[Starhawk]

The Battle for Cephedra

"Alright Ladies! Our mission in Cephedra is far from over and we just got a new assignment." Lieutenant Jackson's voice boomed out over the whine of laser torches and wrenches as the tank crews tried to fix whatever damage had been done to their vehicles.
As Jackson came out of the shadow of a tank and Kemper caught a full glimpse he couldn't help but be intimidated by the massively muscled and war scarred officer who stood before his unit. Kemper stood frozen in front of his squad as Jackson walked passed him and down the line of squad leaders.

"It appears command wants to end the Campaign against the Cephedra system a little earlier then planned. Captain Mila Drake has been given a squadron of warships and a single Imperial Guard regiment by Grand Admiral Thadius in order to take Cephedra III....and your not gonna believe who they assigned for that sad sorry little mission." As a grin crossed The Lieutenants face a chill crept up Kemper's spine as memories of the first mission came flashing into his head and the thoughts of his friend Tye lying bleeding on the ground with an arm less then she should have. He felt lucky that she had indeed been saved by the battlefield healer's and her arm had been replaced with a genetic clone but still the nightmare of seeing that wound continued to play in his mind until a hard blow cought him in the chin and he felt himself falling to the deck.

"I said do you understand your assignment KEMPER! Now get your grabasstic peice of candyass off that deck and answer me!" Jackson stood over Kemper and looked down at the obviously startled Seargent with a grimmace on his face that Kemper swore would frighten even the devil to his marrow.

"Sir....I'm sorry sir I didn't hear you!" Kemper said as he tried to stand up only to have Jackson backhand him again and break his nose in one clean shot.

"Why my old grandmother would make a better Seargent then you Kemper...I said your squad is to join the 3rd and 20th squads 1st Company in an assault from behind enemy lines and take out the enemy command center!" Jackson had an odd canter to his walk when he was angry and right now that swagger showed clearly as he walked away from the still dizzy Kemper and continued barking orders down the line until he finally ordered the dismissal.

As the Lieutenant stormed off in a huff and glared at Kemper as he walked by Kemper felt a hand touch his shoulder and jerked to awareness.
Looking over his shoulder he caught a sight of Sarah Tye and abscently noted that the hand she was touching his shoulder with shouldn't even be there. He noticed a smile cross her face and grimly accepted her help to his feet with no little embarassment.
"You have one hell of a way with the Lieutenant there Eric keep it up and he'll either promote you or blow a hole in your head." She said with a laugh as Kemper playfully jerked his arm away from hers and glared.

"Alright, alright you heard the Lieutenant and unless you wanna invoke divine wrath we better get it in gear...MOVE OUT!" Kemper barked as his men began grabbing their combat equipment and donning the flak armor that they would need when they finally made the drop....


Three hours later Kemper's regiment was hidden behind the battle lines of the advancing Delta Squadron that Mila Drake had been given in order to take Cephedra III while Grand Admiral Thadius led the bulk of the fleet against Cephedri VIII.

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At the same time as the Delta Squadron was leading it's attack against Cephedri III Grand Admiral Thadius was leading the Primus Imperium Fleet against the enemy world of Cephedri VIII.

"Admiral We are in orbit, standing by to fire on planetary defenses....they're own weapons have fired innefectively against the base ship Desolator who is standing by. Your orders admiral?" tactical officer Winston's voice was impassive as he counted off the numbers of Imperial warships compared to the two platforms that waited below.

"Order the Desolator and the Zues to open fire, then send the Blood hawks in and remove any trace of enemy defenses." Thadius rubbed his hands together and thoughtfully put them back in his lap to keep from rubbing his hair back again as he often did when he was anxious, especially now that it had turned grey with age.

The Zues and Desolator easily destroyed the weapons platforms, then for the first time Admiral Thadius had ever seen a chapter of storm troopers was dropped via landing craft onto the surface of the enemy world.
As the ships camera's zoomed in on the action taking place on the surface Thadius and the rest of the bridge crew sat in stunned silence as the Storm Troopers unleashed the hellish firepower at their disposal.

Earth troops were cut to peices as the Storm Troopers fired their AP battle rifles and ran at inhuman speeds through the perimiters of the enemy cities defeneses. But the slaughter did not stop at the enemy perimiters wherever anyone wielded a weapon even so much as a butcher knife against the Storm Troopers they were cut down without mercy, cowards trying to hide behind hostages found their efforts useless as advancing storm troopers fired through the hostages. The people defending the mineral mines didn't even see what hit them as Storm Trooper squads ripped them apart with APCs equipped with Auto cannons and Storm Trooper infantry ripped apart enemy troopers with their power armored hands or cut through them with AP rifles. The domed city was alight with fire as the storm troopers continued their brutal advance against the enemy.

"My lord they aren't human!" Thadius heard from one of his bridge officers as they watched the massacre. Thadius himself grimmaced at the fact that not only had these Blood Hawks cut enemy soldiers apart but at the unnecessary destruction of valuable facilities, including the poorly defended Atmospheric modification plant which would have come in handy.
If those were the future of warfare they truely would make the Empire invincible, simply for the sake that none would want to challenge such brutal soldiers.

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Captain Mila Drake paced her bridge as she led her squadron into the battle aboard her flagship, Price of Whales. So far the enemy defenses had already crippled the dreadnought Mammoth and another dreadnought named Victory had been forced to fall back when the enemy breached her shields and knocked out her armor and two of her engines.
"Ma'am planetary defenses have fallen under our fire, should we send in the Imperial Guard?" her flag officer asked rather uselessly as he already knew the answer to his question.

With a Kurt nod young captain Drake ordered in the single regiment at her disposal and quietly prayed that she could pull this off, because if they couldn't then her orders were to glass the colony and kill millions of Earthers.

As the Ascension closed on the planet and began unleashing her landing barges a single small vessel darted out from the port side of the massive vessel, it's cargo was a platoon gaurdsmen from the regiment, their orders were to infiltrate the capital city of the enemy world and destroy the Alliance command center. She knew that these orders were unorthadox and that if they failed the the Platoon was lost then she would probobly face execution for negligence but she had to take the risk because unlike other worlds that the Icarans had taken from the Alliance which had their cities spread out accross the planet with large varieties of environment this world was an atmospherically engineered world and it's cities were tightly packed together meaning that millions of Alliance citizens were within a small area and if they could be organized by their military commander then a single regiment would do nothing against such an organized foe.

Platoon Lieutenant Jackson smirked coldly at Kemper as their drop ship came to a landing and the doors opened. Unlike with the main landing operations where the entire unit would charge foward immedietly this time they silently unloaded from their ship that had landed on the outskirts of the capital city of Cephedri III, as the advanced through the small wooded area on the outskirts they heard the sounds they were waiting for, the silence of mid morning was torn with the shrieks of AP rifles and the thunderous roar of auto guns and main battle cannons.

With a silent hand gesture Lieutenant Jackson waved his platoon foward and Kemper's squad moved up the center their rifles heald ready for battle.
As the reached the city limits an Alliance security squad caught a glimpse of them and opened fire with their PPGs catching one of the guardsmen in the shoulder and burning into the flak armor.
The order to fire was passed down from the Lieutenant and relayed by the three seargents of his command. As the guardsmen took aim and opened up with their rifles the alliance security troops took cover their black suited forms crouching behind transport vehicles and garbage cans and anything else they could use for cover.
Kemper took aim at one of the enemy troopers as they stood to fire and caught him full on the chest, with a brilliant orange gold flash on his vest and a dull scream the enemy shouldier fell dead over the hood of a ground car. The other security troops opened fire and another guardsmen took a hit on his flak armor and shrugged it off.

Finally one of the heavy weapons troopers was able to come forward and he sighted carefully down his grenade launcher and fired two grenades into the enemy position. After the sound of surpised screams and the eruption of magma grenades melted just about anything and anyone in the area where the enemy squad had once been Jackson ordered his platoon to advance again.

The stench of burnt flesh and materials was sickening as the platoon advanced through the gore and wreckage that had once been ten living men. Suddenly from the right flank Kemper heard a shout and what sounded like PPG fire met by AP fire. "Get down!" was all he managed to bark out before a PPG shot flashed past his face, as the platoon took cover and returned fire Kemper noticed two unmoving guardsmen lying in the street and realized that the Earthers must have set up a killzone in the narrow alleyway in an attempt to decimate his platoon before they could reach their objectives.

Hand grenades tossed by the guardsmen of the 20th squad pushed the Alliance troopers back enough for the 20th to charge them and slaughter most of them while the others quickly surrendered.
With their prisoners knocked unconcious and the other enemy soldiers dead the platoon moved on to their objective.

The military command center was a near fortress, two squads of enemy soldiers were visible and worse still was that they weren't the simple security troops that the guardsmen had just fought through, these were Earthforce marines and skilled soldiers that had seen the rigors of open battle before.

"Allright it's gonna get hot, but we can do this, grenade launchers keep back and start shelling them to cover our advance, flame throwers move to the center of your squads we're gonna want to burn em down once we reach em. Riflemen take point." Jackson's tone sounded like that of a drill instructor giving traning instructions to a recruit squad back in boot camp. With a volley of frag grenades from the grenade launchers the platoon advanced at a run torwards their objective.

Enemy soldiers ran for cover as the grenades exploded all around them sending many of their number falling to the ground with shrapnel in their bodies.
As the platoon advanced though at least some enemy troops secured a perimiter and began firing into them, several guardsmen fell dead or wounded at the enemy fire but the withering fire returned by the guardsmen cut down most of those enemy troopers that heald their ground.

As the enemy fell back inside the building the flamethrowers came forward and sprayed the hall with fire burning the enemy soldiers down where they stood or gagging them with the smell of incinerator fuel and burnt flesh.
Kemper's squad took point and charged into the building weapons blazing, cutting down multiple enemy troopers and even some of the staff that worked at the facility.
Placing a magma charge on the door that led to the enemy command center Kemper waved back the other guardsmen who were advancing.
"Unless you guys wanna melt I'd back up" he said with a grin as his unit fell back into the next corridor. As he ran back into the corridor Kemper pressed the button that detonated the charge and melted the doors into the enemy command center.

Taking Point Lieutenant Jackson fired his pistol streight into the heart of the enemy general as his men secured the rest of the command center neutralizing the enemy marines and command staff with ease.

"Send out the message Kemper, we've taken the base and all Alliance forces are neutralized." Jackson's voice sounded cheerful compared to it's normal tone and as Kemper saluted and spoke into his comns the rest of the platoon ensure the base was secure.

At the end of only a day's battle two more worlds had fallen to the Icaran Empire in the Cephidri system with minimal casualties sustained by Icaran forces.
In the Xillantha system too another world had fallen to the Icaran advance and it appeared that the Praetor's star crusade was going well for the Empire and at long Last it might be possible for the whole of Human race to come together under a single rule for the good of mankind.

[ February 26, 2004, 19:29: Message edited by: Starhawk ]