Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Battle for Diego-Nine

The hull of the Imperial Sabertooth-class combat dropship rattled violently around Athena. Distinct explosions could be heard through the layers of steel and alloy that made up the aircraft, reflecting the fact that even now, there were many forces at play here trying to bring it down.  

Neither the rattling nor the explosions drew much attention from the passengers in the dropship. Athena didn't make any visible reaction, and the same could be said for the six men she chose to be her bodyguards. They have been in enough situations like this to know that at this point, worrying about their safety was meaningless. If an anti-air missile scored a direct hit on the dropship when its shield was down, no amount of panicking by passengers like them could change their fate. Their lives were in the hands of the dropship pilots now. 

As the combat dropships started descending in altitude, Athena closed her eyes and waited patiently in her seat. She was wearing an Indominated-class power armor given to her when she was promoted to the rank of captain. The power armor had no visible difference from the ones common troopers wore, but it offered much more protection and was equipped with an array of powerful communications devices. This version of power armor also took much longer to put on. It took Athena a while and the help of specialized machines to get into the armor before the deployment. 

Gradually, the sound of explosions started to fade away and the flight pattern of the dropship became a lot more steady. Next to Athena, Johnson, who had his helmet up, turned to Athena.

“Sir, it seems like our fighters have cleared the sky! Say what you will about the entitled bastards in the Navy, but it’s good to have their air support! I’d rather have them in the skies than our own pilots!”

“Hey Johnson! Screw you! The Navy gets the most resources and the best starfighters. Give our aerial corps the same, and they can do even better!” Another veteran trooper, Holt, protested. Athena remembered his files saying that he had a brother serving as a pilot in an aerial unit in the Imperial Army. It was no wonder he had trouble with the comparison Johnson drew. 

Johnson simply grinned at the response. Holt was right. The Imperial Navy often attracted the best pilots in the Imperium with their stellar compensation and benefits. These pilots would then be put into state-of-the-art combat spacecraft that often had shield generators and, occasionally, their own short-range Callisto Engines. A basic Rattlesnake-class starfighter could take a significant amount of punishment before going down. The aerial units of the Imperial Army often only had cheaper atmospheric fighters and bombers that were much slower, less armed, and much more vulnerable to damage. As a result, it should be no surprise that only pilots considered too incompetent for the Navy were attracted to the Army. 

Athena didn't join the conversation, but she was hardly surprised by the success of the Imperial air units. From what she heard, the garrison force on the planet only had S60 Republic starfighters. These starfighters were discount versions of the S71s with a fraction of the araments and agility. They wouldn’t stand much of a chance against Imperial Rattlesnake-class starfighters. 

At this point, she was thankful for how competent the Imperials were with this assault. The stronger they were, the more likely she could get to the ground safely. Of course, there would be a point where the competence of the Imperials would work against her.

There was suddenly an alert in Athena’s armor, and she tapped a key on the interface mounted to her armor.

“Captains.” Colonel Gavin’s voice appeared on the radio inside her Indominated-class power armor. As the head of the regiment, Colonel Gavin obviously wouldn’t be heading to the planet’s surface in a combat dropship like Athena and hoping he wouldn’t be blown up. Like General Pierre, the colonel was currently in the safety of a Raven-class command cruiser in the planet's orbit. “Note that there have been changes to the situation. The Republic garrison forces have abandoned their forts and are heading into the city of Prosperity.”

“Shit! The Republic scums never make things easy for us!” One of the other captains cursed loudly in the comms channel. Urban warfare. This was what they were afraid of the most. 

“Silence, Captain Roger.” Colonel Gavin ordered quietly but sternly, and the captain quickly apologized and kept his mouth shut. The colonel continued. “Our bombers will do their best to intercept the garrison forces. At the same time, the 6th and the 7th Regiments are about to land near Prosperity. The 5th Regiment has been rerouted to a new landing point closer to Prosperity to reinforce the 6th and the 7th. The bombers and artillery support previously prepared for Fort Samsa is also redirected to more important targets.”

Athena nodded. The original plan was that the 3rd, the 4th, and the 5th Infantry Regiments would move upon Fort Samsa at once. Now that Fort Samsa was no longer an issue, the 5th was redeployed to aid the Imperial forces in Prosperity. 

“Our regiment's plan is more or less the same.” Colonel Gavin continued. “After your companies hit the ground, move onto Fort Samsa and take it as soon as you can. The 4th Regiment will still be supporting us. Be warned. The Republic garrison forces may have vacated the forts, but their automatic defenses are likely still armed. Take the fort. After that, based on how the battle is going, it is possible we will be deployed to Prosperity.”

“Good luck captains. For the Imperium.”

“For the Imperium!” The captains repeated in mixed tones. For the Imperium? It was easy for the colonel to say while safely in orbit. For the captains who were heading to the frontline where they could be killed any second, things were obviously a little more...complicated. 

---

The 497th Company landed to the north of Fort Samsa. As soon as the rear door of the combat dropship hissed and opened, Athena and her bodyguards made their way off the dropships. All around them, dozens of combat dropships were unloading the hundreds of troops that belonged to the company. They brought with them a myriad of heavy weapons, from Judicator-class flamethrowers to Eradicator-class heavy machine guns to Vindicator-class RPGs to Decimator-class mortars.

The only thing the company didn't bring with them was their vehicles. There were dropships capable of deploying armored vehicles directly into battle, but it was deemed unnecessary for this mission. If the 3rd Regiment really had to charge into the fortifications of Fort Samsa, their APCs and scout vehicles wouldn’t help them much. 

Athena looked up and saw Rattlesnake-class starfighters and Cobra-class atmospheric fighters patrolling the skies above the landing area. The Imperials have already seized full air control. Most likely, the limited number of air units the Republic garrison had was already completely wiped out. 

The unit quickly jumped into motion. Everyone knew exactly what to do. The battle plan for this particular mission almost couldn’t be any more standard. Most of the unit was made up of veterans, and the few amateur troops who were on the battlefield for the first time and froze in their tracks were quickly woken up by the barking of their officers. Their officers’ fury was enough to get them back to work quite quickly.

“Sir,” As the men under her started preparing for an assault, Athena tapped her comms and addressed Colonel Gavin. “Are there any updates on the situation of our surveillance satellites?”

“They are still being deployed. That’s what my correspondent in the Navy said. From what I heard, our attack group wasn’t assigned the ships designed to rapidly deploy satellites.” The colonel replied. “They won’t be online for days, if not weeks. You will have to make do with the drones.”

“Yes sir.” Athena nodded, doing her best to hide a small smile. She muted herself from the comms and turned to one of the officers in the unit. “Sergeant Riktor! Deploy the surveillance drones!”

Even in the 21st century that Athena came from, military from all over the world has been using drones in combat. That was why it was hardly any surprise when Athena found out that both the Imperium and the Republic frequently used drones in combat for various purposes. Surveillance. Airstrike. Even logistics. The 497th Company had its own drone unit, although the unit was quite small and only had a limited number of surveillance and suicide drones. Anything more sophisticated had to come from the designated drone unit in the 3rd Regiment. 

Within minutes, a trio of surveillance drones was piloted toward Fort Samsa. Their small size made them difficult targets for the base's automated anti-air capabilities. These drones, equipped with various sensors, quickly started locating various potential threats on the ground and fed this information back to their pilots. Automated machine gun turrets. Barbed wires. Bunkers that could potentially hold Republic kill teams. This information was then sent to the Power Armor interfaces of every infantry trooper in the unit, giving them a heads-up about possible threats ahead. 

Equipped with this information, the troopers of the 497th Company started advancing on the fort. Mortar squads readied their munitions and took aim at the automated gun turrets still active on the Republic front. RPG squads moved in trios. Snipers took up positions near high grounds and scanned the Republic's position with their scopes. Infantry riflemen advanced in scattered lines, often organized by different squads and led by their corporals and sergeants. Athena, luckily, no longer had to risk her life and lead the charge. She was an officer after all, and this was an age where commanders led from the back instead of at the front. 

It soon became clear that even with the information provided by the drones, this was hardly a safe mission for the troopers. 

From time to time, there would be an explosion as a landmine, hidden underground and undetected by the drones, went off. Sometimes, the unlucky troopers would be killed on the spot. Other times, the men would be tossed on the ground, their limbs torn off by the explosions. Flying shrapnels often lead to more injuries than the explosion itself. If the landmines were paired with machine gun fire and defensive artillery, they might pose a much greater threat, but the mines themselves could hardly halt the Imperial troopers. Regardless of how brutal the Imperials were, their various policies did drill a level of discipline and resilience into their men that few other militaries could rival. Most of the Imperials ignored their injured comrades and pushed forward. It would take a lot more than a few casualties to break them. 

Automated machine gun turrets, programmed to fire on any intruders, offered some additional resistance against the Imperials. Some of these turrets did catch the Imperials by surprise, but most were easily discovered and destroyed by rockets or mortars. 

Fort Samsa was indeed quite a fortress, but even the best fortress didn't mean much without defenders. If there was a Republic army inside the fortress, they could repel any ground attack from the 3rd Regiment. Then again, if there was a Republic army here, the Imperials would be dropping tons of missiles and bombs on the fortress before any assault, and the assault would likely involve significant armored and infantry units. In this case, despite the minor resistance, the Imperials still pushed into the fortress with ease. 

The 497th Company wasn’t the only unit that breached the defenses. Three other companies cleared three paths into the Republic military base, and the other companies quickly entered the fortress from the routes already cleared. Less than half an hour after the 3rd Regiment hit the ground, Fortress Samsa was completely conquered by the Imperials. 

---

“Sir…yes. Yes. We have entered the fort. I see…yes sir.” 

Athena ended the call with Colonel Gavin and turned back to her bodyguards. 

“Tell the men to take a rest for now. We may need to get back on the move soon when the order comes.”

“Is it Prosperity, sir?” Lee asked quietly. 

“Yes.” Athena nodded and informed her men of what she learned from Colonel Gavin. “The battle for the city isn’t going so well. From what the colonel heard, the Republic garrison is being aided by the local militias and they are fighting hard with the help of the familiar terrain. The 6th and the 7th Regiments are taking quite a beating. The 1st Armored Brigade and two other infantry regiments are being directed into Prosperity…we may need to head there soon too.”

The men looked at each other, many of them obviously looking concerned. No one wanted to fight a war of attrition in urban warfare. Most of them were indeed quite experienced, but ironically it was this experience that made them hesitate. 

“Why don’t we just blockade the city?” Johnson asked curiously. “This city relies on food imports to sustain its population. If we blockade the city and cut off this import, it will only be a matter of time before the garrison surrenders. Why are we throwing lives into the city when we can encircle it?” 

Before Athena could answer, Lee interrupted. 

“This is not our decision to make, Johnson. The higher-ups decided we are storming the city, so that is exactly what we are doing. They obviously know more than we do.”

Athena glanced at Johnson and Lee thoughtfully. It seemed like Johnson was willing to think for himself, a characteristic that was both beneficial and problematic in the Imperial Army. Lee, on the other hand, seemed content with just being a weapon of the Imperium and doing what he was told. It was a piece of information she could potentially use in the future. 

“As Lee said, this is not up to us,” Athena said, taking the side of Lee as a good Imperial officer would. “You are all dismissed for now. Go get some rest when you can.”

The men nodded and left. As they were gone, Athena turned her attention to the fort itself. 

When she first walked by the Republic fortifications and entered the base, she received notification that she unlocked two more terran buildings. The bunker and the missile turret. Unlike the barracks and the factory, these two structures were defensive buildings and couldn’t produce any units. Still, given the high probability of the need to fight off enemy attack forces, Athena was glad she had these assets available to her. 

Athena strolled through the fort by herself. This was where her rank as captain helped her a lot. Most troopers and NCOs she ran into simply saluted her. There wasn’t really any restricted area within the fort that was off-bounds for her. If it was a trooper casually walking around, he might get questioned by an officer, but Athena was one of the highest-ranking officers in the facility. Even other captains wouldn’t stop her and challenge her for no real reason. 

Athena first explored the armory of the Republic fort and achieved nothing in the process. She then took a walk in the garage. There were a number of Republic vehicles left there. Lemma-39 Hostile Terrain Patrol Vehicles. Lemma-91 Armored Personnel Carriers. Athena didn't unlock anything either when she got close to them. Unsurprising, considering she had already unlocked the factory and it was unlikely a few light vehicles could get her to the factory tech lab or the armory. 

She took some time and walked through the entire fort. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to unlock anything else. Shaking her head in disappointment, Athena put some thought into how to use the resources of the planet for her own cause. She first checked the resources she had. 

Minerals: 4,942

Vespene Gas: 3,758

It was quite a small bank. The Imperial casualties during the assault on the base gave Athena a few hundred more units of vespene gas. It was safe to say she could get more vespene gas if her regiment was deployed to Prosperity. Even so, she would need a lot more resources to take on the Imperial forces on the planet, or even in the system, if necessary. She could get vespene gas from Imperial and Republic casualties, but her ways of harvesting minerals were limited. There was no ecosystem on this planet, meaning that the best way for her to harvest minerals was by setting up a terran mining base on the planet’s surface and using SCVs to mine the local mineral reserve. 

The issue was that this base would be discovered by the Imperials sooner or later as the Imperials put their satellites in place and strengthen their control over the mining world. This was unavoidable unless she gave up on harvesting resources on this planet and potentially breaking free of Imperial control. The only thing she could do about it was to build the bases as far from the Imperials as possible and make sure that when they were found, they couldn’t be traced back to her. 

To do that, she had to get a few SCVs out into the wild without anyone knowing. 

Athena considered summoning SCVs now and somehow finding a way to get them out into the wild without anyone noticing, but she ended up concluding that it was way too risky. The fort was crawling with Imperial troopers. Two full regiments of them, in fact. Even if she left the fort and summoned the SCVs in the wild, it would be difficult for her to explain what she, a captain, was doing all the way out there without being ordered to do so. There were so many ways this could go wrong.

As frustrating as it was, she just had to be patient. She waited so many weeks on 9A2-C-8 already. It would be a shame to lose everything just because she moved too quickly now. 

After making up her mind, she turned her attention to the two new defensive structures she unlocked. Much to her surprise, there was a twist to both structures. 

Bunkers were, well, bunkers. In Starcraft 2, bunkers were each worth 100 minerals. They could fit four marines, two marauders, four reapers, or two ghosts and allow the terran infantry units within to fire at the enemies in safety until the bunkers themselves were destroyed. 

However, as Nova explained, there were a few differences between Athena’s bunkers and the bunkers in Starcraft games. For one thing, the bunkers Athena were much larger than the Starcraft bunkers. Athena's bunkers were three levels tall with four gun ports on each level in each direction. Theoretically speaking Athena could fit 48 terran infantry units inside that could fire in all directions at the same time. Each bunker was around twelve meters tall. These bunkers could also fit approximately the same number of infantry units of any kind, given they were actually around the same size. In addition, Athena had the option to connect bunkers to each other with trenches or tunnels and form a bunker network. 

Each of these modified versions of the bunker cost 1,000 minerals. The resource required to connect two bunkers depended on the distance between them. 

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Athena’s missile turrets also received an upgrade when compared to the original ones. In Starcraft 2, missile turrets cost 150 minerals and could rapidly fire missiles at all enemy air units, from lightly-armored fliers like mutalisks and phoenixes to capital ships like battlecruisers and motherships. 

The missile turrets Athena could build obviously couldn’t hit enemy ships in orbit or in space. However, from what Nova explained, they had a target detection range of around 200 kilometers and a similar engagement range. Even more impressively, they could launch surface-to-air missiles at a rate of 1 missile per minute. Like all terran units, there was no limit in their ammo reserve.

Each missile turret cost 1,500 minerals. 

Both unlocks were welcomed by Athena, but it was the missile turrets that made her smile. Air superiority was critical in modern warfare. There were so many advantages given to the side that had complete air control. In this case, once the Imperials had air control, the Republic troops had no choice but to abandon their precious fortifications and take shelter in the city. In her current situation where she had no air units, the missile turrets would help guard her troops against enemy bombers and drones. 

After a few more minutes, she exited the game and returned to the men in her company. 

Another half an hour went by before Athena received orders from Colonel Gavin that they were heading to Prosperity. She secretly suspected the commanders whose forces were currently fighting in Prosperity didn't want the other units to take their achievement, but at one point the casualties were so obscene they had to give in and call for help. 

A single company from the 4th Regiment was left to keep watch over Fort Samsa while the rest of the 4th Regiment and the entirety of the 3rd Regiment were sent on the move. A second round of dropships delivered a number of MSVs and APCs to Fort Samsa, which the Imperials mounted and used to head toward the only direction from which distinct gunshots and explosions could still be heard. Toward Prosperity.  

---

Even when Athena and her men were resting, the mining city of Prosperity had become a brutal meat grinder. 

In the city, things went wrong for the Imperials from the very beginning. When the 6th and the 7th Infantry Regiment, a total of 6,000 Imperial troopers, landed in close proximity to the city and started making their way into the city from the north and the south, they encountered a surprising level of resistance. The local police force and militias, drawn from the civilians who have gone through basic combat training and often had their own firearms and even power armors, put up more of a fight than the Imperial troops expected. These men used every piece of the terrain against the intruding Imperial forces. The Imperials were still advancing into the city, but at a much slower rate than their colonels hoped. 

This bought time for the infantry and armored units of the Republic garrison to return to Prosperity from their forts. Multiple squadrons of Imperial bombers and starfighters were tasked with stopping this from happening, but they were held back by the limited S60 starfighters the Republic deployed from Starport Cinder. The S60s fought fearlessly to protect their ground troops, sacrificing their lives to make sure any Imperial pilot with thoughts of self-preservation would focus on them instead of the Republic forces on the ground. 

As a result, the entire Republic aerial unit was wiped out, but most of the Republic troops and vehicles returned to Prosperity intact. A few eager bomber pilots requested to drop bombs on the city itself, but their request was quickly denied. There were many important infrastructures inside the city whose locations were more or less unknown to the Imperium. Infrastructures that were worth sacrificing thousands of infantry troops to protect if the need arose. 

At this point, the Republic still had more than two-thirds of the city under its control, and they quickly started making the Imperials fight for every inch of territory. The local police force and militias added to the garrison troops. They might not be professional soldiers, but the infamy of the Imperium and the knowledge of what they would do after a victory was enough to make them fight as hard as if they were. 

The Imperials responded in kind. Two more infantry regiments, the 5th Regiment and the 1st Regiment, were redirected to Prosperity. They attacked the Republic position from the east and the west, completely surrounding the city and cutting off any chance of retreat. At the same time, the 1st Armored Brigade reached the city. Soon, Tiger-class heavy tanks and Lictor-class medium tanks started rolling down the streets of the mining city. 

The Imperials outnumbered the Republic forces significantly, but numbers weren't everything. The Republic brought out all its tricks for urban warfare. Multiple buildings were demolished and collapsed on main roads to prevent Imperial tanks and APCs from advancing. Snipers and kill teams hid in civilian buildings and used their cover to ambush Imperial troops. Mines were laid down along the streets. Republic tanks and tank destroyers were deployed to reinforce defensive positions in key city blocks. 

The Imperials, on the other hand, used everything they could use without destroying too much of the city. Bombers and missiles were clearly off limits, so instead the Imperials deployed more precise weapons such as assault and suicide drones. They were coupled with mortars and RPGs. 

Soon, casualties started to rise significantly on both sides as a result of the brutal conflict. The 6th and the 7th Infantry Regiments took so many casualties that they had to be pulled back and replaced by two fresh regiments that just arrived. On the other side, the Republic was arming untrained civilian volunteers and sending them to hold the line. Neither side was actively targeting civilians who stayed in their homes, but even so, thousands died in the crossfire. This was just the reality of modern warfare. Explosives and bullets wouldn't care whether you were a combatant or not. 

When Athena reached the city with the 3rd Regiment, she once again felt infinitely grateful for Corporal Kendrick’s letter of recommendation that got her promoted. Even ignoring all the explosions and gunshots, she could tell how intense the fighting was just from her rapidly jumping vespene gas count. How did the old Athena even survive so many battles as deadly as this one, if not more?

She quickly started deploying her troops into battle in squads and platoons. Once again, the Imperium didn't require their officers to grab a machine gun and fight on the frontline. It was expensive to produce a talented officer. Captains like Athena could stay behind in relative safety. It was the sergeants and corporals and privates that had to fight in the front. 

It didn't take her long before she got a personal experience of how bad things were.

Two minutes in, one of her sergeants was killed by a Republic sniper hiding from the wreckage of a tower. The bullet went right through his face plate and turned his head into a smashed watermelon. Athena had no idea how the sniper knew his rank and picked him out from all his men.  

Five minutes in, one of her platoons was ambushed by two Republic machine gun squads while advancing into a city block. The machine guns were positioned in an L-shaped ambush and mowed down half the platoon in seconds. The remaining troops retreated, regrouped, and then returned with mortars. Unfortunately for them, the machine gun squads were gone already.  

Six minutes in, Athena herself almost got blown up by a Republic assault drone as a part of a Republic counteroffensive. Thankfully, Imperial squads took the drone down with hand-held surface-to-air missiles before it could fire. 

Twelve minutes in, another one of Athena’s platoons, supported by two Lictor-class medium tanks from the 1st Armored Brigade and a Wildcat-class Armored Personnel Carrier, pushed toward an enemy defensive position in a residential complex. They seized the area after minutes of firefight, only to be pushed back by a Republic counterattack that involved one of the few tanks the Republic garrison had left. Two-thirds of the platoon were dead by the time the survivors fell back to a defensive position.  

As Athena received the various reports from her platoons and gave them new orders based on the wider objective given to the 497th Company, she had to admit this was somewhat ironic. 

Lord Vitz, the man who likely started the sector-wide offensive, was absolutely not the one doing the fighting. Members of the Sector Military Command who came up with the major strategies weren’t the ones getting their hands dirty either. Neither was General Pierre or Colonel Gavin. No…anyone who had any say in this battle did so in the comfort of their palaces or ships. It was the troopers and NCOs, the ones who had no choice but to follow orders, that were doing the fighting and the dying. 

Something told her that if the battle was instead a duel to the death between Lord Vitz and the Republic leader who ruled over the Orion Sector, this conflict might never have begun in the first place. Then again, judging from the rumors she heard about Lord Vitz about how much he loved duels…conflicts like this one might have been a lot more often. 

Then again, who was she to judge? She just found all this to be quite interesting.

Gradually, bit by bit, the Republic forces were being decimated. The Imperials had reinforcements to replace their crippled units. Athena’s 497th Company, for example, was pulled back after losing over a third of its number. The Republic forces didn't have that luxury. Even with all the volunteers they could get, their numbers were quickly depleted. City block after city block was lost. Republic armored units were completely wiped out. Soon, most of Prosperity was taken by the Imperials. 

That was when an explosion, louder than any from the skirmishes all around the city, caught Athena’s attention. She turned in the direction of the Republic lines and frowned as she noticed a ball of dark cloud rising up a distance away. This detonation was far from anything the weapons they were permitted to use in the city could generate. It was likely a surface-to-surface or air-to-surface missile. Or maybe some of the bombers that have been patrolling the sky finally decided to get in on the action? 

“Ok…who the fuck did that?” One of the captains, the same one who cursed when he learned the Republic garrison was retreating to Prosperity, shouted into the comms. He wasn’t mad someone finally decided to bomb the Republic position. He was mad that they decided to do it just as the Imperials were about to win after hours of brutal fighting. If they were going to bomb the enemies, why didn't they start with that and make the lives of infantry grunts like them a lot easier? 

This time, Colonel Gavin didn't chastise the captain. He seemed confused as well, and after nearly a minute, he spoke up in the comms.

“I…I don’t think it’s one of ours…”

There was a moment of silence in the comms, and Athena turned in the direction of the giant explosion. If it wasn’t the work of the Imperials, then…

---

Twenty minutes ago. 

Colonel Ryker looked down on a paper map of Prosperity. He had re-established his headquarters in the city hall located in the center of Prosperity. The area near the city hall included various storage areas and logistic centers. They also held most of the mining equipment in the city. These expensive and advanced equipment belonged to the Milton Mining Corporation and were only rented to the miners for a daily fee. When they weren’t used, they were stored in the city center under lock and key. 

All around him, officers worked to give him critical information as quickly as possible so he could make informed decisions. Even as the end was upon them, these brave men and women remained at their posts, as professional as ever. Colonel Ryker was proud of them, just like how he was proud of the pilots who gave their lives to cover their retreat and the troopers, militias, and civilian volunteers currently fighting against the Imperial invaders.

Yet the reality was that this wasn’t one of those fairy tales where the good guys would always win the end against all odds. There would be no magical help who would get them out of trouble. They were bound to be defeated, and the harder they fought now, the more brutal the Imperials would be after their inevitable win.

Even now, the situation was turning more and more against his men. His squads were desperately asking for reinforcements, but he had none to give. He was running out of everything. Men. Vehicles. Munition. Space. Time. Everything. 

“Sir,” One of the younger officers, the same one who questioned why they would abandon Fort Samsa, walked up to Colonel Ryker. “We have used the detonation charges and brought down another building on 23rd street. This should stop the Imperial armored columns on that flank for a while.” 

“Well done.” Colonel Ryker nodded gently. He looked up and saw the young officer’s face was pale. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just that…it was a residential building, sir.” The officer sighed. “The families in that building protested when we tried to evacuate them. Due to time constraints, we had to remove them from their homes by force. They were...not too happy.“

“This is a small price to pay for democracy, lieutenant.” Colonel Ryker said quietly. He stayed silent as his eyes were trained on the map. Their defeat was inevitable. The only question was how much they could do before that.

“Do you consider yourself a patriot, lieutenant?” He suddenly asked. 

“Sir?”

“Are you willing to do what has to be done in the defense of our nation? In the defense of its people?” Colonel Ryker repeated. “I have read your files, lieutenant. Your parents were both soldiers who died fighting against the Venya Imperium. Are you willing to do what has to be done?”

“I…yes sir.” The lieutenant replied forcefully. “I am.”

“Then listen to me carefully, lieutenant. I have something to ask of you, but first, you have to understand that it must be done.” The colonel continued, his voice low. It was obvious he was conflicted inside even as he spoke these words.

“The Imperials want this planet for a reason. They are not using heavy ordinances in the city for a reason. They need Prosperity intact for their mining output. They want to use our people to mine resources on our planet and use these resources, our resources, to build their warships.”

“We can’t stop that from happening, but there are things we can do to make things as difficult as possible for the Imperials.”

“We still have a number of detonation charges and other explosives available. I want you to take a squad and set them up at all the important infrastructures still under our control. The food storage. The Mining Corps warehouse. The freshwater tanks. The energy reactors. Everything that the Imperials will use is something we will blow up. Even if they do take this world, they will get nothing but scorched earth.”

“Sir,” The officer froze at the order. At this point, he was more terrified than he was when the Imperials first invaded. “If we do this, our own people will pay the price for it! The Imperials likely have their own logistics chain. It is our people that will starve and thirst and freeze to death. I understand destroying the mining equipment, but the others…”

The young man paused as he saw the stoic look on his colonel’s face. The colonel knew exactly what would happen, and what the young man saw as an unfortunate side effect was the intended goal of the colonel.

“It will only be a matter of time before the Imperial transports bring in the mining infrastructures needed to put the miners back to work. It will be expensive, but it can be done. Destroying the equipment can only delay them for so long.” The colonel said quietly. “However, if they have to bring in new miners and mining experts…it will take them much longer. It means a lot fewer warships they can produce. It means a lot fewer Republic soldiers and civilians that will die in the future.”

“It’s our own people, sir!”

“They are our own people now, but soon they will become part of the Imperial workforce, whether they want to or not.” Colonel Ryker simply stated. “If it makes you feel better, you are just doing what a good soldier does. You are just following orders. I am the one who issued this command, and if there is a burden to bear, it will be my burden.”

The lieutenant nodded slowly. He saluted the colonel one last time before turning and leaving the makeshift command center.

Fifteen minutes later, an explosion rocked the city of Prosperity. 

---

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