The targeting script he'd programmed took over and fired half a dozen twelve hundred millimeter shells weighing nearly eighty tons each on a trajectory that would send them arcing towards the planet. The tungsten heavy-penetrator rounds, meant to punch holes through starship armor at close range, would continue to accelerate and slam into the planet at nearly eight times the speed they were launched.

The damage would be absolute.

"All shells away. Safing weapons," Yovenko said.

"Captain, take us back to the system boundary," Kohl said. "Navigation, plot us a course for star system B-1171. We will head there as soon as we rendezvous with the rest of our taskforce."

"Helm, all ahead full and make way for the system boundary. Coms, alert the rest of the taskforce we're inbound and prepare to go to warp at our arrival."

With his part of the overall war effort complete, it was time to finish the hunt he'd begun months ago in the Odmena System. It was time to put an end to the legend of Admiral Wolfe.

16

"Colonel Beck isn't fucking around!" Sergeant Enders shouted, his ears still ringing from the breaching charge the Saber's detachment had used to blast their way into the Command & Control hab.

"It helps they brought the right damn equipment with them," Walker growled.

The other NCO hadn't been thrilled about a starship detachment having to come down and bail them out. Enders, on the other hand, had been more than happy to have the extra hands to help break the stalemate. Just waiting for the enemy to be reinforced wasn't a strategy he'd been in love with, and watching his friend's head turn to pulp from a sniper round had erased any ego that might have been bruised by the appearance of Colonel Beck's fresh, well-equipped Marines.

When the first lifters hit the landing cradles, Enders had led his squad out from their fortified area to ensure the enemy couldn't hit them as they left the ship, bottlenecked in the hatchways. Since they'd blown up the power junctions that fed the base's defensive arsenal, all they could do from the C&C hab was watch as the lifters landed unimpeded. The base's security force had kept them contained within their own fortified position until Beck had landed all of her Marines and deployed them to re-take the C&C hab.

Enders didn't answer Walker as they watched eight Marines in the newest powered armor units charge through the still-smoking hole they'd just blasted through and opened fire on the stunned enemy troops on the other side. Those unlucky enough to be standing in the passageway when the Marines breached almost five centimeters of solid alloy were killed immediately when the charges went off. The rest in that section of the hab were stunned and disoriented from the over-pressure and sonic assault.

To prevent the same from happening on the side of the people setting the charges, the Marines had opened external vents in that section evacuated the area before hitting the detonator. Even so, the cutting charges delivered one hell of a hit to anyone in the vicinity.