Chapter Twenty Six
Commander Vladimir Domnin stood at a top of a building overlooking the St. Petersburg Ra’a’zani base. The people around the base have already been evacuated. And Vladimir and his people waited for the signal before they started their assault. His men were already positioned in the darkness, unseen waiting for his command. Then Vladimir’s comm chirped, and he knew that the time had come.
“Go, go, go!” Vladimir said over the comm grid of his suit. Every member of his assault team heard the message and they began the assault. Vladimir dropped from the roof of the four floor building, as his feet hit the pavement it cracked. The suit absorbed all the force of the drop. The suits he and his team wore were made during the war by Concordis, for special ops teams. Powered suits allowed them to move faster, hit harder, and survive things that would otherwise kill them.
His twenty man team moved quickly towards the Ra’a’zani main entrance, their suits stealth mode engaged. There were supposed to be forty Ra’a’zani inside, plus a dozen or so thralls. The Taskmaster of this base didn’t like slaves, so most humans were not allowed inside. Instead they remained outside the base, until Ra’a’zani needed something. That’s why they couldn’t destroy the base by planting bombs.
Vladimir reached the base entrance. A standard Ra’a’zani checkpoint with two Ra’a’zani standing guard. The two were engaged in conversation. They didn’t even notice when two plasma blasts fired from Vladimir’s sides and burned their heads off. His people kept moving going inside. The Ra’a’zani scanner would soon detect their movement, but they wouldn’t be seen by the naked eye. The confusion will add to their advantage. As soon as they entered the base itself, they split off into teams of two. They started moving through the base killing everything in their way. The Ra’a’zani knew that they were under attack, the human weapons were as invisible as the suits, but their fire was not.
Vladimir entered a room, and saw there Ra’a’zani, they were in the process of putting on their battle armor. But sadly for them, Vladimir decided to not let them finish. He raised his SH-7 plasma rifle and fired at the closest Ra’a’zani. The plasma bolt burning through his back. Vladimir’s team member killed another one as he tried to turn. And Vladimir put two quick bolts into the third one as he tried to charge their positions.
Communicating through their suits and implants, the entire assault team moved efficiently and quickly through the base. Within another twenty minutes, there was no Ra’a’zani left alive.
Commander Anya Lane was not having a good day. Her team began their assault on the Ra’a’zani base in the Sydney mega-zone more than ten minutes ago, and they were still pinned down in the base’s lobby. Somehow the Ra’a’zani were ready for them. They had been waiting for Anya and her people in their battle armor. Whether her team was betrayed minutes before the attack, or somehow the Ra’a’zani managed to detect them, didn’t matter now. The fight was on. She had already lost three of her men. And knew that she would lose a lot more before the night was over.
Rising her weapon over the cover, she used her implant’s interface – that connected to her plasma rifles small camera – to aim and fire without being exposed. The Ra’a’zani had trouble taking cover because of their size, but their armor more than compensated enough.
She fired four shots in a quick succession, hitting one Ra’a’zani three times in the torso. The Ra’a’zani was too slow to move, and the first two shots weekend its armor enough for the third to penetrate and kill him. Anya lowered her weapon, checking on her imp the heating level of her rifles power cell. She had maybe another seven shots, before she needed to dispose of the cell. She had two more reserve cells. But she knew that if they don’t manage to break the stalemate soon, it wouldn’t be enough.
Taskmaster Rag’r’an, commander of the Ra’a’zani base in what the humans called Sydney mega-zone, stood in his battle armor in the middle of his base’s main command center. He watched on the terminals as humans pushed through the entrance hall, and slowly progressed into the base. Both sides were losing people, but for every one human that fell, three of his people fell as well. Rag’r’an shook with rage, this was the first time in the history of the Ra’a’zani race that a slave race dared to rebel after its been conquered.
The humans attack began with the sabotage of Rag’r’an’s comm system. His people were lucky that they noticed it early enough, and that Rag’r’an put the base on alert. Otherwise the humans would have killed them all already. He saw the power of their weapons first hand, as the scorch mark on his shoulder attested to.
“How long before we regain communications?” Rag’r’an asked.
“Soon Taskmaster.” His subordinate answered.
Rag’r’an growled in his battle armor. Once he managed to contact the Dakar, the humans would pay dearly for every Ra’a’zani life lost.
Anya watched as her people slowly gained ground. They were pushing the Ra’a’zani back. Soon they would reach their main room. Plasma bolts flew from the human side, while some kind of other energy weapons fire flew from the Ra’a’zani. They had never managed to get their hands on Ra’a’zani functional weapon. And they didn’t know what kind of energy it fired, but they knew that their armor could withstand a few hits. She got a message on her imp from the command. They had reinforcements incoming.
“Commander! The Ra’a’zani are trying to get their comms back up!” Anya heard over her imp. Immediately she opened a channel to everyone under her command.
“Pull back! We got heavies incoming!”
“The humans are nearly through Taskmaster!” Someone yelled out.
“Stall them!” Ra’g’ran growled out. He turned to the Ra’a’zani working on the comms.
“Hurry!” He said.
“I’m almost done Taskmaster. Rerouting the power source, and… There!”
“Contact the headquarters immediately!” Ra’g’ran ordered.
“There is no response Taskmaster!”
Ra’g’ran looked in disbelief, the humans couldn’t have attacked the headquarters as well.
“Try the other bases. Start with the closest first.”
“There is no response from anyone. All the bases on the planet have gone silent Taskmaster!”
Rag’r’an couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Access the grid, figure out what happened.” Ra’g’ran ordered. The grid was separate from their comm systems.
“There is no mention of anything wrong Taskmaster. Wait… it looks like ships entered the system and the Blood Claw moved to meet with them.” Ra’g’ran felt a shiver, this couldn’t be coincidence.
“Send the message to the Blood Claw. Tell them that all the bases on the planet are under attack!” Ra’g’ran ordered. Then another Ra’a’zani in battle armor walked over to him.
“The humans are retreating!” He said.
Ra’g’ran engaged his hand cannon, and started towards the action. He wouldn’t let the humans get away without first making them pay in blood.
Sergeant Nathan Bell sat in the driver’s seat of the League Ravager Mk3 class tank. Behind him, on their own posts were his best friends, Donald Hall and Chloe Grant. Nathan’s tank was a part of the four tank squad, moving into position to attack a Ra’a’zani base. They couldn’t have approached the base before, fearing that the Ra’a’zani sensors would detect them before they managed to disable them. But now the Ra’a’zani defenses were down, his people had retreated, and his job was to level it to the ground. Their squad got in position on the hill overlooking the Ra’a’zani base. Their large 160mm caliber guns swiveled and locked on their target. A moment later their bombardment began. The large explosive rounds rained fire on the defenseless Ra’a’zani base. Within minutes the base crumbled in fire and smoke.