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The Warlord Max-Stalker watched intently as his Sith forces massed in the Valley with great speed. From a vantage point to the rear Warlord Stalker again raised his Lectrovision device, this time from the armored hatch of a special obsidian armored “Tartus” TGC Tactical Ground Controller which was flanked by two heavy GC-7 Ground Crawlers and a support KO-1 Krane Observer behind them. With all regular forces debarked Stalker ordered the last of the bulk carriers cargo to be unloaded at once. These were the secret Military Airlyters of which 15 were heavily armed gunship conversions while the other 500 were divided between troop transports (300) and Drop Trooper ships (200). Each troop transport and Drop Ship held fifty armed Kyries, 25,000 troops in all. They were ordered to power up at once and depart for Jeranu, the capital of Elysia. The loitering one hundred Black Ravens and forty Gretches were to lead them in for landing and assault. As the Airlyters were unloaded, the first to spot them was Gold Army Field Commander Maratan who knew the danger immediately and ordered the VFGs to stand-by to open up on the Sith forces in the Valley. In the open the Sith had amassed roughly 450,000 Kyries into massive wave blocks supported by over 2,500 Ground Crawlers and over 1,000 Tactical Rollers. A thousand armed Krane Observers patrolled the flanks of their army while over 5,000 hursas operated by outlaw Death Riders formed huge frontlines along with a huge line of Death Hounds to lead the attack. The ground war was about to commence! Field Commander Maratan gave the order to commence firing the VFGs without waiting for orders from the Queen, who at that very minute was conferring with Imperator Bevins in the War Room concerning the possible use of the Airlyters. Suddenly, all attention turned the Tactical Holomorphic Display Grid. The Queen and Bevins stopped their conversation as the display lit up with fire coming from the big VFGs. Inside the giant Volley Fire Guns. which resembled towering rolling cylindrical fuel storage tanks with a protruding bridge on top, the military operators and Miltech droids charged the two massive thirty-six barrel guns on each side and raised them to the sky like two giant arms outstretched. Caseless blocks of projectile ammunition poured down the feed lines and were ram-loaded into each barrel as powerful lectro-igniters were pre-set to fire the rounds in sequence with blistering speed. 1,500 of these guns now targeted the Jez’aral Valley and fired a monstrous wave of projectiles at the slowly advancing Sith. The sound of 108,000 barrels firing 2,160,000 projectiles at once was deafening. The Sith Army paused as a screaming sound was heard from the distance then the dark rain of projectiles poured down upon them. The armored vehicles stood up to the barrage but the Death Riders, hursas, Death Hounds, and Kyries took painful hits. Over 50,000 Kyries were slaughtered along with a thousand or more Death Riders and their hursas plus several hundred Death Hounds. The VFGs were attempting to hit the Airlyters but were too far out of range. Their barrage had hit the main force but had not touched the bulk carriers nor the powered up Airlyters that were filling the sky and heading westward under Raven escort and followed by the Gretches. However, the 15 Military Airlyter gunships overloaded with ordnance raced forward to knock-out the VFGs. From a safe distance they launched 500 Nexia missiles in fire clusters even as their slug C and T-Packs raked the Gold Army troops along the way. Massive bursts of fire came from the ground as the Gold troops fired their SH-5 turbo pulse rifles into the air with little or no effect on the Sith gunships. The Nexias locked onto the VFGs and in a flash over 800 of them were either knocked out or seriously damaged. Powerful explosions tore through the VFG line as their internal magazines blew showering the Gold Army troops with a rain of fiery debris and projectiles. Only four dozen of the new IMPAK micro-fusion weapons were issued to the Gold troops but at least two soldiers raised their barrels to the sky and carefully locked onto a gunship. There was a sudden flash of light and then two Airlyters were destroyed in a powerful light burst. The remaining VFGs opened up with an immediate response. A second wave of 1,080,000 projectiles filled up the sky tearing into the 13 hovering Airlyters and destroying all of them as another rain of fire poured down on the Sith. 30,000 Kyries were killed with close to another 1,000 Death riders, their hursas, and two hundred more Death Hounds. For Warlord Max-Stalker this was a nuisance that had to be neutralized. Already he had watched his force lose 80,000 troops, 2,000 Death Riders and their mounts, plus almost a third of the Death Hounds. And now all 15 of my gunships? His armored force fared better with only some slight damage to their hulls. A few GC-7s had thrown their tracks and a few KO-1s had fallen to the ground with no casualties reported. The Kyries were still advancing with Sith military discipline trudging through the blood soaked earth and remains of the fallen. The carnage was massive, but not unbearable. The Sith glorified in war and these first strikes only made them more bloodthirsty for revenge. Warlord Stalker wanted to return fire with his armored forces but the Gold Army was out of range for the time being and shielded by two mountain ranges which terminated at the end of the Valley which formed a narrow gap between them. Still, the fire from their burning VFGs was producing acrid smoke that clouded their vision. It was an inspiration for the Sith who marched ahead slowly as planned. For Gold Army Field Commander Maratan the destruction of over half his VFGs was discouraging and now that the Sith were advancing towards their position preparations had to be made for the coming assault. Already, the Gold Army had lost 4,000 troops with the VFG explosions, Airlyter strikes, and errant Nexia missiles that fell into the troop concentrations. That left Maratan approximately 96,000 troops up against over 400,000 Sith troops. They were outnumbered by 4-to-1 and would not be able to hold the Sith back for more than a few hours before pulling back towards At Both Field Commander Maratan and the Amber Commandos at As the Queen was about to speak, the city sirens were sounding and the entrance to the War Room automatically shut with triple blast doors. They were locked in now. On the streets, the Whills looked up in horror at the approaching waves of ships headed their way. Panic set in as the crowds rushed indoors hoping that the Red Army would be able to stop the assault. But Red Army Field Commander Wilbourne had most of his troops deployed around the capital with only 10,000 troops actually inside of it. No one had considered a landing within the city and the Aerial Turbo-Pulsers would have a hard time getting at the fast moving Ravens which were escorting the Airlyter transports. Nothing stood in the way of a city assault except for small pockets of troops and some armored vehicles plus the city’s own Amber Commandos- which were dispersed to various locations. No one knew exactly where or how the Sith would strike the city. But they soon would find out what the Sith were up to. Cruelty and mass destruction were their specialty and their reputation preceded them.
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