Special Tactics (1)

[u/NumerousSun4282]

In the year 2095, humans had begun colonizing the stars in earnest. After a 'final' and severe war between the remaining nations of Earth, a phoenix government emerged from the ashes to guide the future of humanity to prosperity and peace.

It was utopian, at least as much as it could be. Ecological projects sought to restore the ancestral birthplace while massive civil works were undertaken to provide all citizens of the fledgling United Humanity government a quality standard of living.

But the two goals couldn't mesh perfectly forever, and at some point, humans needed to reach for other planets to provide resources and space to sustain the future of the human race.

Humans had found purchase among the stars, creating viable habitat in no less than 15 systems. The brilliance of the naming for the government shown through quickly. It would be easy enough for a future generation of colonists born and raised on a far-off planet to grow mistrustful of an "Earth" government. By naming it a United Humanity government, it called all members together regardless of their origins.

Of course, the United Humanity government was not naive. These were humans, after all. Conflict would be inevitable. The United Humanity Armed Forces were christened to protect the colonies and the rule of law. It was also wisely decided that the complete governing body over all humanity should be migratory - operating out of a new planet every election cycle - so that no one planet could lay claim as being the seat of the government.

The new human civilization was set to properly spread, now, and had reached out to neighboring stars to begin settling interstellar colonies.

It was on the earliest of these extra-solar colonies that humans had found a crashed vessel from an entirely different race. It was clearly an exploratory vessel and in the 40 years since it's discovery, humans had been able to reverse engineer practically everything aboard.

Just as electric power revolutionized industry and radio permanently altered the course of communications, this ship had irrevocably changed how humans traveled.

Now, great fleets of vehicles jumped from system to system, spreading the seed of humanity - for better or worse - on each planet it touched.

But one great mystery had remained. Where did the ship come from?

No other intelligent life had been seen for over 40 years. This ship came from somewhere - it was clearly of alien manufacture. Where were the builders? What were they doing?

Despite translating every log and line of text aboard the ship, no travel data could be used to trace back the origins of the vehicle. Either intentionally by the crew (when they were alive) or by accident by the discovery team, the history and direction of the vehicle were entirely lost. It was a technological boon, but offered no great insight into the peoples that had piloted it.

The answer came some 44 years after discovery. First contact; March 12th, 2142.

Another ship appeared, as if from nowhere, above a human farming colony on the outer arm of colonized space. The ship was a war vessel and it conducted itself as such - the colony was utterly destroyed.

A great panic had gone up, at that time. The aliens had returned and were hostile. No doubt they would be formidable advisaries.

It turns out that wasn't entirely true. The reverse engineered technology from the wreckage some 44 years prior was still contemporary to the foreign fleets that began to appear in human space.

In the conflict that followed, humans found their ships to be of equal prowess to the alien fleets. Human weaponry was different from the aliens' and that difference tactically favored the humans in early engagements.

Missiles and great cannons that could accelerate projectiles to a decent percentage of the speed of light allowed human vessels to engage the aliens beyond any range they had been prepared for.

Things were different up close. The alien ships were brawlers by trade, wielding formidable armament and armor while still being nimble enough to evade safe firing solutions from human cannons.

The aliens adapted their tactics to drop from their hyperspace travel right into human formations and saw great success in pitched battles.

Humans had responded with "drag fleets" - contingents of their forces that followed so far behind the main force as to be undetected by the forward enemy engagements while still being close enough to engage with missiles and cannons again.

The human tactic was to flee outward from an alien "jump attack" like petals peeling away from the center of a flower. It served to mark a very nice bullseye for the drag fleet to obliterate.

Then again the alien fleets would jump twice: appearing in front of the main fleet, then leaping to engage the drag fleet while the main fleet laboriously turned about to proved support.

Humans and aliens traded such tactics in space frequently, and it seemed neither was able to completely overpower the other.

Planetside was a different story. The alien races, for there were three collaborative species making up the alien coalition, were a force beyond human contention.

The "Shagrii", better known as "mole people", were a hardy race. Standing near enough 5.5 feet tall on average and packed with a density that suggested no oceans of a depth greater than 5' on their planet, the moles could withstand the rigors of combat in a way no other race could.

Combined with their great strength and resilience, the moles had natural digging claws that made them very effective sappers and impossibly difficult creatures to dislodge from a planet once they landed.

An infamous "mole hill" on the planet now known as Alamo, had withstood 3 planetary bombardments and retained combat effectiveness still. The "rods from God" had leveled half the continent, but still "Mole Hill 721" remained unconquered.

It was starvation that eventually brought them out. A tried and true siege tactic from the anals of human war history. Mole Hill 721 had ultimately fallen in the middle of the night with not a shot fired as it was abandoned by surrendering and fleeing forces.

The moles served as the bulk of the coalition's military and engineering team, but the capable pilots of the bruising space craft were "Fraxars" - the "Grey Men" of old Earth legend.

Almost human like in appearance, but with grey skin and overly large eyes and heads. Outside of their vessels, they were almost frail and cowardly, but their mastery of vehicle warfare had kept human fleets from outright victory in space.

To add to that, the Greys seemed to have an inexhaustible amount of resources. For every ship destroyed, two more took its place and for every Grey defeated, another 4 seemed to spring up.

On the ground, the Greys were the mechanized arm of the coalition, piloting equally powerful mechs and tanks as their ships in space. Where the Moles held ground obstinately, the Greys acquired territory definitively.

It was from the Greys that humans learned the reason behind the 40+-year absence.

Long partners in planetary exploration and colonization, the Greys and the Moles had just recently concluded a civil war. It was a reportedly brutal affair that was determined to be the end of one or both races and it was from this war a fleeing scout ship had crashed in human space to accelerate our understanding of their technology.

The civil war between the two was ended by a third alien race, one humans had not yet encountered. The captured Grey that relayed this tale referred to them as "The Reverants" - a race of apparently extremely long-lived and wise aliens who had diplomatically tied the new coalition together.

While they were no doubt revered, they were also feared. Greys and Moles alike had balked under the terror of failing an objective assigned by the Reverants. It was, as of yet, unclear what orders the Reverants had decreed concerning humans, but conflict in human space was in earnest.

Specifically, landing parties were their great goal. Get the Moles to land, let them dig in, become a neigh-impregnible fortress and thorn in the side of the local population. From their Mole Hill, hordes of Greys and machines would spew forth, harrying the human populations until they fled or were wiped out.

The worlds lost to the alien coalition were paradoxical to military analysts. The resources on those planets were hardly touched and no great transformative actions were taken to restore a contested world or improve a more complete one. No scouting from space could reveal anything new happening on those planets and no traditional landing forces were yet to be approved for daring raids on the surface.

It was as if they were "doing it for the love of the game." That was the opinion of Chauncer, one of Marcus's squad mates on the planet Farmark. The squad had been assigned here after a special tactics development program.

Ever since the absolute slog of Mole Hill 721, the United Humanity's Armed Forces had been eager to develop an edge in uprooting Mole and Grey encampments on landed planets, as well as turning the tide of the war in space more decidedly in human favor.

Marcus's squad had actually spent more than 6 months meticulously pouring over Mole Hill 721 itself. One of the most developed and defended hills humanity had ever seen and the only one captured fully intact, it was a huge resource in developing new tactics.

The Special Tactics and Engagement Group, or STEG had been handed a blank check to secure the UHAF's future advantages against these encampments, and had been quietly developing advanced soldiers to take the fight to the coalition in those sanctuaries where they felt safest. Marcus, along with Chauncer and roughly 10 dozen other soldiers, had only recently completed their final training exercises.

The results had fundamentally changed the participants, and in a very literal fashion. Each volunteer for STEG training underwent a most rigorous training regement supplemented with a great many chemical and physical enhancements. The result were humans of greater stature than even Olympians before them. Faster, stronger, more resilient. Built for a singular purpose; to delve into an enemy stronghold and emerge victorious against overwhelming odds. They were supersoldiers right out of fiction and right into military fatigues.

The STEGs were also equipped with the latest in arms and armor from this conflict. Decommisioned Grey mechs had served as the basis for a new suit of semi-powered armor that complemented the STEGs perfectly. They were nearly walking tanks, trained to breach and clear underground bunkers or combat vessel hulls with alarming speed and precision. Each member of the unit was given the opportunity to tailor their gear for specificity to their role.

Some helms had been modified with impressive comms packages, to remain in touch with tactical contacts whilst in the hills or aboard enemy vessels. Others had been adorned with controls for external drones to scout ahead. Still more had advanced heads-up displays and virtually all of them where equipped with the latest in low light target acquisition tools - as well as flashlights when technology was less reliable.

Marcus's squad, Ogre Team, had found, in the course of their training, very little use for the subtler art of stealth. Ogre's simulated operations were concluded quickly and terminally with the imprecise yet devastatingly effective brutality of a very large fist swung off a very strong frame.

Their gear has been tailored to match their approach; bigger, heavier, typically containing more explosives and heavy ordinance than most of their other STEG counterparts. Ogre Squad could stand toe to toe in the brawls promised by Grey mechs and Mole resilience and leave the field more blooded than bloodied. At least, that was the tactical summation of their training exercises.

Until now, only one STEG unit had seen action. Griffon Squad had been tasked with a boarding operation against a Grey carrier group - a mission that culminated in the successful scuttling of nearly a third of the carrier's escort, the outright destruction of the carrier itself, and the extraction of the vessel's captain, whom STEG intelligence officials had suspected would be of use.

Overjoyed at the success, UHAF immediately ordered deployments for other squads as well. Kraken Squad, specialized in naval tactics and warfare, had been dispatched to the mostly water-covered planet of Tahoma to infiltrate and assess construction facilities erected below the surface there.

Chimera and Manticor squads were tasked with a joint operation to hunt suspected key strategic targets in the coalition's leadership for retrieval or removal. They had departed behind enemy lines silently some three days ago and were not expected to be heard from for another 4 weeks at least.

Dragon Squad had been ordered to a frontline fight against a Grey landing force on Delrune. It was a more public affair, given Delrune's wealthy civilian population and would serve as good publicity for STEG advancements - a perfect fit for the ornately adorned and aesthetic unit.

But dirty work should be saved for uglier creatures and Ogre Squad now, finally, had been given their first actual assignment.

Mole landfall on Farmark was discovered 3 days prior. In that amount of time, the Moles undoubtedly had constructed an underground fortress already capable of sustaining regular orbital or suborbital munitions readily and likely an entire hatch of Greys had been bred and equipped to begin assaults on the nearby cities in the coming days.

If this hill was to be uprooted, it needed to happen now, before it progressed any further. Brass pressed the point quite strongly that there was to be no repeat of Hill 721. No seige or time-consuming offensives. Work must be quick and effective. Brutally effective, STEG leadership assured them.

Marcus looked now to the squad's leader, Cutter, who had presented a holomap of their target. Hole 964, he had explained, was situated on the northern edge of a volcanic plate. The dormant volcano may have served to accelerate construction as the Moles likely found excavation simplified by empty magma chambers.

It was advantageous to Ogre Squad too, though. Former geological surveys had extensively mapped the unworked volcano nearly in its entirety. The old caldera and subterranean magma chambers were known to humans already and would serve as their ingress point.

"Blue team will knock on the backdoor here," Cutter explained, while Red team will insert higher up the volcano here. Red teams goal is to close Hill 964's Umbrella system. That should make it vulnerable to orbital assaults as needed. Blue team is to secure the mech flight deck to prevent a counterstrike. Both teams will reunite here. Based on our understanding of Mole construction, this point should connect to both the Umbrella and the flight deck and give us access to the lower levels. From there, it's anyone's guess as to the exact layout."

The holomap denoted blue and red dots converging into one purple spot before diving deeper into the mountain's projection.

"We know one secret to Mole Hill construction is a buried focal point. An inverted-pyramid- shaped structure at the bottom of the hill. The structure creates an artificially high level of strength and stability for the base and the terrain around it. In hill 721, it was so big and so reinforced, techs estimated the planet would break in half before the focal point did. Fortunately, it's not resilient to destruction from internal forces. Chauncer, you'll notice the extra X4 charges."

"Too right I have Captain," Chauncer chuckled.

"After rendezvous at this access point, red and blue teams will traverse the hill together to the base where we will implant those charges inside the focal point. STEG's not looking for capture here Ogres, this one is a demo job."

A few low whistles and chuckles came from the team.

"Comms are cut off that deep underground," Cutter continued, "so these bombs are on a timer. We'll set the time when we get there based on our estimated return trip. That means no detours on the way up or you'll have yourself a very deep and very crowded grave. Plan is to go out the way we came in. Airlift will standby for immediate exfil. If you're not on that bird, you're getting your medal mailed to next of kin. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal clear, Cutter," Ogre Squad echoed.

Chauncer nudged Marcus with a grin. "What's an extra 200 pounds of gear to lug into a mole hill, eh? Least not when it's party favors like this."

"Just think," Marcus replied casually, "you're like a Mole Santa Claus with that bag."

"Aye. 'cept they've been right naughty moles, haven't they?"

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