CHS2-9

==Chapter 9 - Book 2 – Chappy's Howling Siegers==
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Siegers HQ
Altais, Draconis Combine
March 20th, 2787
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Local Time: 0845 GST
Lieutenant Colonel Chapman looked over the scouting reports. Since landing on the planet 13 days ago there has been no challenge, no declaration, everything has been complete quiet. Chapman was waiting on word from two of his troops that landed here two months ago, and with the Beast of Terra moving on toward the mining facilities on the other planets in the system, the planet all but ignored his battalion of mechs sitting on the south continent.
“Sir! A jeep approaches from the north they have signal its our guys!” said the guard over the net. Finally, Chapman thought, we will get news about their mission.
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A month ago…
Two females stepped off the ramp of the dropship onto the dry land of the Starport in the coastal city of Carilene. This city was supposed to be a prime spot for vacationers around the system and even in neighboring star systems. The beaches where clean the water clear and the temperature was always warm and pleasant. 
So, no one thought anything when the two females walked out of the Starport without any luggage but what was on them. These two females though where part of the Siegers both with a rank of Gunnery and both with special skills of bomb making. Their mission was to destroy the HPG site so that no alerts were made to the surrounding systems when the Siegers attacked. Malama looked at Ramla and said, “Let’s go site seeing before we do anything else.” Ramla looked at Malama and just nodded, off they went to site see which included staking out the HPG site. 
The two girls pretended to be interested in the local architectural and local cuisine. With the way they were dress, flirty, and happy no one paid attention except for the young men. Ramla and Malama looked as if they could be sisters both had long dark hair that flew in the air when they spined both had blue eyes and their figures were very athletic. There was a hotel with a room available across the street from the HPG defense perimeter and lucky for them had the view that overlooked the whole compound. They did not have a lot of time so that first night they went to the local bars that were rumored to have soldiers drinking and COMSTAR personnel. The first and second night were a bust but the third night Ramla hooked a corporal that was one of the gate guards, and when she introduced Malama and that they were a couple looking for one male to have fun with, how could he resist. They took him back to their hotel room as he looked out of the window, he commented on how weird this is overlooking his job site, that is when Malama slid a needle into his arm without him noticing knocking him out instantly. 
They then took his credentials and used their equipment to copy it perfectly, they copied his keys and made a digital imprint of his eyes and fingers so that they can make contacts and artificial fingerprints. Ramla and Malama had never been inside a COMSTAR facility, so they were not taking changes. Then to make the night complete they striped the corporal naked and got naked themselves and went to sleep with luck he would think he had an amazing night, and it was the alcohol fault that he could not remember. The next morning their plan worked, and he went back to his home a confused but happy man. After he left, they uncovered all their equipment and started working on a plan. They had about two weeks before the unit would show up at the charging station.
Twelve days later the plan was a go, tonight Ramla was going to be the overwatch and Malama was going to penetrate the compound set the explosive and get out. Timing was everything, the Siegers should be jumping into the system tomorrow so destroying the HPG must happen tonight.
Ramla was able to pass through the main gates thanks to the uniform and kind of looking like the girl that used to be in that uniform. She slid into the main hall trying to maintain a professional presence in what she could only describe as pure panic inside her brain. Not really knowing fully the floor plans she had to figure it out while looking like she knew where she was going. Finally, she found a map of the facility on one of the walls in the central meeting place and she quickly made her way to the machine room. A few minutes later she was in front of the secure door, this was the moment of truth whether the seduction and all the time producing fake id and other security measures worked. She placed her eye that had the contact in it up to the optical scanner and then placed her finger on the fingerprint scanner and hoped for the best. It took a few minutes, and she was about to turn around and leave when the door open. With a sigh of relief, she entered. No one outside of COMSTAR had seen the inner workings of a HPG and now looking at the massive room with all the equipment, hoses, and pipes throughout she was doubting her ability to knock the communication device offline. She got startle out of her aww when she heard voices. Shit, she thought to herself there are workers in the room. 
So she made a quick move to hide behind some equipment while the workers walked to the door and exit the room. Sighing she cautiously moved further into the room keeping an eye out for anymore COMSTAR people, when she was satisfied that no one else was around she took the equipment out of the hiding places in her uniform. She went from a five-foot ten-inch 190lbs woman to a five foot seven inches and 150 lbs. thankful to have all the equipment off her she sighed. Moving in an orderly and efficient manner she placed all the bombs in strategic areas within the room, plus the support beams for good measure. Setting the timer for 5 minutes was cutting it close but she had to make sure the bombs went off before being detected even if it meant her death. Slowly opening the door to the walkway, she discovered no one was around so she slipped out and walked in a fast but casual pace to the exit. A man walked by and gave her a hard look and continued to walk away. 
She was almost to the door to freedom with one minute and 30 seconds left till the explosion when she heard a man’s voice.
“Charpentier, hold up I want to talk to you! Charpentier are you listening to me stop!” 
She reached the door and open it, 30 seconds left.
“Security, stop her she is not Charpentier she is an imposter!”
The whole facility went into lock down fortunately she had already opened the door before that and step through closing it as the security detail rush the door only to find it lock.
“Control Central open lock 122.34 now, authorization Becket, Alpha, Alpha, Omega.”
By the time Control Central cycled the power to the door and opened it whoever was the imposter, was gone and then the bombs went off destroying the room completely causing the support beams to buckle and the other five stories collapsed. When the explosion happen the door blew out and a ball of fire went down the corridor pushing the security guard that just got the exit door open out 10 feet from the building the right side of his body burnt to the muscle.
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Siegers HQ
Altais, Draconis Combine
March 20th, 2787
0900 GST
Gunnery Malama Maipoina and Gunnery Ramla Rumaliza stayed at attention after their brief to Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Chapman. Matthew sat there looking at the report on his pad tapping his stylus on the table, Malama and Ramla did a side glanced at each other nervous sweat started to form on their foreheads. Not knowing if the silence was good or bad, they stayed at attention. Finally, after what felt like hours but only was five minutes Matthew placed his stylus down and told the two to go at ease. Relaxing just a little bit the two Gunnery Sergeants were still wondering what their commander was thinking about. Finally, Matthew stood up and said.
“Congrats on the mission, you accomplished everything I asked you to do, there has been no signal out of the system, no communications between the planets, and they have not attacked us. 
Our recon shows that the planet government is in disarray and the military is stagnate. That will change of course, and we need to start attacking sites to weaken their forces before they can regroup.”
Matthew moved around his desk and stood face to face with the two.
“I am putting both of you up for the Order of the Sword, of course since I am doing it the medals will be approve my secretary will get with you with timing for the ceremony.”
Matthew then saluted them, a unexpected but honoring gesture when your commanding officer saluted you, both Gunnery Sergeants snapped back to attention and offered the return crisp salute. “Thank you, sir.” They both said together.
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Meanwhile
The planet Merrill was 1.6 AU away from Altair which meant it took a little over 3 days at full speed to reach. Hopefully the HPG and all other communication were down and the Beast of Terra would insert itself into orbit destroying the mining facility from high orbit both from missile batteries and the two squadrons of fighters that will launch in a few minutes.
Lieutenant Commander checked the clock it was time. 
“Navigator prepare for insertion.” She then turned on the internal communication system. “Brown and Purple Squadrons you are cleared to launch remember every building and piece of equipment must be destroyed, give us coordinates for missile support, Phung out.” 
Within thirty minutes the facility was destroyed not one building or piece of equipment was functional, most of the miners were dead the rest will be without environmental support since the atmosphere was toxic. Therefore, Phung sent a K-1 DropShuttle guided by the automatic system with equipment and food stuff to last a few months, by then there should be rescue party. 
Unfortunately, she had elsewhere to be. Another planet with a mining facility, the ore that’s extracted from the planet Cummings was used for the building of the JumpShips with the air toxic the mining facility was mostly underground. Which means that her space marines will have to penetrate the facility set charges to ensure total destruction of the infrastructure. With a six-day travel at top speed her team will be prepared.
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Orbit Insertion 
Planet Cummings 
Altais System, Draconis Combine
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Six Days Later 
The Crew of Beast of Terra was in high spirits, in order to travel to Cummings, they passed the main planet Altair and received word about the successful mission of destroying the HPG. That’s why there were no reinforcements, Phung looked at the schematics of the mining facility that ground penetrating radar was showing now and knew this would be easy for her marines, if there was no resistance. 
The alarm went off, “Commander multiple bogies are leaving the orbital platform and heading this way in attack formation, looks like maybe three squadrons.” Phung weapons officer said.
“Launch all fighters, close all ports, set to condition battle throughout the ship. We must take care of these fighters and the orbital weapons platform that they launch from before we take care of the facility.” Phung announced.
Captain Stewart Brown Squadron Commander and highest-ranking pilot at this moment launched in a Seydiltz and oriented himself toward the weapon platform. “Brown Squadron you are with me, we are to penetrate their defenses and destroy the platform. Purple and Red Squadrons move to CAP position and make sure the enemy fighters are destroyed.”
Purple Squadron moved to the right of Brown Squadron and push forward to engage the enemy; Red Squadron did the same only to the left. With the two squadrons pushing forward and Brown Squadron hanging back the enemy had no choice but to engage the Siegers squadrons, which allowed for Brown Squadron to move against the weapon platform in high orbit. Purple Squadron was short of a commanding officer so Command Sergeant Major Pielgrzym in charge, a 25 year old veteran of the Star League Defense Force, he had turned down multiple attempts at making him an officer. Taking his squadron to the right and at full throttle they engaged the enemy. 
Fighting in space is much different then fighting on a planet with an atmosphere. With no gravity there was no G-force with no G-force also comes the concept of continual motion, meaning that once you go forward at 700kph you will always go 700kph until one of three things, one you hit another spaceship, two you get trap in some kind of gravity interference, or three you turn your ship and fire the thruster. 
That is what him and his squadron did, as they flipped their ships, they fired up their boosters that way they could be right behind the enemy when they pass. Unfortunately, the enemy did the same so that when the 12 ships pass each other they were head-to-head. Laser and missiles shot out there was only time for one maybe two fire solutions before they passed again. At which case each pilot called their target and split the formation up. Red Squadron did almost the same maneuver, but they were heavy fighters therefore had more weapons after Red Squadron and the enemy did their maneuver three of the enemy fighters were destroyed. Meanwhile Brown Squadron was able to get to the orbital platform hitting it while trying not to be hit by the capital weapons it had. Moving in a clock-like motion Brown Squadron moved around the station dodging weapon fire while firing themselves. It was like a dance with multiple partners weaving in and out of lasers and missiles intimately a beautiful partnership as if the whole thing was choreographed perfectly. Within a few minutes most of the weapon bays were destroyed and three of the Brown Squadron were too damage to fight but were slowly drifting away from the battle. The weapon platform started to break up, “Brown Squadron our job is complete, let’s see if the other squadrons need our help.”
Red Squadron moved slowly around the battlefield finishing off their targets only one fighter was damaged enough that it RTB. Purple Squadron due to its light fighters were faster but also more vulnerable, the only fighter left in the battle was the Command Sergeant Major, the rest of his squadron was intact just out of the action and being rescued by SARS.
Lieutenant Commander Phung recalled the fighters so that they could be loaded with bombs in order to take out the AA before the marines go down and penetrate the underground facility. The Beast of Terra entered orbit of the planet, the heavy fighters of Red Squadron were loaded and waiting for the green light for launch. First Lieutenant Engen looked over the overlay of the targets and the topographical layout of the area, everything looked good to go, there was four AA turrets that his five fighters/bombers had to take out without themselves being blown out of the sky. The green light was given, and they launch, the atmosphere was choppy and for a few moments they all lost key instruments, the Lieutenant knew they would be okay.
“Red Squadron continue straight down there are no mountains once we clear the cloud cover, we will re-orient ourselves and then attack.”
The five fighters pushed through the cloud cover only to receive flax from the AA turrets. Still too far away for any effectiveness, Red Squadron systems came back online, and the targets lined up for the bombing run. Some of the flax hit the Lieutenants left wing but he was still operational, but his wing mate took one in the cockpit, causing the fighter to spiral down and blow up on impact of the ground. Now down to four fighters they reached the intended targets two of them were perfect hits blowing them and causing a hole in the ground the other two turrets were damage but still operational.
“Squadron, we will have to circle back and fire our lasers and missiles low flying below their arch, and we should finish this with the next pass”
The fighters move slowly circling the perimeter flying low about 50 meters off the deck. Lining up for the attack run they flew under the AA ability to target them therefore destroying the turrets and then climbing to a higher orbit. The lieutenant called the Beast of Terra to notify them that it was safe for the transports to make their way to the facility.
Captain Ting was sitting in the transport waiting for the call to embark to the planet. Typically, him and his men don’t see much action, but this is the second time that his unit has been put on the front lines, all in space because well they are space marines. This will be different though attacking a facility deep underground. The green light was given, and they launch. 
The five DropShuttles moved out of bay and started their decent to the planet leaving the exosphere the thermosphere was smooth riding, it wasn’t until the craft entered the Mesosphere, where small debris started to hit the ship causing it to rock slightly. The rough turbulence wasn’t until the stratosphere here there were strong solar currents that pushed the small craft back and forth, even entering the last layer of the atmosphere the clouds were so thick, and the winds interference was causing all the systems to malfunction as what was the case with the fighters. The pilots kept on target though and was right on top of the facility when they final emerged from the clouds. The marines dropped onto the only part of the facility on the surface in their protective gear since the atmosphere was toxic and breached it, causing massive decompression within the facility. Unprepared for a breach or enemy troops the personnel inside the facility succumb to lack of air and the toxic air that was moving through the tunnels. This made the job for the marines easier, and they spread out 2 by 2 to set the bombs that will destroy all the equipment. Within 40 minutes all the marines were out of the facility and back on the shuttles without firing a shot. Once the shuttles made it to a safe altitude Captain Ting flip the switch and the whole facility was destroyed the only thing noticeable from the air was a five-mile concave of the earth creating what appear to be a crater.
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Book 2 - 09