Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 433: Launch!

Chapter 433: Launch!
An hour later they stopped and pulled into a cave that was on a raised level. They rested for seven hours before moving on. Exploring the canyons, spending time avoiding the various patrols that were spread out through the canyon. When they could not avoid them, they just ignored them.
After another half a day they had searched a large chunk of the canyon and figured out where the demon’s base camp was located. Now they were observing it from a position where they had a basic layout of the area and were quietly planning their attack.
"Getting anywhere near that cannon is going to be difficult." Captain Uti pointed out. He was right. There were patrols constantly moving around it with people in sniping positions watching those patrols. While at the same time there were gun emplacements that were watching the sniping positions and other gun emplacements. As far as Jace could tell, they had every angle covered.
"We cannot stealth fully take them down. That much is clear. Even if we start to pick off a few, the others will notice and then it will be on. Even then we have not seen those two with the colored masks that Major Jace has encountered previously." Sergeant K pointed out.
"I doubt that they are all here in hiding." Jace informed them. "Even then, we do not know their exact numbers. There is so much energy and electricity running through the caves underground that I am unable to see them." He had tried to use his electricity vision but it was no use. For some reason the caves around the canyon were all constantly pulsing with so much electricity that it almost blinded him the first time he tried to use it on the caves.
"Meaning there could be numerous other demons lying in wait and those protecting the canon are just the bait." Corporal Quest summed up Jace’s words.
"Correct." Doctor Foulm chuckled. "But are you sure we have a way to destroy that cannon in the first place?"
"That cannon is a laser mass beam cannon." Jace informed them and seeing their confused expressions on all of them except Captain Uti decided to begin explaining. "While it does look like a massive piece of metal, electronics, and whatever the hell that other red stuff is. It is actually very fragile because it in theory has to be able to store energy before converting it into energy mass." Jace pointed at a set of squares that had what looked like massive tubes leading into the cannon. "Those are where the energy is stored. If we destroy those energy storage cubes that cannon just becomes a massive barrel without anything to fire."
"How easily could they replace those?" Sergeant K asked.
Jace shrugged, "I honestly have no idea. We just have to hope we time this well enough that they will not be able to replace it before the rest of the unit arrives." They really were just going to have to go in blind with this. They could not do any more scouting without giving themselves away.
"By rest of the unit do you mean, including the-"
"Yes, Corporal Quest. Now do not mention it again." Jace quickly interrupted him. They did not know for sure if they were not being watched or had already been spotted. It was best that they remained cautious about their words so the enemy did not know where the back up was coming from.
"I have finished setting the plastic explosives. They just need to be planted, then this switch will set them off." Captain Uti held up a trigger that had some batteries tapped to the outside so it was unpowered.
"Good. Now listen closely. I have a plan. Although, it might not be what you expected." Jace informed them as he quietly began drawing in the sand with his fingers and began explaining his idea.
A few hours later they were preparing to attack. It was ten minutes before the time that Jace told the Wolfsbane and other ships to come in.
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Captain Maxim was sitting on the roof of the tank with a sniper. He had healed enough for the last day or so. After arriving at the entrance to the canyon they had fit the eleven people who joined them from the people liberated. Some were in or on the tank and armored transport.
As soon as they arrived at the battle most of them agreed to stay back. But some like the orc requested to be on the front lines. Apparently the orc’s culture considered hiding as a form of cowardice which was unacceptable. In the orc’s own words they were all brawn and no brains.
He looked at the time on his armor’s display. They were roughly thirty minutes away from the attack time. But if he was right about the demon’s location, they were roughly twenty seven minutes away from the demon base. Although the demon patrols had increased in number. But even he realized something was wrong with these demon patrols. They were not like the others that they found dead. They were almost completely defenseless.
Unfortunately they were not in the short range communication distance of the others. But with the trail that they left. They could tell they were getting closer.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by one of his soldiers nudging him. "Sir, another demon patrol is up ahead."
"Daemon." The orc corrected them.
"Daemon, Oni, Demon, they are all the same thing." Captain Maxim responded. "Take them, preserve as much ammo and energy as possible." Captain Maxim ordered and then the tank leached and sped up as it went straight at the demon patrol and went right over them. He could hear the crunching of bones and screams of the demons as they fell victim to the treats of the tank. "That works."
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Solisa was looking at the timer with a frown on her digital otter face. Well she would if she could make one. But even she had to admit that she just looked far too adorable to make a frown or any negative emotion work.
At the same time she was running a background program that she and Jace had set up. As well as searching her own records for information. Another thing she was doing was long distance scans of the debris that were located around Sakana Nine. She was charting a path that the Wolfsbane could take to get to the planetary coordinates that Jace had sent.
Then there were the messages she was exchanging with the three other admirals that were in the system. Two of them planned to park their ships over the other set of coordinates that Jace had sent. The last one planned to spread out their forces to high level planetary assets. Like the hidden Oda Military facility or the Emperor’s resort castle. The castle was empty but it was still a fortified position.
"Captain." A voice called out and she looked over to see one of her bridge staff had come up with a path to get to the planetary coordinates that they needed to get to. "I figure we can possibly leave a bit ahead of schedule with our stealth capabilities. They did not notice us before there is no way they could notice us now. Not to mention the portal infiltrations stopped when you put the prisoner in that energy bubble. So they can’t find us that way either."
Solisa considered the idea then her digital otter head nodded. "Okay. We will leave ahead of schedule." She then spoke through the ship-wide speaker system. "All hands. Prepare for combat. We are going dark and heading toward the planet ahead of schedule."
She then activated the various camouflage and gravity cloaking systems. The Wolfsbane slid through space. The other ships that were part of the planetary blockade did not even flinch as the Wolfsbane passed right by them.
The Wolfsbane slipped over a crowd of debris that had various demon traps inside. Then it turned and went down around another crowd. Slipping between the two groupings without being seen.
The ship continued to maneuver around asteroids and pieces of debris that were stuck in orbit around the planet. Solisa only hit one piece of debris that was just actual debris. But by the time the demons noticed something they were already slowly hovering over the coordinates at high atmospheric altitude.
"All scheduled drops to your stations. We drop two minutes." Solisa announced while she scanned the planet again. Finding the specific location of the planetary cannon that Jace was going to disable. "Adjusting drop coordinates. You will be dropping right at the edge of the demon encampment. Remember, only the demons are the enemy. There is a high probability of other races that are unknown that will be present. Check your heads up for designations. The scouting team should be marking them."
After a few seconds she received a message. "Captain. Permission to drop Knight-Class mechs to the planet. We have located Captain Tyler. They are trailing behind an armored transport and tank."
Solisa thought for a minute before looking at the info. "Send pilots with them so the alternate pilots can use the Walker mechs that are already on the planet." Solisa answered. "But wait until the drop time."
The next minute was painful as she watched the sensors and screens that showed the battle on the ground. Then she gave the order when the opening appeared. "Launch!" Hopefully Jace did not mind what she sent his way.