Jeti Keto: Base Under Attack - Another Raid?

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

 Jeti stopped writing into his tabloid as the sounds echoed and the walls of the room vibrated. He paused to listen as he wondered if he had just imagined the loud explosions. In answer, the explosions were repeated, accompanied by the base's sirens, calling for the assembling of the troops to defend the base. Realizing he hadn't heard wrong and that the base was truly under attack, he jumped out of his bed, zipped up his military jumpsuit and grabbed his Imperium saber as he dashed for the door. He rushed out of the room, joining dozens of Xentan troopers as they made for the dormy's exit pods.

 Sirius had been untouched since the start of the war until a decade ago, when Commander Sorah of the Crugi Empire was given the mandate of the Xentan conquest. The first planet of Domeran was partly occupied by Crugi forces and their machines, the Crubots. The Xentan civilization in Domeran was forced to migrate from the planet after massive destruction of mega-cities and settlements by the Crugi warships and automatons.

Commander Sorah attempted to invade Sirius after his exploits on Domeran, but his efforts were thwarted by the Xentan SpaceGuard, Neomeris, patrolling the planet. To compliment the efforts, and in case the Neomeris were defeated, the Xentan Military built the station, Base 101. 

 At the completion of its construction, base 101 had thirty cruisers, five XC-Destroyers, seven military shuttles, a hundred battlewagons, and seventeen hundred troopers, with regular supplies and communication network from the nearby city of KOSH. However, the base was neglected as the threat of the Crugi invasion on Sirius was averted, its manpower and machinery moved to Domeran to facilitate the garrisons there. The base could only boast of nine battlewagons, one XC-destroyer and a few hundred men. Many of the vessels and vehicles had been destroyed in recent raids, with minimal damage to the base itself. With their trump cards subdued by the SpaceGuard, the Crugi resorted to immobilize the base with the raids, their targets being the base structural features and towers.

 Running out of the exit pod with fellow troopers, Jeti looked up at the dark sky and saw enemy shuttles descending from a distant warship. They were exchanging plasma blasts with the base's anti-aircraft turrets and he felt terrified. With the number of shuttles in the skies, this didn't look like a raid to him. Normally, the Crugi used cruisers that would sky-dive and shoot at whatever they saw, but now, it seems the Crugi were trying to land. His fear, merged with the sounds of the enemy shuttles, caused memories to ricochet through his mind, reminding him of the day of 'the attack'. His hometown in Domeran was attacked by Crugi ZV-destroyers, his parents were killed and he handled a weapon for the first time in his life. He didn't think he would have another experience of fear that rivalled that day, but he was wrong. 

Summoning courage and strength, he willed himself to be brave as he shoved his feelings of terror aside. 

 The base's anti-aircraft crew were jumping into turrets and opening fire at the incoming shuttles that entered their range. He cheered silently as two shuttles were blown from the sky and another sent crashing some miles from the base. Motivated, the troopers yelled battle chants as they passed blasters and gears, to get into defensive positions. Longing to help out, he ran towards one of the unmanned turrets, ducking low enough with a raised arm to shield his head, when someone stopped his rush. It was Dumus Hosen, the base's commander's aide, who did. He was armed with a double IP-blaster with infrasonic grenades. From the expression on his face, Jeti knew that this was not just an ordinary raid, and that the base may never recover.

 "Dumus."

 "Jeti! Where's Lonson? Keron Prebs wants to see both of you, now!"

 "Why?" He asked, surprised.

 "If I knew the answer to that, then I wouldn't have asked you that. Get your head in the game, Trooper. Just look for Lonson, get to the south end of the base and...."

A heavy blast struck the ground, just fifty feet from where they stood. A trooper was hurled by the momentum of the blast and he landed beside them. It was a grievous fall, the body laying in a grotesque angle, on his back. Hosen knelt beside the trooper and yanked off his helmet's visor.

"Lombado! Lombado!" He shook the soldier and searched for a pulse, and dejectedly turned to Jeti. "He's dead. Go find Lonson and meet the Keron. . . . . I need to coordinate this line of defense." He said, and raising his weapon, stood up and ran towards the turrets. 

 Jeti hurried off, searching all the red uniformed troopers for his friend. A blast landed metres to his right and he was lucky to still be alive. The impact of the blast sent him flying forward and he landed facedown on the ground, dazed. Spurred by the close call experience with death, he got up and ran faster towards the base's entrance. After a frantic search, he found Lonson crouching behind a manned turret gun. Jeti approached him and tapped his shoulder. Lonson turned around quickly, and he saw the fear in his eyes. 

 "Jeti, what's happening?" He inquired, dusting red-dust off his jumpsuit.

 "What does it look like, domfus? It's an attack!" Jeti snapped impatiently. 

 "I know, but, an attack of this magnitude...The Intel guys said about seventy shuttles, ten Destroyers and two Warships are hovering in the Xorosphere. Probably more, too. Is this a raid?" 

 Jeti knew what he was getting at. The number of spaceships shouldn't have been able to enter Sirius' airspace undetected, unless the Planet's SpaceGuard had been exterminated and Domeran was under full Crugi rule.

 "I don't know why, too. I have guesses but I don't want to say them out," He confessed and Lonson nodded knowingly. "Keron Prebs summons us," He added.

 "To what purpose?"

 "Wasn't told, but we have to go, now." He ran off, leaving him to follow as he could. They ran gingerly, jumping over dead Xentan troopers and blown upachines, towards the south-end of the base. There, they met the base's Keron, Prebs Næiti, behind a twin-turret, shouting orders and commands to the trooper inside, as he studied the shuttles in the sky.