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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/The_Fallen_1 on 2024-09-14 19:00:55+00:00.
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“Please tell me you don’t need us to hit another?” Daniel grumbled as he took a moment to rest and check on his ammo situation, finding it to be less than ideal.
“No, that was the last one we wanted your help with,” Affinity replied as her and Quentellia’s forces brought down another anti-ship battery that Daniel had given up counting. “The rest will be more or less dealt with by the time you arrive.”
“Good. Take a breather, team,” Daniel told the Shadow Wolves as they all began to lay down in the abandoned office they were hiding in. “Affinity, what’s the next target?”
“The Leshnat-trevarn are working to restore the planet’s main shield generators, and have been for a while. I can’t track their progress very easily, so I can’t say how long it will take them exactly, but I suspect it’s going to happen within the next hour or so,” Affinity explained.
“What happens if it goes back up?”
“It slows everything down as we can’t drop more drones in, nor can we call in heavy strikes. We have what we need planet side to secure victory, but I’d really like to avoid dragging this out for weeks because of the civilians we’re essentially trapping underground.”
“Fair enough. So what do you need us to do?”
“I need you to go to the nearest generator and find out where the main command centre is. Once you have, then you need to go there and find out how to power down the generators fully. Once that’s happened, I can bombard them to destroy them.”
“Sounds simple enough. How many problems do you think are going to crop up during this?”
“Well, I don’t think either of us know how to track the location of the command centre nor how to power the generators down, so I’m guessing at least two.”
“Can’t we just knock the rest of the power generators out?”
“Not all of them have exposed portions like the one you hit earlier. If it goes back up, I could do that to try and drop it back down to where it is now, but they’re not drawing full power and won’t be affected by losing all of the vulnerable generators, as they can just switch to the secure ones, which they very well could do now and stop me from doing that in the first place.”
“Then why run them off the above ground generators in the first place?”
“I suspect the underground ones are likely more expensive to run or something, so they ran the above ground ones with the intention of switching to the underground ones if an attack actually started, but you kinda bricked all their systems, so….”
“How’s that going by the way?”
“Oh, you broke basically everything,” she began to laugh. “Two clans have surrendered because of it, and another four have requested ceasefires for diplomatic talks. Almost all travel within the Empire has ceased, all the planets are almost completely isolated, and nobody is responding to our attacks in other systems. If anyone does figure out how to resolve the problems you’ve caused, it’s probably going to take weeks, if not months for the solution to spread to the whole Empire, let alone them actually implementing it.”
“… They were really one simple cyberattack away from falling apart?” Daniel asked in disbelief.
“Some of them, but in their eyes, this wasn’t simple. It is the largest and most damaging cyberattack they have ever faced… somehow. Don’t forget that they didn’t expect us to be able to write code for their computers anytime soon either, not that that excuses their terrible defences,” Affinity pointed out. “It almost makes me wonder if I should have attempted to gain approval for cyber offensive operations instead of sticking purely to making sure I couldn’t be compromised.”
“That would have made Command very scared, so it’s for the best that you didn’t,” he replied as he got to his feet. “Anyway, break’s over. Let’s get this shield situation sorted so there’s nothing left to slow you down.”
“Yes, Sir,” his team wearily replied as they all prepared themselves to move.
“I’m calling this now, Affinity. We’re extracting once the shield is sorted,” Daniel warned her, realising just how big the gap in endurance was between Humans and Shadow Wolves.
“Understood. We should be able to deal with everything else effectively with less risk to our ships and no concern about them shutting us out.”
“What’s the deal with this planet being a problem compared to the previous ones anyway?” he asked as he rechecked his gear.
“It’s the first fortress world with civilians on it. It’s probably going to get more common as we enter the core. They rarely seem to terraform planets, so people seem to just go where it’s survivable. Every other fortress world we’ve encountered has been towards the edge of the Empire where there’s less people, and they also been less developed and fortified.”
“Right, so more of this going forward then,” he concluded as he prepared to leave.
“Most likely,” she agreed.
“Alright, move out,” Daniel ordered as they assumed their smoke forms and made a start towards the marked objective.
It didn’t take long for the team to spot their target in the distance; a faint dome of dull light nestled between a number of skyscrapers willed with apartments. As they approached, they began to see heavier and heavier formations of troops forming a strong defensive perimeter around the shield generator, who were waiting with weapons ready for a force that wasn’t heading towards them. Daniel and his team simply bypassed them and continued to draw closer to the shield. Upon reaching the edge, they slipped into the ground and drifted under it, appearing on the other side.
Including visibly.
“Into the ground, now!” Daniel quickly reacted, praying that no one had noticed the sudden appearance of the clouds of black smoke.
“What was that!? Have they found a counter to our cloaks!?” Sergeant Mrrkur growled.
“I’m detecting unstable EM waves being generated by the shield. It’s likely making a constant minor EMP effect, which could in theory disrupt our cloak generators without affecting our less sensitive equipment,” Lieutenant Felkira explained.
“Right. Ok, I’m going to send you all back. This is likely to end in a full on engagement, and you’re too tired,” Daniel told them.
“But, Sir-” they all tried to protest.
“I know how tired you all actually are, and if this results in a fire fight, that could be the reason you die.”
“We have stims,” Felkira pointed out. “It may not be a proper rest, but we’re more than capable.”
“… If anyone wants to go, then go. I’ll make my decision based on who’s left,” Daniel replied, waiting in silence for a moment. “… Fine, but if you start getting too tired, pull out. Affinity, I just need to confirm something. Can the defenders enter the shield?”
“No,” she confirmed. “Like normal shields, they are one way, and there are also no breaks in it that would allow someone to enter. There may be an underground entrance, but given I can’t detect anything even with active scans, it’s going to be deep and small if it exists, and certainly not something that can be used to bring reinforcements in. If they try to get help, they need to drop it, at which point I will destroy it with a precision strike, along with their forces once they are out of proximity to the civilian bunkers.”
“Good. We only have to deal with what’s in the facility then,” he concluded. “Alright, team, let’s move.”
They remained underground to mask their approach, relying on their power armours’ slightly distorted passive sensors to see what was around them. It didn’t take them long to find another defensive line, but it was thankfully minimal and almost entirely composed of basic infantry. Once they reached the emitter, they headed deeper into the ground and entered a bunker, finding panicked soldiers standing guard, but no sign of anyone attempting to restore the shield. They also quickly found that the walls and floors were too thin to fully conceal their smoke forms, so they were forced to remain inside the ceiling as they continued to get a better layout of the facility.
“Ok, let’s go over this very quickly,” Daniel began to tell his team. “We’ve mapped the first two floors with our scans and found nothing of interest, meaning what we want is likely deeper, beyond what we can scan without being detected. Many security systems don’t seem to be receiving power, but some are like the camera network, so remain aware of them. Guards are always in groups of at least four, which doesn’t play well with splitting the team up. Corridors are narrow and laid out to be easy to watch, so it’s going to be extremely difficult to approach guards unseen, and we can’t easily circumvent them. Our options are to either fight our way down or to use the thick walls to see if we can find something of value near them lower down.”
“I say we fight,” Lieutenant Commander Revven replied. “That has the chance of getting them to lower the shield so Affinity can destroy it.”
“That is not the objective though. We need to trace the connection back to the central command of this thing,” Daniel pointed out.
"I say we…
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