For the target location it was into the darkest and earliest hours of the morning, roughly the equivalent of 2 AM on Earth. While the orbital port overhead was always cycling some kind of traffic at all hours, the surface port of Pallas had operating times and thus had cycled over to a lower state management. Mostly scattered crews doing some kind of maintenance and others preparing for the morning's operations of receiving supply ships loaded with the material goods the agricultural world needed and then sending them back up laden with produce and meat. One vessel however sat outside of this norm of operations, the long haul freighter Scion of the Stars. Fresh from the Earth system with a cargo of sentient beings, some destined for the crucible and others for more political ends, it had been forced to land after a drive misalignment that couldn't be repaired in orbit. So it had sat for nearly a week out on the tarmac as crews peeled apart its inner workings, a squad of Interior troops keeping the more curious away from the humans of the sex planet that remained in it's hold.

What none knew was the drive failure had been arranged, a small line of code inserted by an AI before the vessel broke orbit over Earth. A narrow band FTL COM burst from a transmitter in the Rockies had informed an interested party of where and when the vessel would be sidelined and as the planet's two moons made their transitions across the night sky the long boring night exploded into light…

—

“Pecos Flight, Starbase Actual, you are a go, I repeat you are a go. Starbase Out”

For Pecos flight, specifically Raider 406 and Raider 407, who’d spent the last thirty minutes hovering over a desolate stretch of undeveloped land three hundred miles to the north. The call down order broke the simple monotony of doing figure eight tracks to reduce fuel loss. Both had been following the battle overhead, either as their electronic warfare gear pulled Shil transmissions out of the void or as their own datalinks displayed the steadily progressing battle overhead.

Of course that wasn’t their tasking, while both carried a pair of infrared and radar homing missiles for self defense their underslung racks were laden with ordinance for air to mud. Something which both Marine aviators relished after eight months of bullying IMPAT vessels, this time they’d get to hit the Shil boots-on-the-ground direct.

Both craft dropped down to two hundred and fifty feet AGL and laid on the throttle, Raider 407 holding a hundred yards off of 406’s port wing as both raced over the countryside at eight-hundred knots. More than once a collection of buildings or a singular ranch house would pass under, both pilots wondering what their occupants would be thinking as the roar of their engines came and went in the time it took to blink.

Both pilots relaxed into their seats, the Shrike didn’t like the idea of flying into the ground anymore than they did and their analog AIs continued to carry out their semi-automated low level flight. 406 looked over at the data-link, the drone his fellow Jarheads had put up had increased it’s altitude and was now looking into the nearby settlement. A singular four lane road with a side riding monorail linked it with the spaceport and a company of Imperial Morskies, the Imperium’s conscripts that called themselves marines. They would be bad news for the platoon of shooters in the space port if they could get organized and mounted.

God… his fellow Jarheads… the former USAF Major was still wrapping his head around his situation, of course he hadn’t turned down the offer that had been presented in that dingy bar somewhere in Oklahoma. A chance at revenge for his deceased airwing, something more than the B83 his F-16 had dropped on the Shil, the attack they’d traded themselves to carry out, in western Kansas. Now little more than a year after that little sit down in a bar and thirteen years since the invasion he was in a no-shit starfighter screaming along over the ground of an alien world… a Shil world.

He reached down and flicked up the master arm switch, still a mechanical safety rather than an electronic one he could simply move with his mind, the physical action of it felt almost gratifying.

“Raider 406, master arm on.” He said, waiting a moment before his wingman followed up.

“Raider 407, master arm on, getting some EM coming up from the target area, think their laser net is up?”

406 grinned underneath his mask, “With the hell the Navy is raising overhead? That's a sound bet.”

He flicked a status screen, he had two AGM-67 Lance air to surface missiles hanging under the right side of his Shrike. Nasty little hypersonic things with more ablative than warhead, they sought out the unique emissions of Imperial air and space defense sites. In this case if the EM signatures were right a pair of laser defense batteries on the southside of the settlement, bad news for them.

“Come right to 250 degrees, orient on threat.” 406 said as he fed targeting information into the pair of AGMs.

“Rodge, coming right, 250, EM is clearer now, looks like a SL-50 site.” 407 responded, moving in time with his flight lead, he had the EWAR pod that was now sniffing at the search and track signatures they still didn’t quite have line of sight on.

“407, hold flight level.”

“406, Rodger.”

The data link had already given enough on distance and direction, the Lance was smart enough to figure out the rest. 406 pulled back on the stick and felt the Gs suck him into the seat, there was some inertial dampening but mankind had figured out long ago the human body didn’t like the movement without some kind of pushback. So 406 felt it, sucking in air as he went forty-five degrees nose up, eyes looking over to see the seeker heads picking up the emissions and going from red to a vicious looking green.

“406, Magnum, SL-50.” He called over the COMs as he pickled off both birds, feeling the Shrike jerk with both releases before he rolled to drop back down to the deck.

-

For the Imperial Morskie Captain in charge of the SL-50 site, the last hour had been both heartbreaking and enraging, she was effectively impotent. Neither of the pair of laser projectors had enough power to strike any of the marauding craft overhead, having been designed to target lighter craft in atmosphere and having been sighted to protect both the port and the settlement from any would be piracy. It meant she could only lean over the console of her command’s sole male and listen to the cries from overhead as icons dropped off one by one.

He was just as pale as she was, wondering what it all meant. Another flash overhead and the radiological alarm chirped and another icon, this one for a patrol carrier, went dark.

“A-are they pirates?” He finally managed with a shaky tone, looking up at her.

She met his gaze, but couldn’t bring herself to words. Pirates would have snatched a few freighters while the rest distracted Patrol. Whoever this was had nuked the anchorage as their opening move and had been systematically destroying anything else near the planet. Part of her wondered when the bombardments would begin….. Then a shrill alarm caught everyone’s attention, the fear draining off as training kicked in.

The small male immediately changed the focus of the Onmi console. “T-track, rapid ascent, vehicle type isn’t in the system.. wait.. separations, it’s launched something! They’re accelerating! We have ballistic inbounds!”

The Captain turned the key in the console, the hardware block lifted and the trio of laser turrets outside of the command van rotated and illuminated the pair of inbounds. She was very aware of a timer on the screen, thirty seconds until they’d reach her site.

-

The AGM-67 Lance was a two stage weapon, the rear half a solid fuel booster and the upper stage, where the guidance package and warhead rode, was propelled by a laser ‘burn’ solid fusion fuel candle. The first ignited a few seconds after both had separated from their carrier aircraft, the second followed a moment later. After five seconds both were going nearly 7,000 knots as they oriented down toward their target, a pair of bright white comets literally making the air around them scream. Designed primarily to counter the proliferation of laser based air defense, its creators intending it to simply close faster than the reaction time of any given air or space defense site. Of course, their method meant they were functionally blind on the terminal part of the flight, their plasma shockwave meaning any EM simply wouldn’t reach their receivers. Both simply heading for a targeted set of coordinates programmed into them by their launch vehicle.

-

She could see the infrared beams of her trio of laser projectors reaching through the night sky, the humidity was just right for it. She didn’t know why she’d stepped out, probably just the fact she wanted to see what could be her death with her own eyes. The system was automated anyways, the fire control officer still calling out data about the tracks in his frantic voice. She could see them now, two white blobs that seemed to be still but she knew that was because they were heading for her.

One suddenly grew brighter and then scattered into what seemed to be a shower of sparks.

“We got one! Focusing on the second!”

She could hear the excitement in his voice… if they could just… no.. it was too close, quietly she closed her eyes and bowed her head, letting out a prayer to her patron goddess.

-

While the forward section of the missile was all but ablative for both its flight profile and the resulting thermal stresses being the focus of three Imperial laser projectors proved simply too much for the lead bird. Its structure stressed under the combined heat of flight and laser heating and the sudden change and profile caused it to tear itself apart. It did however mask the second with its remains as they fogged both the Shil’vati’s radar and optical track systems with the thermal bloom of its remains.

The second reached a point five hundred feet over the site four seconds later, its tactical fusion warhead initiated a nano-second later and the entire site and everything within a half a mile was obliterated in a two-point-five kiloton flash of light.

Despite being positioned several miles distant, the blast still shattered windows and woke the whole settlement, some staring in horror as the fireball rose to their east and the sounds of heavy weapons fire from the port drifted on the air.

-

The radiological alarm flashed across his HUD for a moment before the EM signature over the horizon dropped off.

“407, they’re off the air.”

“Confirmed, two minutes to primary.” He checked his systems again, green lights flickered back at him, sighing he settled in again, a moment of respite before things got exciting again.

Both Shrikes held at two-hundred and fifty AGL, shooting due south and passing directly over the embattled space port as the lead pilot watched the distance tick off. The timer finally ticked down to zero as they reached a point five miles from the target.

“407 pop up on me.” The lead pilot said as he pulled back on the stick, 407 widened his distance and followed the maneuver as both aircraft unmasked themselves to a city of nearly a hundred thousand.

Below them the combined alarm signals from the spaceport along with the small nuclear airburst had unleashed pandemonium in the streets. The combined roar of their own closed cycle thermonuclear turbojets only increased the madness. Laser light, mostly from handheld devices, lanced up into the sky, illuminated by the higher than normal humidity in the air. Their targets, which had been in a state of slumber, were now swarming like ant colonies.

Near the center of the city stood transit barracks for Imperial Morskies, the surface time a sought after luxury for those stuck aboard ship as part of a security contingent. The governess enjoyed the resulting credits to her modest backwater as a result of the cyclic visits. For the strike team of UAS Marines it represented a reinforcement element that could undo the entire operation if it was allowed to organize and march up the road a short ten miles.

The computer automatically networked between both fighter attack craft, deconflicting targets and giving 406 a low tone that indicated his four glide bombs had been fed their data package. He selected them on the screen and then pulled the trigger on his HOTAS, feeling as all four released in a quick sequence.

“406 Pickle, clean separation.”

“407 Pickle, clean separation”

Glancing to port of his fighter he watched the gray shapes drop free of his wingman.

“407 come right seven-five degrees, egress!”

“Rodger! Coming right seven-five!”

Both strike fighters dropped back down to the deck and turned north-east, 406 pulled up the feed from the drone to watch their ordinance land.

-

All eight LGG-152 glide bombs went live the moment they left their racks, their wings deploying and their forward looking visual and thermal cameras scanning the terrain and lining it up on the inertial points their guidance systems had been supplied. The formation broke up into two groups, one of three and one of five; both had a singular member with a submunition payload.

The larger group was targeted on the garrison complex, the munitions dividing themselves up between the largest building and a few outlying ones. Having no idea of the havoc their carrier aircraft had caused, nor that the open ground inside the perimeter was full of Imperial Morskies frantically mustering to units and vehicles. The dark gray shapes of the precision guided munitions were practically invisible against the night sky as the first group fell on their targets.

Two struck the large squat main building directly in the center of the structure, their two-hundred and fifty pound warheads detonating a moment later on delayed fuses and opening the structure with a force akin to a thousand pounds of TNT each. These first two hits effectively decapitated the garrison as most of the command staff were killed instantly. A heartbeat later the other two fell on the separate structures, their hardened frames punching through the roofs and detonating inside. The tactical shuttles and gunships alongside the APCs that were stored in and around these locations that dozens were desperately trying to get outside were obliterated by the twin explosions. Sympathetic secondary blasts adding electric blue fire to a night sky already filled with angry orange light.

The final bomb jerked upward above the base at roughly one hundred feet having come in last, splitting down the middle as it jettisoned dozens of grenade sized submunitions that sparked across the open ground. Hundreds of screams joined the thunderous blasts and the roar of three burning buildings.

The remaining three were oblivious to the conflagration their brothers had caused, their target was further to the south and they flew on. The first struck the main militia compound for the territory dead center, penetrating and detonating in the middle of the second floor. The second of the group landed in the middle of the militia’s vehicle park, it’s blast followed by a myriad of secondary explosions as it threw lighter vehicles hundreds of yards. The third finally came in at two-hundred feet, opening up and sprinkling its small dual-purpose munitions across the entire compound damaging or destroying anything the first two had missed on the outside.

-

Raider 406 closed out the link, hell he could see the glow on the horizon as they slipped through the shallow valleys and over hills that made up the local terrain, their path rounding back toward the spaceport.

“Starbase, Raider 406, Confirmed good effect on target, requesting instructions, over.”

“Pecos Flight, Starbase, you have times-six stratospheric inbounds on your area, I repeat you have times six stratospheric inbounds on your area, currently crossing through five-hundred thousand feet. Vectoring assets to support but suggest you turn into the threat, Starbase Out.”

Oh 406’s HUD six new contacts appeared to the south, of course their vectors and velocities were high as they decelerated into the atmosphere. A patrol returning to chaos and opting for the nearest cry for help?

“407, hostile air, vector… one-eight-zero.. Come right, let's get the first punch in.”

“Rodger 406, coming right, one-eight-zero.”

Both Shrikes flipped around quickly as flight lead and then wingman throttled up and began to climb, their noses oriented on the threat axis.