When you're on a roll, just keep on rolling, right?

Children of Earth

Part two - Casualties, Part 1

Saphyra looks down on the planet. So far half of the continents had been taken, with the exception of fighting on the southeastern shore of the northernmost continent. The capital was essentially the only city on the small, central continent. Her forces would now be shifting to attack the longer southern continent. It had the base they just bombarded. After it was taken, they would take the troop centers on the eastern continent. Her generals had told her it would be better to let the forces there suffer attrition from the lack of orbital commerce and resources from the rest of the country. She is brought from her reverie by the door chime ringing. Turning, she tells the door to open, and a soldier, a corporal, comes in dragging along an elven maid. "Majesty, as per your instructions, the first of the elven slaves is being handed over to you." He says. "Her name is Aryna." At Saphyra's nod, the soldier salutes and leaves.

Saphyra then walks over to the elf. She's bruised in some places, a few cuts, and trembling. "So, elf...Aryna, where did you get these bruises and cuts?" She asks, thinking maybe she fought against the soldiers capturing her. She doesn't smell the scent of male musk on her so she wasn't raped.

"I...was in the capital when the fighting happened. A tank exploded nearby me." She says, lowering her head. She knew what law was about slaves taken during war, and knows if she cooperates, she's more likely to survive it and be freed when peace was achieved.

Saphyra nods. "Well, you are fortunate." She says with a smile, walking over to the wall and taking two glasses of water from the dispenser. "Here." She gives the water to the girl and sipping from her own. "When my bonded is rescued from your people you will serve him as well as me. Do so properly and you may be freed when the war is over. You are to be the example for others in your position. As we speak the soldiers on the planet below are being told they may have one slave....servant..." She had received a letter from Congress majority leaders about her calling them slaves. It asked her not to. "...from the population, and being told the proper way to treat servants."

The elf nods. "What station do you occupy, mistress?" She asks, adopting the proper tone. May as well let this go. It wouldn't be long until either they occupied the planet and got the region, or until the elven fleet arrived and pushed them back, in which case she might be rescued.

"I am President of these United States." She says. "Well, Acting President. My bonded is a pilot in the Air Force and a Master of War. He killed your prince."

Aryna is surprised. She would have sooner expected the ship to crash into the planet in flames at this very moment. She's gone from a nobody to the slave of a very big pair of somebodies. At least she'd be remembered for it. She bows her head. "Yes mistress."

Saphyra waves her over and sits on the bed. "You will cook, clean, and do whatever my bonded and I tell you to. Every day, you will have time to yourself from nineteen hundred hours until when you wake the next day at zero six hundred. That gives you almost eleven hours to do whatever, not including the time we give you to eat." Aryna does the math in her head after looking at the clock in the corner to gauge the time here. That was three hours of assured free time to do what she wanted, and eight hours to sleep. Pretty much what she has now with her work schedule. She nods, letting Saphyra know she understands. After a few more minutes of chatting, she memorizing favorite foods and drinks, she gets up to get to work, but without much to do, she is given leave to go and get her small quarters in order. She's given the spacious and before now unused walk in closet to live in, since she's just starting. A matress fits in there, as well as a small display screen. Then there's the normal storage area for her few belongings. She lays on the bed, amazed at how good it feels. She's asleep in less than a minute.

Davis had never thought he would see the sun again so soon. Yet there it was, shining brightly down on the planet he was on. "So, where am I at?" He asks, watching a fighter streak by overhead, an F/A 18. So the Navy was providing support right now. But which one, the maritime navy or the space navy?

"You're on Schanxi." He says. "It's where the elves have staged their forces at to push into our space. Even that first incursion the raptors chewed up was staged here on some plains on the eastern continent."

Davis nods and looks around. "This place is trashed." He says, seeing a huge crater not a hundred feet away where one of the kinetic rods had impacted.

The Ghost nods. "Yup. Orbital bombardment. It's what cut the power." The Ghost picks up his radio. "This is Edwards, Ghost team leader. I need a pickup for VIP at the base." A confirmation comes back and about five minutes later, a VTOL drop ship comes down and lands fifty feet away. All that while, Edwards was getting updates. "We better get out of here, major. From what I'm hearing, the elves are launching a counterattack towards here." With that, the Ghost team and Davis get on the craft, which lifts off and heads towards the carrier George Washington.

A hundred miles northeast, McLintock looks over his men in the back of a C-130 transport plane as it heads southwest, straight for the base. The 82nd was going to reinforce the marine units holding the base. The base itself made an excellent beachhead for troops, and the higher ups wanted it kept. Twenty eight minutes later they were over the drop zone. Engineers had landed and were fixing some of the holes on the runway. A few railgun shots had landed there but they were patching it up. It was just bad enough that the Hercules couldn't land. "GO!" He calls out, and he, along with his whole platoon, start jumping out of the back of the aircraft. Around them, five other C130s are disgorging paratroopers. For ten minutes, the sky is filled with paratroopers. Ten minutes after that, the field is clear, just in time for another dozen C-130s to drop their equipment and Bradleys. There would be no heavy armor on this one. Just air support and hand held missiles in addition to the Bradley's 30mm chain cannon and TOW missiles. The fleet was not in position to bombard the enemy either, thanks to ground fire. The eastern continent was proving troublesome, Nimitz was on its way to launch strike fighters against it, and until then, they were at high orbit to avoid the worst shots. "Alright guys, you know what to do." McLintock says. "Get dug in." he orders. He looks up to see some flame dragons coming in, Cynder and Spyro leading two seperate wings, escorted by the newly reinstated F-14 Tomcats from Enterprise. He takes his eyes away from the sight and gets busy with his own positions next to a Bradley.

Cynder and her group take the first flight overhead of the base, while Spyro lands to rest. THey had about an hour before the elven attack would begin. Plenty of time to be fed. She looks over to her right and sees the Tomcat assigned to keep her clear of fighters and smiles. A few years ago she wouldn't be caught this close to a fighter jet, now she could see the AIM 54 Pheonix missiles on its belly. Those missiles could knock her out of the sky at a range of 100 miles. She was thankful they couldn't use the radar guided missiles in the war. She looks down, seeing the soldiers getting their fortifications set up. This would be a lengthy battle. A group of anphibs was coming from Nimitz with a submarine guard, but they'd need a few hours to get here. That's where their armor was.

"Contact." An orbiting E2 Sentry calls out. "We have multiple bandats inbound to the base from vector 098." The radar operator directs the Tomcats to engage. The first wave of Tomcat fighters formed into a line between the base and the incoming fighters and bombers, volleying off their Pheonix missiles. Thirty missiles streak across the sky at fourty targets. The elven fighters, lacking their own missiles, had no idea. Half of them were blotted out as the Pheonixes hit. An elven pilot reacting fast pulled up sharply, the pair of missiles on it shooting past at mach 6. He watches as another pair catches his wingman, the first missile breaking his magical shielding, the second slamming into the middle of the aircraft and blowing it to peices. All the fighters in the group start manuevering, calling warnings to the other pilots as more missiles come in from the first group of Tomcats. The second squadron was forming into line, waiting for an attack vector.

McLintock knew something was happening the second he looked up to see missile smoke trails heading east. He immediately orders his men into combat positions and hunkers down himself. Now they would wait. Cynder, on the other hand, was just touching down herself to get some food. The elves were early, but Spyro's group could keep them back until she and her people had eaten. Spyro leads his dragons over the eastern defensive line and roars out his challenge upon seeing elven ground units in the distance.

Now it was the elves' turn. They had taken losses but putting their fighters first was a great idea. The first Tomcat squadron had depleted its Pheonix missiles and were now clearing the way for the second squadron. The bombers, flying in low and unmolested by fighters, climbed up and launched their rockets, the closest thing to missiles they had. These rockets had high explosive warheads and were powered by magic engines, propelling them at mach 2.

The radar operator's voice remains steady as he reads his scope. "Vampire! Vampire! We have incoming enemy missiles. Fleet weapons free!" The missiles were heading for the Enterprise battle group. In the fleet, ships perform turns to unmask missile batteries. Next to the USS Enterprise, the missile cruiser Ticonderoga flips its powerful Aegis system on. Within a second, missiles start springing from the ship. It averages four missiles fired every eight seconds. When its magazines are depleted, it starts volleying off missiles from the other ships in the formation. Radar operators aboard Enterprise as well as the Sentry watch their radars intently as Vs indicating incoming missiles are dropped off the radar. After the SAMs have finished, there are only eight missiles left out of a hundred. The ships all begin a radical set of turns, all firing off chaff rockets which fill the air with aluminum, giving the missiles plenty of phantom targets to go after. Three are decoyed from ships and impact in the ocean. The last five are shot down by the CIWS and FEL systems, lasers or bullets knocking the missiles out of the sky. The system proves it worth in the carrier's instance, where two missiles, less then five feet apart, closed in. The CIWS fired its gatling gun at one while the FEL system's laser detonated the rear missile thru the first's explosion.

Cynder was amazed at the results. Never before had the elven weapons performed so poorly. This only meant the next air attack would be with everything they had instead of two regiments. Still, the sight of the rockets exploding before even reaching their targets filled her with joy. The more one sided the fight here, the less likely that the Elves would try to retake the world.

"Target in sight!" A gunner calls out over the radio. McLintock raises his binoculars to his eyes. There they were. The elves were spread out and moving in the attack. There was plenty of terrain out there to hide in, but they could deal with that.

"Starbase, this is 82 Bravo. We need air support at points A, B, and C." He calls out over his comms. There was a couple of regiments heading their way. He saw at least twenty tanks, and knew there would be more.

"Roger, birds on the way." Calls the Sentry. The operator directs the F/A 18 Hornets in on attack vectors. The Hornets drop in low, streaking over the enemy formation at one hundred feet and dropping cluster munitions on them.

As McLintock watches, three tanks explode from a cluster of explosions, and blue tracers reach up from the rear of the enemy formation, blotting the Hornet that had dropped the bombs out of the sky. "Open fire!" he calls out. A TOW missile fires from the Bradley next to him, flying downrange, the guidance wire trailing behind it, spiderweb thin. The missile hits its target, knocking out the engine of tank. Several other missiles fly downrange, one of them killing the tank his Bradley shot at. Then the javelin missiles started raining down from the sky onto the tanks. Return fire comes back, hitting a javelin crew as it sets up for another shot. The tanks in the elven formation push forward about ten feet then stop and set up their shields, firing back at the human forces as behind them, infantry deploys from their carriers.

Cynder watches as the battle starts to form up. A low growl comes from her chest as she sees the elven infantry. She jumps into the sky, her food having been wolfed down quickly, and joins with Spyro's formation. Together, the two of them lead their formations in low, coming over the tree line and bathing the rear of the elven lines in fire. They score some kills but are frustrated. Most of their attack was shielded against. An anti-aircraft gun reorients its turret and fires off, scoring hits on a dragon flush in the chest, dropping it into the forest. The dragons pull back, a Hornet streaking in and firing its own cannon, detonating the vehicle. It then pulls up and drops its cluster bombs on a group of infantry transports, killing the vehicles and around twenty elven footsoldiers.

With their infantry now out and in line, the elven tanks start driving forward slowly, shield vehicles behind them. Their shields were doing well. They had all power forward to guard against the shots coming from that direction. One or two tanks may die, but the shields keep most of the fire away from the tanks and infantry. The Bradley IFVs simply don't have the firepower to score hits thru the shields. McLintock sees then and growls. "Fall back to secondary firing positions!" He calls over the radio. "Bravo six! Fire mission. Put it down a hundred feet in front of the battle line."

A good half mile back from the battle line, the airborne's artillery section sets its gun along the right angles and opens up. The airborne batteries aren't very powerful, and in addition to their high explosive rounds, they drop smoke to mask the movement of the infantry and tanks. A flight of Super Cobras comes in over the base, low and fast. Two hundred feet from their infantry they level off and start firing their missiles. These hellfires are dedicated anti tank missiles, and they breach the shields one after another, scoring kills or cripples on a dozen tanks before anti air fire forces them back. By then, the infantry was redeploying, and antitank missiles streak downrange again.

The dragons see their opening. They rush down, firing off blasts of fire at the breaches in the shield line, catching dozens of infantry on fire, the elves screaming as they burn. Anti air fire reaches up, and the dragons scatter. Cynder watches as Spyro is traced in on, several rounds piercing his wing. He looses air flow and cartwheels down, the fluke saving his life, but landing him behind elven lines, out cold. Cynder turns to go after him but is engaged by the same AA gun. She growls at the stings that penetrate her legs, gathers her breath, then blasts the AA gun. Her fire overwhelms its shields and melts the guns as they start firing again, the magic backblasting and blowing the turret clean off the vehicle.

Cynder looks at Spyro. He was on the ground, bleeding, elves all around him. Another AA gun was coming over the corner. She couldn't help him. She turns and retreats, tho her gut is clenched. Spyro wasn't her boyfriend, but dammit she still cared for him. She doesn't notice the second AA gun.

"Oh shit!" McLintock calls out, pointing. It was too late. Right as the Bradley fires off it's TOW at the AA gun it opens up, catching the black dragon in her wing and side. The dragon roars in pain and falls to the ground. "Open up!" He calls to the Bradley. "Platoon, covering fire! Bravo six, smoke and HE fifty yards in front of my position." He knows it isn't proper fire support proceedure, but the skill of the artillery officer shows as the smoke starts landing between Cynder and the elves, along with explosions. The elven infantry running towards her is torn apart before his eyes. He gets in the Bradley and it takes off across the grass. A minute later it stops next to Cynder, firing it's chain cannon at a tank in the open. The first five rounds bounce off its shield, but the next three penetrate and rake across the top of its turret, exploding the body of the tank commander.

McLintock rushes out. "You've got to shift down!" He yells at Cynder. Her eyes lock on McLintock and she nods, struggling to shift herself down. She succeeds, shrinking down quickly, her armor barely covering the more sensative parts of her body, tho one piece of armor that was blown free leaves her left nipple exposed for all to see. McLintock rushes over to her and reaches down to help her up only to be winged by a round, dropping down and clutching his side. "God DAMMIT!" He yells out. He forces himself up however, Cynder helping him as much as he helps her, and both stagger into the Bradley. It backs up and kicks on its smoke generator just in time. A tank breaks thru the smoke screen only to not be able to identify its target. The crew switches to thermal and finds it, just in time to see the Bradley's TOW missile race at them. It slams into the turret, piercing the armor and exploding its magazine. The Bradley itself races back to friendly lines, calling for an ambulance track to be ready to evac two casualties.

Saphyra had not been paying attention all day long. Between showing the elf everything she had to do and dealing with a crisis that sprang up, a severe dust storm on Mars puncturing one of the air domes, she had no attention for anyone else. The chime on the door brings her back to the here and now.

"Sir, I am sorry, but my mistress is very busy. Could you maybe come back another time?" Aryna asks the man at the door.

"I have someone here she must see." The fleet admiral tells her. The elf bows and steps back and looks down. The admiral comes in with a man in tow. "Majesty, there is someone here who desperately wants to see you." The admiral says, then turns and leaves the room.

Saphyra sighs and turns in her chair to look at the man, then freezes. She'd recognize those features in the middle of any sandstorm, and in an instant she is up and charging the man, pouncing him and crying as she wraps Davis up in her arms and holds him tight to her. "My bonded, You have returned to me!"