Plight of the Dresam

[Josasa]

Installment 1

Amoruskian War Council Message H9549-J7
Encryption: Tri Eyes Only
File Code: DP-201
Subject: Operation Fiscal Year

/begin/
At approximately 1800 hours, the Amoruskian Diplomatic vessel Arunas (code DV-1560J) was boarded and hijacked by Dresam militants during a conference between delegates of the Amorusk and Dresam species. The Amoruskian diplomatic envoy was not aboard the ship during the hijacking although several maintenance personnel and Arunas technicians were present at that time.

Recordings from the ships communications gear were also present at this time, providing the evidence as to what group committed this atrocity. When this gear proved that Dresam operatives were behind the attack, it was concluded that they were sent by the Dresam government in the hopes of attaining Amorusk technology, given that the Dresam species is several decades behind Amoruskian advancements. This was further evidenced by the ensuing explosions as the engines aboard the Arunas were mishandled, against the discretion of the Amoruskain technicians present, by the Dresam hijackers.

These explosions set off a chain reaction, shorting out the equipment aboard the ship before reaching the fuel tanks and effectively neutralizing the Arunas so that it could no longer be used for any purpose besides scrap metal. It was reported by the Dresam government that no survivors were secured, although the accuracy of these reports is unknown. If they are, in fact, true, it is unlikely that the Dresam government was able to receive any data from the Arunas, negating any benefits they might have gained from the technology present.

The subsequent failure of diplomacy and militant action conducted by both the Amoruskian and Dresam governments led to the eventual declaration of war upon the Dresam by the Amoruskian species. As had been outlined in the war plans, the Amoruskian forces would neutralize and occupy the outer worlds of the Dresam Republic before moving further in towards their home planet.

It has been debated, numerous times among the War Council, on the plan of action concerning Dresam planets. The general consensus was to depopulate those planets furthest from their sphere of influence. These planets could easily be repopulated by Amoruskian colonists, especially those planets rich in natural resources. As for the inner planets of the Dresam Republic, it was voted against direct occupation, due to their larger populations. At the same time, these planets have consistently shown that their resource levels are not as high as those just recently colonized, no doubt because of Dresam occupation for a number of years.

As for the Dresam home world, it was voted against any attacks at all. A show of force orbiting their home world, after the conquering of their outlying planets would be the furthest course of action the Amoruskian military would undertake. The War Council agreed that any attack on their home planet would only incite anger and spread fundamentalist hatred against the Amoruskian race. This could make forced occupation a necessity to secure peace within the region, something the Amoruskian Conclave could not put up with on a prolonged status. The costs would outweigh the benefits, creating an inefficient war with little gain.

The War Council has also been conducting under the table talks with the Diplomatic Council as well as those Amorusk well versed in the ways of the Dresam. These talks mainly consist of the post-war status the Dresam will assume, after the Amorusk have effectively neutralized any threats. The Diplomatic Council, as well as the experts concerning the Dresam, both agree that the Dresam Republic be assimilated into the Amoruskian Conclave. They would be given full vassalship status, in that they would be able to have their own, pre-approved government and a limited military force, under the close observation of the Amorusk. They would be given the full protection of the Amoruskian Conclave, so long as they allowed free trade and the consumption of resources found within their territory.

Further discussion is underway, although the determining factor will be the course of the war, and public opinion of both species at its conclusion.
/end/

[Josasa]

Installment 2

Dresam Outer Colony World Farga, Two Months After Declaration of War

Hon was tired. Very tired. But it wasn't the normal tired that everyone got after they had stayed up too late or after a somewhat demanding day. This was the kind of tired that ate away at your very bones, the kind of tired that took weeks to get rid of, and that was only if you were laying in a bed with nothing else to do. That was the kind of tired Hon was.

And it made sense, since Hon had been sitting in his small foxhole for the past couple of hours, not to mention the hectic journey it had taken to reach this small foxhole. There really wasn't a comfortable position to get in, and with the constant threat of an enemy attack, he couldn't get much shuteye without waking with a start at the smallest sounds. He was going on roughly five hours of sleep for the past three days, which wasn't a good sign. That's when soldiers started to get sloppy, even elite soldiers like Hon. He had been through the training exercises before, and they had saved his ass more than once, but this was coming close to the brink of complete exhaustion. He wasn't sure how much more he could take.

90% mental, he told himself, it's all in your head. Anything can be done. Nothing is impossible. He repeated this over and over as a small mantra to try and keep him awake. But soon the words blurred into distant sounds which formed a nice soothing rhythm. Before long he had drifted off into a fitful doze.

---

"Incoming!" This was the last thing that Hon wanted to hear as his wakeup call. Instinct and hard training kicked in before he even realized he was awake. He dug himself deeper into his foxhole and brought up one of his massive arms to shield his head. In his other grasper he clung to his Tactical Energy Rifle, or TER-23 by military abbreviation.

The high pitched whistle from above quickly changed tones as the incoming shell came closer and closer to the ground. The ground around Hon shook as it impacted and small bits of dirt and gravel rained into his foxhole. A small bit of heated shrapnel joined the fray and dug itself into Hon's arm, but he ignored it as it was only a minor wound.

Several more mortar rounds came whistling in, but they were farther back along the Dresam defensive line, nothing that Hon really had to worry about. It was a quick bombardment though, the same tactics that the Amorusk had been using for some time. And they used it because it was effective. By the time Hon had peeked his head over the lip of his foxhole he already spotted several squads of Amorusk advancing through the taller grass his position overlooked.

"Movement! Eyes up!" he called out as he brought his TER-23 around to aim at the incoming soldiers.

"Ticker!" one of his squadmates yelled out as they unhitched the explosive and lobbed it towards one of the incoming Amoruskian squads. It went off several seconds later, sending a plume of dirt into the air. An alien shriek followed it, signaling that at least one Amorusk had been hit by the blast, if not more.

Hon held his fire as the squads approached. For one, he was running low with his batteries. Another reason was that he wanted to be as accurate as possible, only giving his position away at the last possible second. He only had one designated fall back point to which he could retreat if he was about to be overrun. After that, it was an all out retreat.

"Anybody got a link with command? Do we have any orders from them?" crackled Hon's comm unit as it came to life.

"Negative," someone replied, "last contact told us to sit tight and hold our position. No word on reinforcements either."

"Shit!" Hon mumbled under his breath. That wasn't a good sign. And by the looks of it, the Amorusk were making a pretty big push to take this area out. Or at least clear out the Dresam in the area.

Suddenly there was movement off to Hon's immediate right. He quickly cursed himself for letting his guard down and brought the TER-23 to bear on the target. It was an Amorusk, decked out in full military gear. Before it could react, three bolts of superheated plasma were eating its way through the aliens head, killing it instantly. There was movement behind it, so Hon shot off several more rounds in the general direction. He was rewarded with a shriek of pain.

Movement left. Hon reacted on instinct, quickly bringing his weapon to bear on the new targets. This time there were three Amorusk, all brandishing their own version of an assault rifle. Hon squeezed off several shots, managing to hit two of them. The shots intended for the third one went too high, and he had to duck back into his foxhole as the Amorusk returned fire. Hon quickly unlatched an explosive, and lobbed it out of his foxhole in the direction of the Amorusk. Bullets were still streaking over his head. When the explosive went off, there was a sickening thud that showed the grenade had been dead on. Some blood spattered down onto him to emphasize the point.

When Hon looked up over the hole again, he saw several squads of Amorusk advancing on both his left and right, the same places that his other squadmates should have been. Were they already overrun? Hon asked himself. At this point it didn't really matter. If he didn't move soon he was going to be flanked from both positions and cut off from his squad completely.

After looking around completely to ensure that there weren't any Amorusk about to attack him, Hon pulled himself out of his foxhole and hunched over to make himself as small a target as possible. His TER-23 was still in his hands, ready to take out any Amorusk that happened to get in his way. And it just so happened that another squad of Amorusk were dead ahead of him.

Hon happened to be lucky enough that they all had their backs turned to him, as they continued to advance towards the Dresam secondary lines. Hon stopped himself, got into the crouching firing position and lined up his targets. Three quick bursts from his TER-23 flashed across the distance and impacted on the Amorusk's backs. Two were dead almost instantly while the third still needed a few more shots to take it out. Hon was happy to oblige.

But he couldn't stay still for long. Several bullets cracked past his head, dangerously close. He ducked and rolled forward, running as fast as he could towards his secondary foxhole. He didn't waste any time trying to find where his attacker was, he just did his best to move. Any hesitation could easily mean his death.

Hon managed to get to his foxhole, diving into it as fast as he could and doing his best to turn around without exposing any flesh that they enemy could hit. It was hard to do, since the hole was so small, but somehow he managed to get himself upright with his body and weapon facing towards the enemy.

"Bring it on!" he yelled out, his deep voice bellowing across the battlefield.

[Josasa]

Installment 3

Dresam Outer Colony World Farga

Hon was still amidst the heat of battle, his blood pumping through his body at an alarming rate. All sorts of chemicals were coursing through his veins as fear, anger, and the sense of danger surrounded him, all thanks to the millions of years of evolution. And right now he was putting them to good use as he fired off several more shots from his TER-23 at a group of incoming Amorusk. They all went down into the ground, but not because he managed to score hits on all of them. These were trained Amoruskian soldiers who knew to hit the dirt when enemy fire started streaking over their head.

Hon kept an eye on that general area, waiting for them to pop back up at any second. At the same time he continued to scan the rest of the battlefield for any other enemy targets. Out of the corner of his eye, coming up over a ridge was something large and metallic. His heart skipped a beat.

"Enemy armor! Incoming!" he yelled out as loud as he could.

"Where?!" his comm crackled in his ear.

"500 meters to the south, along the ridge!" Hon had to turn his attention back to the first enemy squad though, as they had chosen that moment to stand back up and resume their assault on the Dresam lines.

"Roger that, anti-tank team deployed to your area," his comm reported.

"You may want to send more than that, I'm spotting three more tanks—make that four—coming over that same ridge. They're making a big push against us here!" Hon was getting agitated. He had been in battle for quite some time, and they had managed to hold off wave after wave of Amoruskian troops. But now they had sent in a group of tanks, and his race had nothing to respond with.

In reality, the Dresam were putting up one hell of a fight with what they had been given. The Amoruskian battlegroup had appeared out of space roughly two months after the declaration of war. This had been a problem since Farga was really a small, backwater planet that didn't have much in the way of resources or strategic value.

The Dresam forces planetside were few and far between. They had one Armed Battalion in total. This consisted of one tank company, two infantry companies, and one engineering company. Along with this was a scattered airforce that was out of date and ineffective at best. Farga had actually been lucky since Hon's company, the 24th SVNK, had been planetside for training. Otherwise Farga's defenses wouldn't have held out as long as it had. There had actually been signs that the Amorusk hadn't brought enough along. Deep space scanners had reported that three Amoruskian transport ships had been detected two weeks after the initial invasion. Conquered intelligence from one of the Amoruskian companies had shown plans with only three brigades, but recent intelligence estimates placed Amoruskian forces at a full division. This was much larger than the original Amoruskian force.

Hon looked up and behind him as two Dresam ran up next to his foxhole. One had the Heavy Explosive Energy Laser (otherwise known as the HEEL) mounted on his shoulder. The second Dresam stood behind him with several large batteries ready to replace the one currently loaded. The HEEL used a massive amount of energy when it was fired, which meant one short per battery. It wasn't very efficient, but the weapon was powerful. It was the perfect anti-vehicle weapon.

"Ready!" the Dresam carrying the weapon called out as he set himself down on one knee to stabilize his aim.

"Roger!" the secondary called out, "target dead ahead! Fire when ready!"

"Roger!" he responded. "Target lock! FIRING!" With that there was a deafening shriek followed by a loud crack as the HEEL discharged the energy of the battery. A long beam of bluish-violet plasma shot out of the HEEL and connected with the lead enemy tank, melting through the armor plating and punching clean through to the opposite side. The beam lasted all of two seconds before disappearing. The Amoruskian tank stopped dead in its tracks, clearly disabled. Before long, the ammo inside of the tank started cooking off, creating numerous secondary explosions among the Amoruskian advancing line.

"CLEAR!" the primary Dresam yelled out over the din of the battle as he dismounted the weapon from his shoulder and knocked off the dead battery. The secondary was waiting for him with the next battery ready to be slapped into place.

In the meantime, Hon was fighting off an advancing party of Amorusk. They had spotted the HEEL, since something of that caliber was hard to miss, and they were moving forward to take it out. Hon was doing is best to keep the crew alive. But he was being overwhelmed. There were numerous Amorusk appearing out of the tall meadow grass, almost too many to shoot. And before long, he had run out of ammo completely. Before he could react and call out for spare ammo, or even draw his pistol, an enemy Amorusk had stumbled into his foxhole and on top of him.

"Ugh!" Hon yelled out as the heavy beast landed on him. He shifted his feet around to get them underneath the enemy and kicked up, sending the creature back out of the hole. This gave him a moment of breathing room, but only a moment. He used it wisely and pulled out his serrated knife for the close combat. And Hon was just in time as the Amorusk had dove back into the pit with its shield claws first. That didn't give Hon much to work with since they effectively protected the enemy from any attack. Hon was forced back down into the hole with the Amorusk on top of him.

At that point, one of the shield claws moved up and then swung back down, bringing the sharp point of the shield claw into his leg. It sunk in deep, causing Hon to yell out in pain.

He gnashed his teeth at the new wound, but hooked his arms around the creatures now exposed head. His knife was in one of them and he jabbed it at the creature, but it slide off of the chitinous exoskeleton.

"Just DIE!" he yelled out in anger and pain. He raised the knife back up and tried to stab again, but the same thing happened. The creatures exoskeleton was just too think. The Amorusk was struggling to free its shield claw, but it had sunk in quite deep and it wasn't having much success. Hon raised his knife a third time. Just as he was about to bring it back down, the HEEL went off again, creating the shriek-crack and the deep blue beam of light that flashed over his foxhole. Hon brought the knife down, and managed to pierce it through the segment that joined the Amorusk's head to the rest of its body. The alien let out a shriek itself and started truly thrashing about. Hon just held the knife in the alien's neck and twisted it around a bit to cause more damage. Several seconds later the creature was dead, and Hon was pulling himself out of the foxhole, his left leg numb and bleeding profusely.

But the scene outside of the foxhole wasn't much prettier. Several Dresam were disappearing over the far ridge, retreating away from the advancing Amorusk. Three of the five tanks were still moving forward. Several meters away from Hon lay the HEEL crew, dead from bullet wounds. Their weapon, however, was still active along with several of the battery packs.

Hon pulled himself over in that direction, willing himself to get the weapon working. He had been trained in all sorts of weapons, including those of the Amorusk before the start of the war. He had fired the HEEL several times, and it didn't take much to remember how to work it.

He grabbed ahold of the HEEL and arranged two of the other battery packs to be close at hand. If he was going to do this, he had to do it quick. He wouldn't get any second chances. Hon looked over his targets and quickly set his sights on the one furthest away. If he could take that one out, then he was guaranteed hits on the others as well, as long as he could get it reloaded in time.

Hon aimed the HEEL, allowed the built in computer sights to get a lock-on and waited for the tell-tale chirping that signaled the weapon was primed. As soon as he heard it he depressed the trigger, stretching out the deep blue beam of superheated plasma to smack into its target. This tank went up in a ball of flame almost immediately. But Hon didn't wait around. Within four seconds he had the second battery loaded and was aiming it at the second tank. After what seemed like an eternity, the HEEL began chirping, signaling the lock-on. Hon fired the weapon off, taking out the second tank. By this time the last Amoruskian tank had noticed that it was the only one left. But rather than sticking around and trying to take out the Dresam, it pushed into reverse and made a beeline for the ridge over which it had come.

Hon was too quick for it though, and before the tank could disappear, the final beam of dark blue light stretched through the air and annihilated the Amoruskian armor.

"Wooooolllaaaa!" Hon yelled out the ancient battle cry. He threw the HEEL aside and lay on his back, staring up at the sky. At this point he didn't care what happened next. He had no ammo for his TER, the HEEL batteries had been used, and his knife was still stuck in the back of the Amorusk's neck in his old foxhole. If an Amoruskian squad came upon him, he wouldn't offer any resistance. He really couldn't.

He stared up at the sky, picking out the Amoruskian battlegroup that hung in orbit over Farga. That angered him quite a bit. He had done his job by fighting off the Amorusk. Where the hell was the Navy?