“Really, I was an officer in the Alliance Fleet. These ships are Mulac cruisers, heavily armoured and filled with landing craft. We came across one on a routine patrol back before the Fall. One of the cruisers can carry hundreds of warriors and their gear. Trust me, if they are here, then they intend on putting ground forces somewhere.”
“Assuming they haven’t already,” added Xenophon.
As they watched the display, the Mulac ships powered up to escape. A volley of gunfire rippled along the flank of the Median battleship, but the Mulacs were already rushing away. Close behind them followed half a dozen Terran cruisers. In seconds, the orbit of Cappadocia was deserted of all but the Terran ships and the single Median warship. The Dekarchos was already on his communication unit, presumably to pass on the information from Roxana. It took only a few seconds before he lowered the unit and stepped towards her.
“Good work, stratiotes, that’s the kind of specialist knowledge we need in hostile territory like this. The Medes, the Mulacs, none of them can match the skills we have in this fleet.”
Roxana nodded politely and looked back to her comrades. She smiled, almost embarrassed at the attention. Something must have occurred to her, as her expression quickly changed.
“If these are Mulacs, they will be looking for loot and slaves. We will have to act fast to stop them.”
Dekarchos Maxentius stepped towards them and started to speak but was interrupted on his communication device. He stopped for a moment and turned to the projector unit. The map had changed to show the planet in more detail. He replied with an acknowledgement and then looked to his group.
“This is it, grab your gear. Briefing will take place on the dromon.”
*
* *
From the command deck of the LLS Valediction, Strategos Clearchus and Lord Cyrus had a perfect view of the planet below. The Virtual Observation System could confuse an unwary officer into feeling they were actually outside the ship, if only for the briefest of moments. The other planets in the system were much too small to be seen this way, as they were hundreds of thousands of kilometres away. Below their feet moved a swarm of dromons blasting away from the ships and making their way down to the surface. As each craft entered the atmosphere, it created what looked like a fireball that transformed into a smoke trail down to the surface. Smaller escort fighters followed them down, each craft bearing the double stripes of the expedition. It was an impressive sight, even to an old veteran like Clearchus. His attention wasn’t on the ships making their way to the surface. It was to the wretched weasel of a man on the main screen.
“Thank you for your assistance,” said a smooth, almost silky voice.
Clearchus looked at the image of the governor of this area with distaste. Satrap Tissaphernes was everything that he despised about the Medians. He was thin, much too thin, and had the soft skin of a man that had never needed to do a thing for himself.
“We’re glad to be of assistance,” answered Lord Cyrus. He looked to the Strategos before continuing his conversation. The look he gave the General was an odd one, as if he was telling him that the Satrap was not telling the truth. Either that, or he was feeling constipated.
“You estimate that around five to ten thousand Mulacs have landed and are in the process of assaulting the outer walls of your fortress island?” he asked.
Before the Median governor could answer, Clearchus spoke, doing little to hide the disgust in his voice.
“Satrap Tissaphernes. We have already scattered the small number of Mulac vessels. Our escorts are in pursuit. What I do not understand is this fortress of yours. It has the capacity to hold over ten thousand warriors plus a hundred times that number of civilians. How can such a small number of Mulacs be causing so much trouble?”
Tissaphernes smiled with the kind of suave look that made a Laconian warrior like Clearchus burn with irritation. He looked to Cyrus, ignoring the Terran soldier.
“Lord Cyrus. As you know, my local forces are engaged in a long and drawn out war on the frontier. We are making headway against the Lydian pirates, but they have enlisted the help of Mulacs to split my forces. Cappadocia has only one habitable island, and at its centre is the fortress city.”
Clearchus took a step closer to the screen, ensuring he gained the attention of the Satrap.
“Yet you are here, and neither fighting the Mulacs or the Lydian pirates?”
“My troops are more than capable. There were, however, rumours that the Mulacs might try and hit our undefended planets, but I was too late. When I arrived, they had already landed. The initial attacks were against the outlying settlements, and they have all been demolished by orbital bombardments. The animals used atomic weapons on the surface. The survivors are inside the fortress city and doing their best to defend it.”
“That is why we are unable to perform effective scans of the surface?” asked Cyrus.
Tissaphernes nodded.
“Exactly, but it is more serious than you might think. If the fortress falls, they will be able to hold it indefinitely. I cannot state how important it is to this sector that Cappadocia is kept under the control of the Median Empire. It isn’t just a fortress. It is also a massive foundry and manufacturing complex. Half the citizens of the planet work there. Ships, weapons and supplies can be built or assembled in almost limitless quantities. If the Mulacs are successful, they could establish an almost impregnable base here.”
Clearchus was becoming less and less patient. He interrupted the two leaders.
“Perhaps if you had garrisoned it with sufficient forces, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Lord Cyrus turned to his military commander and lifted one eyebrow.
“Strategos, perhaps you could monitor the operation on the surface. I will conclude this matter with Satrap Tissaphernes.”
It was perfectly clear this wasn’t a request. He nodded to both men and turned away from the display. The large three-dimensional model of the planet’s surface was in the middle of the command deck and the dromons were making good time. He stepped in closer and watched the progress of his forces. Kleandridas was busy giving orders and spotted his approach. He finished whatever it was that he was saying and turned to his commander.
“Strategos, our first wave, under the command of Dukas Xenias, has made planetfall, and they are due to land at the co-ordinates given to us by Tissaphernes in the next ten minutes.”
Clearchus appeared satisfied with the information, but something was eating away at him. He examined the landing site dispositions.
“Good. Do we have any intel on the region yet? I do not like sending in nearly two thousand troops to an area we know nothing about.”
“Nothing solid. Tissaphernes says this is one of the main camps for the Mulacs. We managed to burn through the radiation twice, and our scans confirmed there is a camp there. We don’t know much else.”
“I see.”
He lifted his right hand and moved it over the icon for the command dromon. It was marked slightly different to the rest of the small craft making their way down to the surface. A video feed appeared from inside and showed the Dukas and his immediate commanders.
“Dukas.”
“Strategos. We’re due to land shortly. I will send the signal once we have established a solid beachhead in the enemy lines.”
“Good work. How many troops do you have available?”
“I’ve brought half of my spatharii, so just under two thousand warriors plus all of my three hundred stratiotes. Pasion is commanding the rest as a reserve force aboard Olympia, should we need assistance.”
“That should be more than enough to secure the objective. My own troops are already on the way. They should be striking the higher levels in approximately twenty minutes.”
“Understood, Strategos. My forces should be able to occupy the besiegers on the lower levels so you can land unmolested,” he paused for a few seconds and the feed jumped a little. “We are in visual range, taking light anti-aircraft fire. Wait, I am detecting substantial air defences and counter measures. Wait, I can see…”
The signal decayed to the level that only the odd single word came through.
“Sir, the radiation must have blocked their signal,” explained one of the junior communication officers.
Clearchus felt uncomfortable. He had always been a front line commander, but this was not the kind of combat he was familiar with. Laconian Dukas and Strategos were famous for fighting in the front ranks of the ground forces.
“Signals don’t just vanish, and I’ve never come across radiation causing this much trouble. Something is wrong, and I’m not about to let us lose an entire tagma of troops to a mistake. Prepare my spatharii. I want them ready to leave in ten minutes.”
His officers rushed about, all sensing something sinister was going on. The loss of this many troops would stop the campaign, and their employment, before it even started. What rankled Clearchus the most wasn’t the casualties they might sustain. No, what really annoyed Clearchus was that the first battle of the Ten Thousand would be spearheaded by mercenaries, and under the command of an Arcadian, rather than a Laconian.
Something about this place doesn’t seem right,
he thought, as he walked from the command deck and left the operation in the capable hands of his topoteretes. The further he got from the deck, and the closer he moved to his command dromon, the happier he felt.
* * *
The Night Blades spearheaded the wave of Arcadian dromons as they sped past the mountain range and on towards the Citadel. From a distance, the massive structure looked like a single mountain, but the mapping software showed it was actually a mountain range of at least a dozen peaks. The five closest had been used to create a fortified ring around the centre that contained the bulk of the manned structures. The group of nearly thirty spacecraft looked like a dark cloud of angry bugs. Each left a stream of vapour behind as they moved through the low level clouds. Columns of smoke on the ground were telling reminders of the devastation already done by the Mulac atomics. Small groups of fighters circled the fortress, but a surprisingly significant amount of defensive fire cut upwards. At least two fighters tumbled down in a black trial of smoke and wreckage.
“This is incredible,” said Roxana, as she watched the burning downs flash past them.
“Why nuke the place if they want to loot it?” asked Glaucon. It was a good question, and none of them appeared to have any kind of an answer for him.
All of this was new to Xenophon. He had never been in a dromon before and certainly never into battle. Unlike the ships he had served on during his brief time in the Navy, this vessel was completely different. It was an assault ship and decked out with thick armour and a large bay for the troops. It looked much like a beetle with its extended landing legs and multiple engines fitted. The nose bristled with six large calibre pulse cannons capable of shredding walls, vehicles and men. None of this compared to the dorsal turret that sat directly above them. It carried a pair of heavy pulse cannons, each one able to fire a projectile the size of a man’s fist. As well as giving the dromon substantial firepower during landing, it allowed the vessel to be used as a static defensive position once on the ground. At least, that was what Xenophon had been told. He thought a little more about what Glaucon had asked.
“Perhaps they only want or need the fortress?”
Dekarchos Maxentius looked through one of the tiny observation windows and back to his small team. The unit was divided up into ten man teams. An experienced dekarchos commanded each team.
“Get ready, we’re nearly there!” he called out over the din of the dromon’s engines.
“Remember, our job is to smash a hole in their line, and then establish a secure landing zone for follow-up waves. The Laconian spatharii can’t hit the higher levels until we have pulled enough of their defenders down to engage us. We are the bait, and the Laconians will be the hammer.”
Xenophon and the rest of his squad sat in silence, thinking about the plan and the risk in the part they were about to play in it. The Night Blades were the lightest of the infantry being put on the ground and would be extremely vulnerable if not provided with the numbers and protection offered by the spatharii. He glanced at the rest of the men and women inside the vessel. There were fifteen squads armed with the best weapons, armour and equipment any Terran army had probably ever had access to. Following their success in the initial trials, he had experimented with a variety of different weapons, but he kept coming back to the dual Laconian Asgeirr-Carbines. Out of those in his ten-man squad, Dekarchos Maxentius stuck out more than any other. Whereas the rest of the squad were busy checking their gear, he was spending all his time either watching the rest of the unit or looking at their landing site. Xenophon glanced at him, trying to imagine what he was thinking as they hurtled towards battle. Maxentius was a hard teacher, a man with years of combat experience and an almost unfathomable sense of humour, but he was also an excellent shot and a skilled warrior. Xenophon was nervous, but serving under a man such as their Dekarchos gave him great confidence.