in there were still lots of pockets of small resistance everywhere,
with about half of them operating with cohesion rather than random, last ditch
attacks from survivors.
The other four trailblazers and Kara were down there
leading the efforts to eradicate them and locate what they thought were hidden
control centers. There were so many tunnels underground that a good portion of
their drone fleet was now floating over the surface doing intense scans to try
and locate them in an effort to identify potential traps before the Archons and
others started their expeditions into new areas. Morgan especially
coming down within a minute and the defense tower another 20 seconds later.
That ended the orbital threat, for no missiles had been fired from the surface,
oddly enough, but then again the Sentinels had enough anti-air weapons to knock
them down with ease, so Liam wasn’t sure if this colony didn’t have them or
wasn’t choosing to waste them.
There were numerous defense turrets across the city,
but it was impossible to determine exactly what they all were when some were
buried beneath armor plating until they were revealed. At this point Liam
didn’t care, and quickly reset the power flow away from the shields and into
the weapons in order to give the Sentinels full firing capability. Targeting
the beams himself, he began to cut the colony’s buildings apart, starting first
with the defense turrets and hangars, then moving on to the other buildings
while the wisp cloud that had been hiding underneath the city shield began to
grow and disperse, running off to other locations around the planet.
There was no knowing how many other lizard bases were
concealed on Varasiss, and with some luck they might lead them to one. He
didn’t expect the enemy to be that sloppy, but you never knew.
The Star Force fighters patrolling the planet were
ordered to keep their distance and let the lizards run while the Sentinels
bombarded the colony, then moved on to the others. Once they had all of them
torn to shreds they’d begin hunting down the remaining units across the planet,
and there was no point in risking further engagements until that was completed.
After several hours of bombardment Liam redirected the
Sentinels to the pair of colonies remaining that had overlapping fields of
fire, knowing this would be the bigger test. Based on the data from the single
beam he knew there wouldn’t be a mathematical issue with taking them down, but
still there was always an opportunity for surprises, and with the pair of
phaser beams reaching up to strike back at the Sentinels came the missiles from
both colonies.
Liam turtled up and deactivated the cleansing beam,
routing full power to the shields and point defense weapons, weathering the
missile storm until it eventually ran out and knocking down most of them before
they could hit. When they ceased and only the ongoing phaser strikes continued
he reengaged the cleansing beams and began hammering against one of the two
cities’ shield discs.
It took a while to knock it down, then the tower, then
he did the same to the second colony, but he managed it all without so much as
a shot hitting the hull of either defense station. Afterwards he turned the
firing control over to other gunners and let them methodically rip apart the
two cities while he left the nexus and headed to the command ship’s sanctum for
a good long run before catching a few hours of needed sleep and returning to
the bridge to oversee the next colony attack.
Meanwhile the ground troops were out and about in
numerous locations, hunting down and safing the
underground tunnels in the colonies that had already seen combat and were now
nominally in Star Force hands…though all that meant was a handful of scouts
looking for lingering enemies. The planet was huge and now full of ruins,
without enough troops to properly occupy each site. From the reports continuing
to come in there were still lots of pockets of small resistance everywhere,
with about half of them operating with cohesion rather than random, last ditch
attacks from survivors.
The other four trailblazers and Kara were down there
leading the efforts to eradicate them and locate what they thought were hidden
control centers. There were so many tunnels underground that a good portion of
their drone fleet was now floating over the surface doing intense scans to try
and locate them in an effort to identify potential traps before the Archons and
others started their expeditions into new areas. Morgan especially
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