[b]Anuria Surface[/b]
[i]Kol’Kora – Central Quadrant[/i]
Soon the reinforcements Lander’s group requested began to arrive. One of the advantages of the grunts was that no matter what, they had numbers. Soon over 2 dozen guns opened fire at the crashed gunship. “I hit one!” yelled a kid. It was probably his first kill. Considering his happiness. Gunfire from the MSSC side began to die out as they started to notice nothing fired back. Carefully some began to cross the bridge. But once they were half-way and nothing shot at them, they broke into a sprint. On the other side they found the sniper. Clearly in pain, gripping his arm. Trying to stop the bleeding. But the Grunts had little sense of compassion. The drilled a few bullets in him, as retaliation for their fallen comrades. In the distance then saw the medic trying to make a run for it, carrying another wounded soldier.

“Hey! One is trying to run!” Yelled the squad that crossed the bridge. But not on Lander’s watch. He quickly jumped into some random technical. Three others, who knew Lander damn well, jumped in the back. It didn’t take much to overtake the soldier. Blocking his escape. All Lander’s rage turned into cold-blooded hatred. As he always did. The medic had no time for words as the stock of Lander’s gun slammed into his chin. Sending him to the ground. The wounded soldier fell down on the ground in agony. “Silence him.” Was enough for another of Lander’s squad to put 3 bullets in him. Lander himself hit the medic with the stock again. Making sure he was out. “Get this asshole to Epsilon. See if they can pry anything lose from him.”

Once the area was considered clear, the Ripper Squad was called in. Rippers were a breed of their own. Technicians, self-taught chemists, former-garage owners, illegal car modders. That sort of people. They had a talent to make something out of practically nothing. They were also extremely good at tearing apart anything. As soon as they arrived they began to drain the fuel, strip the metal plates. Even as a fire near the engines kept raging on. They didn’t care to put it out, it would take too long. They kept stripping apart the plane. Until of course the engine exploded. Sending a Ripper flying. You’d think that normal Grunts their life expectancy was bad, but Rippers had an even lower number. Their homegrown experiments became so dangerous that they got their own little base not too far away from Epsilon. Almost every month something explodes over there.

In the meantime the Grunts did what they had to do. The gathered the corpses of both sides and piled them up. Then they threw some car fuel on it and lit it up. Corpses bred diseases easily. If left to rot of course. After that, and some well-deserved downtime Lander’s squad moved out. Positioning the next crashed dropship. Heading deeper into the central quadrant where clearly a war was brewing.
[hr]
[b]Anuria Orbit[/b]
[i]Cherubim-Class Carrier “Second Light”
Bridge[/i]
“Ma’am. Approaching designated battle position.” Someone at the monitors said out loud, while keeping eyes on the screen. Admiral Helen Lagare looked over the yet blank holo-table. In minutes it would come to life and show the full scale battle between the Ashtar and the Vaegir. Miss Lagare had strict orders to completely ignore the Vaegir fleet. The goal here was the capture of an Ashtar ship and the advanced technology onboard for further study. As well as imprisoning several Ashtar themselves to study their so called psionic abilities.

When “Second Light” came out of Warp it arrived fairly close to the Ashtar fleet. With it, 2 more Throne-classes, 7 Dominion-classes, 6 Virtue-classes and 10 MSSC Archangel-classes. They arrived on the portside of the Ashtar. Trying to come in by surprise. Using the full frontal attack from Vaegir as distraction, they would attempt to target a weaker ship at the back of the Ashtar fleet. Admiral Lagare quickly found her desired targets. A group of Ashtar Archangels sitting in the back. Firing their missiles. She selected them and marked them “board”. Thus began the action.

The Cherubim-Class and Throne-Classes would be far too slow to reach the Archangels in time. But the ‘Second Light’ had the main force of the Space Intervention Force onboard. Thus they still pushed their engines hard. With the Thrones opening fire. First a few shots with their main rail gun, but at a lower than standard velocity. So to only break the shields. The 10 accelerator guns began to open fire too. But no torpedoes yet. The Dominions and Archangels pushed forward fast. The Archangels mainly served to shoot down large anti-capital torpedoes and cruise missiles. While the Dominions fired their internal rail gun freely at the Archangels. The main objective was not to harm the ships bad but to cripple their shields. The Virtues on the other hand made a small arc and went for the engines of the Ashtar Archangels. Once in range they too opened fire, and launched their cruise missiles at the speculated places where their FTL could be.