This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Guardbro on 2025-07-01 18:12:11+00:00.

Audio Version can be found here: https://youtu.be/VJ4ZcQy11I4

Planet XJ-1

 Ch 17:  The Vanguard

Rhidi and the rest of the drop troopers sat in a Battle Room, wearing their olive drab IB suits and staring at a large screen.

They had come out of their final skip days ago, tracking the signal that had brought them all the way here to this planet in the first place. Sensors had been off the charts, detecting a fleet of some sort around the other side of the planet, but the two groups of ships were keeping a tidal lock on each other, mirroring the other and keeping out of sight.

This was not exactly odd, but Rhidi’s Human commanders and their accompanying scientists weren’t sure what was going on until recon drones finally got to the surface. What the drones recorded was one highly advanced race hunting down the locals, darting them like animals and dragging them back to holding containers.

It became clear, quite quickly, that one race was attacking two others, and the Regs began landing within minutes in their great drop ships. The carriers deployed light bombers to zip in and drop explosives in order to give the locals time to retreat further, which led to dogfights in atmosphere; F-14-PP3 “Star Cats” were deployed, air superiority craft that found these enemy fighters quite trifling, leading to thirty seven aerial victories to a single downed F-14-PP within only half an hour of dueling each other. While the enemy fighters pushed on their engines and left atmosphere, the F-14-PP3s instead hovered overhead, watching the pilot and co-pilot of their downed fighter.

The locals down below, at first afraid, started helping the wounded pilot from his craft. This led to the Regs having to balance their approach to the towns, landing peacefully and unboarding without weapons drawn since they had the time. It turned out to be a good idea, as the Regs had found the smaller, razor-handed insectoids that lived on the planet rather feisty compared to their softer, taller fellows.

On the screen, the Regs had dug in around a large town, the technology level barely out of the late Bronze Age.

“Tell me again what they are?” Rhidi said, her eyes watching as the Regs repulsed another probe by their new enemy.

Alias rolled his shoulders, then leaned back with a creak of his IB suit. “They’re some insectoid race, but with an extremely advanced evolutionary progress. According to the Regs, they look a lot like moths but with more Humanoid features and vestigial wings. The mothfolk have two sets of arms like the Kojynn, but there is also a subrace of little warriors that just have blades for hands, two sets, and a pair of powerful legs.”

“Are they tall?” Shasta asked. 

Alias shook his head. “The mothfolk are barely over four feet tall, the little warriors are just under three. They were a bit shook up when the Regs landed, but are actively helping the Regs now that they understand what is going on.”

“How did they manage to get acrosss the language barrier?” Shasta asked. “Their language won’t be in our archives, so the data-slatesss won’t be able to do their things… and I am sssure they don’t know English.”

Alias let out a little chuckle. “Well, the little warrior fellows were posturing quite brazenly when the Regs landed, but once the Regs started putting holes in the people that had been kidnapping them… the point got across quite quickly. Can’t blame them though, I’d be on edge too if some fucking alien race had come down and started stealing my people.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t attack us on sight.” Rhidi said off handedly, crossing her arms. “I’d start swinging at anything that didn’t look like a Kafya if that kind of shit was happening around me.”

“At ease!” A voice bellowed out, cutting across them all and their idle chatter.

Rhidi and everyone else stood, arms behind their backs at the position of parade rest, as Drop Officer Duluth and First Sergeant Lower entered the room. Drop Officer Duluth looked more like a librarian than an officer, but there was a look in his green eyes that offset his mousey brown hair and muscular frame. First Sergeant Lower looked more like a tired teacher than an NCO, but his hands appeared as if they could crumble concrete to dust. His hair was more of a ruddy brown, paired with dark blue eyes.

“As you were.” Drop Officer Duluth called out to the gathered Platoons, then rapidly tapped along his palm so the Qua-quid display came off the wall, going horizontal in plane and displaying the planet. “We’ve been trying to pin down the enemy fleet as we orbit this world, designated XJ-1 until we can figure out how to talk to the natives. Class I pre-Iron Age world that has been under assault from these people.”

The display produced a three dimensional model of their enemy; They were brutish looking things, bipedal with a medium build. Unlike most known races of the stars, they bore only a single eye in the middle of their faces, bald along the scalp with ears that looked more like juts of rock rather than fleshy outcroppings. Their noses were just as angular with three nostril openings, above a lipless mouth filled with spine-like teeth. Their armor looked professional and modern by non-Human standards… but it still looked oddly… cheap.

“We do not know what they are, we simply know that they are highly aggressive. From what the 16th Division has been able to gain, they are taking the natives back in pods up to their ships, and we are coming to a logical conclusion that these people are slavers… that, or they are like the Pactless and use other races as a source of food.” Drop Officer Duluth said grimly, tapping his thumb pad with a finger to pull the map of the planet back into focus. “They are light in number and the 16th Division has had an easy time forming a line, but they are now coming down in massive numbers, numbers that do not make sense for the amount of ships we are detecting. As of right now, our scans tell us that nearly a quarter of this world’s population has been stolen, but where all those beings went is still a mystery. The rest of the population is currently fleeing en masse to the safety of the 16th, while the 72nd Division has begun their landings to give the civilians a new area to run to for safety. When they first landed the enemy was in the number of a few thousand, but it has skyrocketed to over sixteen thousand and climbing. Our technicians believe they may have advanced technology aboard those ships and that is why they are mirroring us, making sure we can’t disrupt them.”

The screen slowly zoomed in on the planet as Drop Officer Duluth manipulated the camera, in which First Sergeant Lower stepped forward.

“They are massing here, along the main anvil of the 16th. The 16th has multiple Brigades of armored vehicles, and while casualties are light, we believe they will soon, somehow, come under assault from over twenty thousand enemy troops and vehicles. We are confident they can hold and safeguard the civilians for as long as they need to, as they are dug in deep and fortified. The 72nd is landing around another larger town, one we believe may be some sort of capital-” First Sergeant Lower was cut off by a loud, ringing alarm, followed by three sharp, shrilling whistles as the display zoomed out on its own.

Drop Officer Duluth looked down at the map angrily, furrowing his brows as his eyes flared to life with the annoyance that only a CO could understand.

“Sir?” First Sergeant Lower said, stepping quickly over to Drop Officer Duluth.

The man stared hard at the map, blinking as information was fed to him through an inner-skull implant that allowed him to hear without blocking his ears. Drop Officer Duluth then jerked his head up, his gaze narrowed. “They’re launching an ambush against the 72nd as they are landing, fifteen thousand men just appeared out of the fucking ether! To your pods, now!”

“Hoooiii!” Specialist Fredrick bellowed, coming to his boots once again. “Time to scrape paint!”

The Battle Room vibrated with the warcry of the Platoons, and boots began to pound down the alleyways towards the armory. Rhidi could feel the ship rumbling and manoeuvring under her boots, the engines roaring to speed as Void Navy gunners sprinted to their positions along other alleyways.

Rhidi was fast, slipping under and around Humans as she skittered into her armory pod, holding up her arms. The mechanical arms of the fitting machines were already buzzing around her before her arm muscles settled, slamming her armor into place around her in record time. The usual small screen flickered with words near her line of vision:

Private First Class Rhidi, SOBP-19621983: Confirmed

• All armor pieces accounted for
• All armor pieces showing 100% functionality
• Armor rating: 100%
• Ammo load: 10,000 rounds
• Deployments: XJ-1
• Confirmed kills of record: N/A
• Drops: N/A
• Current assignment ship: The Wild Hunt
• SOBP record: Clean

The whirring, thudding locks of her Skógarskera armor coming together filled her ears as everyone else began to get their armor on as well, her chestplate giving a final, vibrating shunt of metal as it was locked into the rest of the plating. Her suit hummed to life and swarmed with movement as the plates adapted, allowing the arms to lock her fully loaded ammunition pack onto her back. The arms took her rifle and placed it beside her ammo pack, then gave Rhidi her MG111 after attaching its servo arm. She was already moving ...

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