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Even with almost 90% interception, 40 enemy missiles hit the fortress, and it vanished in the nuclear inferno. In the confusion we thought that some of the crew managed to evacuate in time using one of the shuttles, but I found out months later that this never happened.

Before the missiles hit, the station activated the laser satellites. Each one of these was a bomb-pumped x-ray laser. One-shot weapons, they were powerful enough to destroy a major ship on a single good shot. There were 40 of them, and they fired within 30 milliseconds of each other.

There are effective countermeasures against laser-fire, mostly torpedoes loaded with a cloud of crystalline debris that we called Angeldust, which reflected and diffused the incoming laser energy. While effective in theory, it is very hard to time the use of a physical defense system against a weapon coming in at lightspeed, and the CAC task force never even got off a shot. Half a dozen enemy support ships were vaporized, and the lead battleship was holed in three places and knocked out of the formation.

The space-based defenses had acquitted themselves well, causing far more damage than we'd dare hoped. The enemy battlefleet was in very rough shape, but it didn't do much for us on the ground. The assault craft had been kept back out of range, and they were completely undamaged. If we'd had a task force available we could have seriously contested the space above Columbia, but all we could do now was sit and watch while they bombarded the surface and readied the landing.

It didn't take long before the enemy was in orbit and the bombing began. I'm not sure whether they wanted the planet intact or if the damage they'd suffered drastically reduced their firepower, but the bombardment was short and relatively ineffective. Our bunker shook a few times as shots impacted nearby on the surface, but we took no real damage at all, and from the chatter on the command circuit I could tell that even the entrenched units on the surface had suffered only light casualties and some minor disorder.

Columbia didn't have much in the way of ground-based defenses, so there really weren't many targets but the troops themselves. It was hard to do too much damage to entrenched infantry from space without totally wasting the planet, so once they'd knocked out the few anti-air batteries we had, the landings began.

Sitting in the bunker I flashed back to the nine times I'd stepped into a launch bay before an assault. Today the enemy was doing that, and we were waiting…as they had for me so many times.

I knew the assault would be virtually unopposed. First, we really didn't have much in the way of effective weapons systems against incoming landers. Second, I knew Colonel Holm wanted to get them on the surface and trick them into underestimating our true strength so we could ambush them. He wasn't about to make us look stronger by putting up a futile defense against the initial assault.

The colonel had managed to hide a couple of surface-to-air sprint missile launchers from the bombardment and, as much for show as for effect, we did launch a bit of an attack on the landing craft. Our fire was actually pretty effective and we took out nine ships, and we forced the rest to scatter into a defensive approach, disordering their landing pattern.

The CAC landers were bigger than our Gordons, each carrying one of their 18-man tac-teams. So that was over 150 casualties before they hit ground. Not bad considering we really didn't have much of an air defense.

The tactical computers were furiously analyzing the size of the landing, and the tonnage and number of assault vessels in orbit to create a projection of the attacking force. When that estimate came it matched my own unofficial one - we were facing a brigade-sized attack force.

A CAC brigade was about 6,500 strong, divided into ten of their tac-forces plus supporting elements. CAC tac-forces were the rough equivalent to one of our battalions. Based on their standard organization, two of those tac-forces would be fully-powered infantry and the rest normal line troops, though the exact setup was mission-variable. There was a good chance they would have a higher proportion of assault units for an attack like this.

The enemy's landing zone was centered on a flat plain about 10 kilometers from Weston, well within range of our infantry's mortars and rocket launchers, which immediately opened fire and caused significant casualties while the attacking units were forming up to advance. Their corresponding formations deployed quickly and began returning the fire. We were entrenched and they weren't, but there were a lot more of them. I wasn't in the line of command to get streaming casualty reports from the surface, but it was likely we were starting to take losses.

The enemy could have deployed a greater distance from Weston, and out of our initial fire range. We hadn't positioned any defenses further out. But they'd decided to trade casualties for time, accepting some additional losses to position themselves to attack immediately. CAC doctrine was considerably more tolerant of losses than ours, and if a battle was won there was little concern for the casualties it took to secure that victory.

The attack force formed up very quickly and began its advance. Impressive discipline, much better than most CAC forces. Not a good sign - these were well drilled troops. Our forces on the surface were going to have their hands full.

The enemy approach was pretty much straight out of the book. Any advance out in the open would become a bloody mess almost immediately, so standard tactics called for unloading everything you could against the defenders to give them something to worry about other than shooting you.

It was also helpful for the attacker to obscure battlefield conditions as much as possible. We had state of the art targeting systems, battle computers, and enhanced optics, but all of these resources were subject to degradation. Dust and smoke interfered with laser targeting, and once the battlefield was full of heat sources clear scanning became much more difficult.

The CAC support units blasted our positions with mortars, rockets, and several batteries of small artillery pieces while their infantry advanced. The enemy troops used the craters and irregularities of the ground to leapfrog their advance, just as we would, but the CAC forces were far less cautious than any of our units. They rushed their advance, covering more ground in each push - at the cost of additional time exposed and heavier casualties.

I certainly didn't approve of their priorities, but I had to admit that they closed the distance to our troops very quickly. Their first wave was barely a kilometer from the first defensive line, and the second was landed and almost formed up.

The troops manning the trenches were mostly militia. About half the unarmored marine units were thrown in for stiffening, and the other half were positioned in the rear as a ready reserve.

The attackers seemed to be suffering losses considerably in excess of projected rates, but it wasn't until they were fully engaged with our forces that we got the full report. The enemy had no powered infantry units and no fighting vehicles. That was a surprise. They still had the numbers to overwhelm our apparent defenses, but they would suffer far greater casualties. Probably three-quarters of the hits that took down one of their troops would have deflected off powered armor.

Oblivious to the enormous losses they were suffering, the leading units began to assault our positions, overrunning the sparsely deployed defenders. Our defensive lines were designed to draw the enemy in so we could hit them from behind once they were fully committed. The strategy worked - almost too well - and the attackers sliced through our first three lines in several places.

The assault force had suffered at least 1,500 casualties, but they kept up the pressure, and the combat intensity increased significantly. The colonel shifted reserves constantly, launching focused counter attacks wherever there was a vulnerability. The CAC support units kept firing even after the lines were intermingled, and they took out as many of their own troops as ours. But they had a 6-1 edge on the surface and could take the losses. We couldn't.