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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Spooker0 on 2024-11-04 15:05:18+00:00.

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Atlas Naval Command, Luna

POV: Amelia Waters, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Fleet Admiral)

“The districts’ air forces are requesting that we help them deconflict their targeting,” Samantha reported as tens of thousands of atmospheric jets took off to continue their sorties against the enemy landers, the last of which were still in the process of entering the atmosphere.

Amelia nodded. “Give the districts full access to tactical computing. Squadrons 9 and 10 can take care of the orbits on their own for now.”

She watched through a ground observation satellite as it tracked another squadron of jet fighters taking off from one of the airbases in District 31.

Following her eyes, Samantha took a few seconds to recognize what she was looking at. She let out a short gasp of awe. “Woah, legacy mid-century tailed fighters! I didn’t know those were still in service.”

Amelia nodded, not taking her eyes off the screen. “Yup, Block 60 F-35As. I saw one of those at an airshow on a field trip to Terra when I was ten.”

“When you were ten?! Remind me, how long ago was—” Samantha teased.

“Some South American districts bought them second-hand and third-hand for cheap when they were replaced by seventh generation combat jets.”

“I’m surprised they can still take off, much less fight,” Samantha said, wide-eyed in amazement as one of the elderly jets activated its afterburner, turning its engine trails an reddish-orange hue as it entered a steep climb.

Amelia shrugged. “They launch air-to-suborbitals just fine, and they probably have an eighty-year-old down there whose sole job is to make sure the only remaining Link-40 comms controller in their district still works.”

As they watched, the atmospheric fighters began their ascent to 15,000 meters above sea level, then pitching up and launching their payloads at a pair of descending orbital troop transports.

A few minutes later, their munitions found their targets, the released shrapnel trashing the orbital shuttle’s engines and ripping thousands of bird-sized holes into their hulls; the dying Znosian transports tore themselves apart in the atmosphere, their pieces tumbling towards the Pacific Ocean below.

“How are the other districts doing?” she asked, finally taking her eyes off the spectacular display.

“Most of them have managed to mount effective independent defenses against the incoming shuttles.” Samantha frowned. “Some of the districts have apparently hidden far more anti-suborbital missile batteries than they were supposed to keep under the terms of the Treaty of Atlas. And some of these supposedly-suborbital missiles sure seem like they have a lot more delta-V in them than they are officially rated for. In particular, Districts 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9—”

“Alright, alright. I don’t need your help counting to thirty… We’ll let the Republic Senate slap their wrists later,” Amelia said dryly. “Not everyone down there got the message that the two-percent district GDP defense budget line was supposed to be a soft upper-bound, not a minimum requirement.”

A few minutes later, Samantha’s head snapped up from her screen. “Admiral, we’ve located concentrations of them — a few Znosian Marine divisions that have landed — they are organizing to attack in force—”

“Where?”

“District 57. Looks like they’re going for… Damascus?”

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District 57, Terra

POV: Charles Meyer, Terran Republic District 3 Air Force (Rank: Captain)

Capt. Meyer involuntarily ducked his head as he saw something buzz his aircraft from above in his helmet interface. “God dammit,” he yelled at his copilot. “Tell those Egyptians to ascend to Angels 8!”

“They can’t, sir! There’s a massive traffic jam above us. We’ve got flyers from a dozen districts stacked up every thousand feet from Angels 6 to 40. Everyone’s trying to get in the AO!”

“Is there even going to be anything left for us to shoot by the time this whale gets there?” he complained.

His copilot’s face lit up in a psychotic smile. “Oh yeah, did you see the drone and orbital imagery? The aliens are piled up going north on the Syrian M5. Their convoy’s forty-five miles long, two lanes wide, and the wild weasels just took out their last short-range ack-acks. It’s dinner time.”

“Alright, tell the guys back there to prep the one-five-five.”

“Can’t we go any faster than this?”

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POV: Abram Stuart, Terran Republic District 3 Air Force (Rank: Staff Sergeant)

As the head of the target convoy appeared over the horizon in the distance, it became apparent to the AV-281’s primary gunner that they hadn’t brought nearly enough ammunition. The enemies and their armored vehicles stretched far beyond what the eye could see.

Someone else had already begun working on them. All that was left of the first few kilometers of vehicles were their charred metallic remains. With their own vehicles stuck behind them for another few dozen kilometers, panic among the alien vehicle crews was apparently setting in as they began to realize they were under heavy air attack.

As their aircraft approached the head of the column, an errant artillery shell whistled by, barely missing them to detonate a few hundred meters above one of the sections of convoy still apparently operational.

Bang. Pffsssssssss.

It released a cloud of bright white smoke, raining thousands of pieces of ignited incendiary submunitions on the Bun vehicles below like a bundle of shooting stars. A few of the speckles landed on a Longclaw, melting straight through its thick metal hull in seconds.

“What was that one?” the copilot muttered into the headset.

The pilot coughed twice and remarked sarcastically as he pointed to the afternoon sun, “Illumination shell. What the hell do you think?!” As he spoke, another of the enemy vehicles on the ground started to shoot autocannon tracers towards their AV-281, but they weren’t even getting close.

“Twenty-three mike-mike?” the copilot asked calmly, watching the rounds fall just short of the tiltrotor’s low flight altitude.

“Probably some alien equivalent. I’m surprised the air superiority jets even left them for us.”

“Sweet, sweet, pro-rated combat pay.”

One of the brainiacs back at base had suggested that maybe the low-altitude gunships should be held back at least until night-time, but that would have been way too late. Luckily, he’d been overruled by the tactical computers upstairs.

Abram yelled into his headset from the primary weapon station, “Get me an angle! I can’t hit the aliens from here!”

“Give me a minute. I’ll put us into a pylon turn,” the pilot’s calm voice came back from the cockpit.

“Marking reference point on the convoy.”

“I see it. I see it. Relax.”

Half a minute later, the tiltrotor aircraft banked on a wide radius turn, pointing the guns on its left side conveniently towards the enemies on the highway. “Confirmed no friendlies on the ground in the AO. Weapons free. Gunners, clear to engage anything with big fluffy ears down—”

“Two and three armed.”

“Gun ready!”

“Round away.”

Booom.

The main gun in the back barked, sending a 155mm plasma shell right into the hull of the Znosian vehicle still futilely shooting up at them. The aircraft shook violently as the round exited, and the plane’s anti-recoil system kicked in to keep itself on track. As the gunner peered down into the stabilized thermal optic, the target brewed up into a massive fireball, exploding its six-barrel turret into the desert sky.

“Direct. Oh-ho-ho, watch it go!”

Abram idly watched one of the burning Znosian crewman fall out of their now empty cupola with satisfaction before selecting a new target. Some of the personnel carriers below had unloaded their infantry. The specks of white-hot thermal targets scattered, booking it away from their ground transports in every direction. As he contemplated which of them to hit, the 50mm chaingun next to him started sending rounds down range at half-second intervals.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

The secondary gunner reported calmly, “I’ve got the squirters.”

“Yeah, you do,” he chuckled, watching the smaller explosions follow and then catch one of the runners — hoppers, whatever — tossing the remnants of their lifeless body high up into the air with a near-direct impact. To reduce incidences of post-traumatic stress, the gunship’s computers were supposed to blur out the horrific gore in real time and replace the imagery with something less likely to give them nightmares, but the obsolescent mid-21st century software wasn’t working well with the alien figures on the screen at all. Abram overrode the series of half-hearted warnings it spat out about the smaller-than-adult-human figures on screen with an absentminded stab of a finger.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The main autoloader quickly stuffed a new plasma round into the breech and then rammed two large white bags of propellant charges right behind the shell. His robotic loader took ha…

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