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Laekdaemon Central
When Intel Director Katrina received Menelaus's message, she had all the authorisation she needed to eliminate Lysander. She was acting under orders. More than that, though, she held a personal hatred for the little bastard. She fought and sweated and bled for the Cadre ever since she had joined it more than a century ago. Lysander, on the other hand, had hardly seen any serious action, and yet he had made Major and held her in contempt for being an 'outsider'. He preached war with Sparta, but had no idea of what that would mean. Katrina would relish the task of killing such a deluded fool.
"Intel Director Katrina to all agents." she sent into her commlink via a neural uplink, "We have full authorisation to destroy Lysander. Repeat, we are authorised to destroy Lysander."
All across Laekdaemon III, members of the Cadre Security Forces received their message and confirmed it. One, however, at Dienkes Base, Agent Arete, cursed inwardly as she listened and sent her own message to the upper levels of Lysander's forces.
She was probably the only member of the Cadre Security on Lysander's side, and no-one else knew, except her comrades with Lysander. Menelaus and his lackeys no doubt thought their instrument of tyrrany was loyal, and it mostly was, but she wasn't. She was Lysander's only source in those forces and that made her important beyond imagining.
"Followers of Major Lysander." her message read. "Menelaus has ordered the arrest and execution of our leader. Warn him at all costs."
Captain Marcos also cursed as he received that message. Lysander was coming back, thinking he was safe, while at the same time Menelaus was going after him! This could not be allowed to happen. He would have to warn him. At the time he received it he was on his way to the barracks square for morning training, but he could take the punishment for being late if he had to. He ran back to his own quarters and began keying in a new message for Lysander.
"Major Lysander, I have just received news of vital importance. Menelaus has ordered Cadre Security to arrest and execute you the moment you set foot on Cadre territory. Please bear this in mind."
Laekdaemon III, Low Orbit
As Lysander's ships began to make their final descent towards the planet, having passed through the simple Cadre satelite-mounted scanning systems, they received Marcos' message. When Lysander read it he gaped in shock. If that message, no doubt triggered by information from Arete, he would have walked straight into a trap and that would have been the end.
His reply was brief. "Message received Marcos, I thank you."
He then opened yet another commlink - audio only to prevent any listeners from knowing who he spoke to - then said, "Commander, we must change plans. We are in danger. Follow me."
Without waiting for an acknowledgement the Hive pilot pulled Lysander's ship around and began heading for the Leonidas Jungle. Lysander looked at his scanners and saw the other ships following him.
The ships dropped rapidly through the atmosphere, and as they neared landing Lysander's confidence began to return, but it was rudely shaken when he received a message from Laekdaemon Central.
"Shuttle 0069, you are heading for an unathourised landing area and are suspect. Change course immediately and land at Laekdaemon Central Aerospace Complex."
"Oh, ****." Lysander swore. He'd never expected them to track his shuttle. He had no choice. He would have to get his three ships landed and his men out, then gather his followers and overthrow Menelaus. It was obvious now that Menelaus did not intend to carry through on his promise of democracy. While no-one had yet even mentioned it, this was just another reason why Menelaus could not be trusted. Sooner or later, he would sell them all out to Sparta.
Commander Felchek replied on the still-open commlink. "Lord Lysander, what do we do? We do not have the weapons to put up even a token resistance against an air attack."
"Commander, we must go down and hope we escape before they hit us. We have no choice."
At that point another voice cut across the commlink. "Shuttle 0069, this Lieutenant Castro of the Laekdaemon Cadre air force. By not complying with our directives, you have implicated yourself of treason. You will fly to Laekdaemon Central now, or we will shoot you down."
Cutting the link to Castro, Lysander barked orders to the pilots of the three ships. "Go down, full speed! don't worry about the ships, but save at all costs the lives and supplies we have. We must escape!"
All of Lysander's ships speeded up greatly and hurtled toward the jungle below, while the damnable Lieutenant Castro sent a final message.
"Shuttle 0069, by disreagarding two warnings you have convicted yourself of treason. You will now be destroyed. Ships accompanying Shuttle 0069, you are being given a last chance. If you break away, you will survive. If you stay with it, you will go down as well."
Alarms on Lysander's shuttle began blaring, indicating that the Cadre needlejets had locked on to it and were preparing to fire. Similar alarms were soming over the commlink from the other ships... but the ground Lysander intended to land on was coming up fast. This would be race between the needlejet's weapons and Lysander's ships.
Lietenant Castro watched without emotion as his craft's wepons panel indicated 'READY'. "All craft, fire at will." he said over his own commlink. Instantly a stream of air to air missiles flew from the wings of the needlejets toward the fleeing spacecraft. As insurance, he also began firing gatling lasers. One of the enemy took a glancing hit and staggered in mid-air, it's enormous speed hurling it a staggering distance, but it was still intact. He kept firing and was rewarded as another craft took a hit and one of it's engines cut out. At that moment all three fugitive craft crashed into the ground and began plowing through the jungle. The misiles were close behind.
All of the jets screamed across to the landing site and arrived just in time to see missiles impacting all along the shuttles. None of them survived, and all exploded almost instantly.
"Squadron, return to base. No doubt they will send a team over to see who the hell this was."
He turned back for Dienkes Base Aerocomplex, and his squadron formed up behind him.
****
Lysander and the rest of the Hive forces with him threw themselves into the jungle at the last minute. Less than a second after the last Hive soldiers were fleeing their ships, the cloud of missiles fired at them earlier had impacted against the ships. Lysander sucked in deep breaths and leaned against a tree trunk. While the whole incident had felt like a lifetime, it had probably not been more than a minute from the first warning to the crash landing.
"How many are still alive?" he asked Felchek, who looked quite rattled.
"Not sure, sir." he replied, before turning around and barking, "All right, everybody! Head count! If there are any wounded, let me know!"
"It would probably be easier just to ask if there's anyone not wounded." Lysander muttered.
When the count was complete, Felchek turned back to Lysander. "198 troops in total, lord." he said. "Appparently most of the dead were soldiers, 39 of them to be exact. The other deaths were 4 officers, 7 saboteurs and 2 assassins."
Lysander nodded. "Very well, now we must move. Our first destination is Dienkes Base. I have a contact in the security there, and many other followers too. We shall begin our revolution there - it should not be hard to take control of it."
"Very well, lord. If you order it, we will move."
Six Days Later
Lysander and his bloodied Hive allies were encamped near Dienkes Base as dawn broke. Most of them had had a brief sleep in the hour since they had arrived, and now they were ready to move. Lysander opened him commlink and began speaking.
"To all loyal followers the Cadre, this is Major Lysander speaking." his voice boomed, concentrated as it was into the commlink. His message would now be flooding all the networks of Dienkes Base, as he had issued a code word a little while ago, ordering his followers there to hijack the network.
"I have returned, and I have brought allies with me. This is a great day, for it shall be ever after recorded as the beginning of the liberation of Laekdaemon from the tyrrany and treachery of Menelaus. I call upon all members of the Cadre to unite under me and overthrow the Spartan puppet Menelaus! We will win!"
Inside the base, that speech had been the signal for Lysander's men to begin the coup. They were all armed and ready nto go, and as Lysander finished speaking, they moved.
Within moments the base had turned into a battleground. Impact bolts cracked everywhere, people were dying, and the rebels were rapidly gaining ground. In under an hour, without so much as a whisper to the outside world, Dienkes Base had fallen.
Arete smiled broadly as she stood over the bloodied body of Menelaus's governor Polynikes.
Cheers and jubilant whoops echoed through the base as the last resistors surrendered. 48 minutes before, this had been under the control of Menelaus. Now, in a brief spasm of violence, is had been liberated.
"This base now belongs to us." she announced over the network.
This was the 'all clear' signal for Lysander who now entered the base. When he did so, his followers lined the streets and cheered, while the Hive men behind him fanned out and began searching for any further resistance.
Now Lysander entered the admin complex at the heart of the base and sat down to plan his next move. Felchek and Arete entered followed him into the governor's office and sat down across the table.
"Very well. We have this base. That is a momentuous acheivement, but it is not enough. We must liberate all of our people from Menelaus and his oppression. I will now broadcast another speech over the entire planetary networks. If all goes well, by the end of the day the whole of Laekdaemon will be ours."
When Intel Director Katrina received Menelaus's message, she had all the authorisation she needed to eliminate Lysander. She was acting under orders. More than that, though, she held a personal hatred for the little bastard. She fought and sweated and bled for the Cadre ever since she had joined it more than a century ago. Lysander, on the other hand, had hardly seen any serious action, and yet he had made Major and held her in contempt for being an 'outsider'. He preached war with Sparta, but had no idea of what that would mean. Katrina would relish the task of killing such a deluded fool.
"Intel Director Katrina to all agents." she sent into her commlink via a neural uplink, "We have full authorisation to destroy Lysander. Repeat, we are authorised to destroy Lysander."
All across Laekdaemon III, members of the Cadre Security Forces received their message and confirmed it. One, however, at Dienkes Base, Agent Arete, cursed inwardly as she listened and sent her own message to the upper levels of Lysander's forces.
She was probably the only member of the Cadre Security on Lysander's side, and no-one else knew, except her comrades with Lysander. Menelaus and his lackeys no doubt thought their instrument of tyrrany was loyal, and it mostly was, but she wasn't. She was Lysander's only source in those forces and that made her important beyond imagining.
"Followers of Major Lysander." her message read. "Menelaus has ordered the arrest and execution of our leader. Warn him at all costs."
Captain Marcos also cursed as he received that message. Lysander was coming back, thinking he was safe, while at the same time Menelaus was going after him! This could not be allowed to happen. He would have to warn him. At the time he received it he was on his way to the barracks square for morning training, but he could take the punishment for being late if he had to. He ran back to his own quarters and began keying in a new message for Lysander.
"Major Lysander, I have just received news of vital importance. Menelaus has ordered Cadre Security to arrest and execute you the moment you set foot on Cadre territory. Please bear this in mind."
Laekdaemon III, Low Orbit
As Lysander's ships began to make their final descent towards the planet, having passed through the simple Cadre satelite-mounted scanning systems, they received Marcos' message. When Lysander read it he gaped in shock. If that message, no doubt triggered by information from Arete, he would have walked straight into a trap and that would have been the end.
His reply was brief. "Message received Marcos, I thank you."
He then opened yet another commlink - audio only to prevent any listeners from knowing who he spoke to - then said, "Commander, we must change plans. We are in danger. Follow me."
Without waiting for an acknowledgement the Hive pilot pulled Lysander's ship around and began heading for the Leonidas Jungle. Lysander looked at his scanners and saw the other ships following him.
The ships dropped rapidly through the atmosphere, and as they neared landing Lysander's confidence began to return, but it was rudely shaken when he received a message from Laekdaemon Central.
"Shuttle 0069, you are heading for an unathourised landing area and are suspect. Change course immediately and land at Laekdaemon Central Aerospace Complex."
"Oh, ****." Lysander swore. He'd never expected them to track his shuttle. He had no choice. He would have to get his three ships landed and his men out, then gather his followers and overthrow Menelaus. It was obvious now that Menelaus did not intend to carry through on his promise of democracy. While no-one had yet even mentioned it, this was just another reason why Menelaus could not be trusted. Sooner or later, he would sell them all out to Sparta.
Commander Felchek replied on the still-open commlink. "Lord Lysander, what do we do? We do not have the weapons to put up even a token resistance against an air attack."
"Commander, we must go down and hope we escape before they hit us. We have no choice."
At that point another voice cut across the commlink. "Shuttle 0069, this Lieutenant Castro of the Laekdaemon Cadre air force. By not complying with our directives, you have implicated yourself of treason. You will fly to Laekdaemon Central now, or we will shoot you down."
Cutting the link to Castro, Lysander barked orders to the pilots of the three ships. "Go down, full speed! don't worry about the ships, but save at all costs the lives and supplies we have. We must escape!"
All of Lysander's ships speeded up greatly and hurtled toward the jungle below, while the damnable Lieutenant Castro sent a final message.
"Shuttle 0069, by disreagarding two warnings you have convicted yourself of treason. You will now be destroyed. Ships accompanying Shuttle 0069, you are being given a last chance. If you break away, you will survive. If you stay with it, you will go down as well."
Alarms on Lysander's shuttle began blaring, indicating that the Cadre needlejets had locked on to it and were preparing to fire. Similar alarms were soming over the commlink from the other ships... but the ground Lysander intended to land on was coming up fast. This would be race between the needlejet's weapons and Lysander's ships.
Lietenant Castro watched without emotion as his craft's wepons panel indicated 'READY'. "All craft, fire at will." he said over his own commlink. Instantly a stream of air to air missiles flew from the wings of the needlejets toward the fleeing spacecraft. As insurance, he also began firing gatling lasers. One of the enemy took a glancing hit and staggered in mid-air, it's enormous speed hurling it a staggering distance, but it was still intact. He kept firing and was rewarded as another craft took a hit and one of it's engines cut out. At that moment all three fugitive craft crashed into the ground and began plowing through the jungle. The misiles were close behind.
All of the jets screamed across to the landing site and arrived just in time to see missiles impacting all along the shuttles. None of them survived, and all exploded almost instantly.
"Squadron, return to base. No doubt they will send a team over to see who the hell this was."
He turned back for Dienkes Base Aerocomplex, and his squadron formed up behind him.
****
Lysander and the rest of the Hive forces with him threw themselves into the jungle at the last minute. Less than a second after the last Hive soldiers were fleeing their ships, the cloud of missiles fired at them earlier had impacted against the ships. Lysander sucked in deep breaths and leaned against a tree trunk. While the whole incident had felt like a lifetime, it had probably not been more than a minute from the first warning to the crash landing.
"How many are still alive?" he asked Felchek, who looked quite rattled.
"Not sure, sir." he replied, before turning around and barking, "All right, everybody! Head count! If there are any wounded, let me know!"
"It would probably be easier just to ask if there's anyone not wounded." Lysander muttered.
When the count was complete, Felchek turned back to Lysander. "198 troops in total, lord." he said. "Appparently most of the dead were soldiers, 39 of them to be exact. The other deaths were 4 officers, 7 saboteurs and 2 assassins."
Lysander nodded. "Very well, now we must move. Our first destination is Dienkes Base. I have a contact in the security there, and many other followers too. We shall begin our revolution there - it should not be hard to take control of it."
"Very well, lord. If you order it, we will move."
Six Days Later
Lysander and his bloodied Hive allies were encamped near Dienkes Base as dawn broke. Most of them had had a brief sleep in the hour since they had arrived, and now they were ready to move. Lysander opened him commlink and began speaking.
"To all loyal followers the Cadre, this is Major Lysander speaking." his voice boomed, concentrated as it was into the commlink. His message would now be flooding all the networks of Dienkes Base, as he had issued a code word a little while ago, ordering his followers there to hijack the network.
"I have returned, and I have brought allies with me. This is a great day, for it shall be ever after recorded as the beginning of the liberation of Laekdaemon from the tyrrany and treachery of Menelaus. I call upon all members of the Cadre to unite under me and overthrow the Spartan puppet Menelaus! We will win!"
Inside the base, that speech had been the signal for Lysander's men to begin the coup. They were all armed and ready nto go, and as Lysander finished speaking, they moved.
Within moments the base had turned into a battleground. Impact bolts cracked everywhere, people were dying, and the rebels were rapidly gaining ground. In under an hour, without so much as a whisper to the outside world, Dienkes Base had fallen.
Arete smiled broadly as she stood over the bloodied body of Menelaus's governor Polynikes.
Cheers and jubilant whoops echoed through the base as the last resistors surrendered. 48 minutes before, this had been under the control of Menelaus. Now, in a brief spasm of violence, is had been liberated.
"This base now belongs to us." she announced over the network.
This was the 'all clear' signal for Lysander who now entered the base. When he did so, his followers lined the streets and cheered, while the Hive men behind him fanned out and began searching for any further resistance.
Now Lysander entered the admin complex at the heart of the base and sat down to plan his next move. Felchek and Arete entered followed him into the governor's office and sat down across the table.
"Very well. We have this base. That is a momentuous acheivement, but it is not enough. We must liberate all of our people from Menelaus and his oppression. I will now broadcast another speech over the entire planetary networks. If all goes well, by the end of the day the whole of Laekdaemon will be ours."
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