And So It Begins: The Capital

[Ian]

Ian peered through his field glasses. Camp Grant was a smoking ruin, and now the bulk of his clone army of 50,000 soldiers was poised at the edge of the great city of the Alliance.

The Ajem'dasis heavy artillery pieces lobbed shell after shell with their quantum warheads, which exploded. Skyscrapers shook and burned, while others came crashing down in clouds of smoke and dust.

"The enemy is offering little resistance father," Ian said still looking though the field glasses. "The Prices have no choice but to surrender or we will level their city."

[Ethan Talon]

An Alliance Dublin-class runabout broke through the clouds at a nearly suicidal speed. The runabout was escorted by six F-39 fighters and the Magellan-class starship TAS Henry Hudson, which was attached to the 414th Fleet.

As they approached the capital the Hudson peeled away and held a holding pattern over the city while the rest of the formation roared between the skyscrapers. As they approached the presidential compound they slowed. The runabout and two the fighters landed on the front lawn.

Five Terra Alpha Marines emerged from the runabout. They were wearing adamantite armor painted in dull camouflage green on their chests, shoulders and helmets. It was protection against klidens, and the fully automatic projectile rifles they carried had proven harder for Ajem'dasis to block.

Sergent Major Diego Garza of the 82 Volunteer Infantry Division looked around with his rifle in the ready. The whites of his eyes stood out against the green and black face paint.

"Okay fellas, our priority is the president and his wife. Our lives are completely expendable. Corporal Higgins you secure the runabout. We keep comms open at all times."

"Yes Top!" The Marines shouted.

"All right then, move out!"

Moving around to the entrance there were a pair of lifeless forms in buisness suits. Garza kneeled down and rolled one of the bodies over and swore. "Secret Service. Looks like they were killed with a kliden. Gilroy, radio General Lei. Tell her we need reinforcements down here yesterday."

The private nodded. He was new to the 82nd, but to his credit he was holding it together pretty well. Garza didn't wait for a response and pushed the front door open with his rifle to his shoulder.

The interior of the compound was eerily silent, despite the cacophony of sounds coming from the battle all around. Another trio of body's lay on the marble floor. No Secret Service this time, two civilians and a Naval officer in a captain's uniform.

The Marines silently fanned out. The private quarters would be upstairs. Making hand signals they methodically cleared the bottom floor. The Ajem'dasis was thorough that was certain. No one what been left alive.

Finally it was time to work their way up stairs. It was a process that only took a few moments, but felt like hours, and it left Garza sweating, which he used his left hand to wipe it out of his eyes.

At the top of the landing he peered around the corner to an empty hallway. Taking a deep breath he slowly let it out before speaking loudly, "Mr. President this is Sergent Major Garza of the 82nd. We're here to get you out of here. General Shrin and Admiral Tomarah are already set up at rhe safe site sir. "

[Jonathan Price]

"Prove it!" Jon shouted as Tali'Zorha emerged from seemingly nowhere and leveled a rather large weapon at the Marines. "Tali... are they who are they say they are?

"They are sir!" Tali replied and lowered her weapon. "Sorry about the greeting... some of those bodies were infiltrators." she sighed and closed her eyes. "You probably saw four bodies, two in business attire and two in naval uniforms. They tried to get in to kill us, but I caught onto their thoughts."

"Uhh ma'am... we only saw three." A Marine spoke up.

"Grozit... get your asses here now... that cagey bastard could be anywhere." Tali said and motioned for the Marines to come down the hallway. "My son in law's father was quite a paranoid genius, plenty of places to secure people not fighting. As if I'd let the Presidents Price out... "

"Only because Bella is apart from any arrows or other weapons..." Jon called back. "Get a weapon in her hand she'll fight, as will I."

"Like hell you will. I promised to keep you safe and grozit I will keep you safe even if I have to break your knees again!" Tali threatened.

"No need for threats..." Jon said with a slight smile as he emerged. "Sergeant I fear there may not be a 'safe site' if they have any notion of our defenses. Outside of the ones that even I was not made privvy to that only Nick Ryder knew about. I was informed of a 'foothold protocol' that was originally intended for an Imperium invasion and attempted take over. It's President's eyes only but as you can see we have no power to anything they took out all communications here and disabled Becki and our Nick Ryder AI."

Suddenly a holographic form fritz'd to life, a shaky, yet still recognizable form appeared. "Don't... don't count me out yet sir." Becki replied. "I'm slowly getting our systems back up... get to the safe site. Part of the protocol is on me. It is best that allies are not here to witness it."

"What... ?" Jon looked at her quizzically.

"Any invading forces that are not on the safe scan list... are targeted and beamed out into a secure holding cell, but with the damage the Compound took targeting sensors are not quite reliable... but they are functional. I ... don't want to... grab the wrong person or worse... the system fails during transport. Thank Tony and Nicholas for programming me with Asimov's laws of robotics..."

"Do what you must then." Jon said as he tried to put his hand on her shoulder but it passed through.

"This is just a security projection, only holographic system that I have access to right now, but I have full network access... thankfully they haven't taken out my core processors that are scattered throughout the Capitol." Becki said and looked at Jon and the Marines. "I... may not entirely survive this, once I start my end of the foothold protocol, it may reveal locations I am functioning out of and they could target them. I lose enough locations... I'm history."

"Then we need to work fast... give us time to get the rest of our defenses online." Jon said. "Garza... do you have anyone that is near AlphaTek Tower? "

[Ethan Talon]

"Sir, we have to get you out of here. The Ajem'dasis have air superiority right now, and they are shelling the hell out of us. I don't know that status of the tower, but they were bombing the area."

As if to illustrate his point the building across the street was torn apart. A whole wall exposed, and the interior started to burn.

"Sir, I can't order you to leave, but I suggest it. We don't want to die here because you are stubborn, but we will."

[Jonathan Price]

"Well the Tower is secure far below ground. Plus... the Foothold Protocol has already been activated, everything transfers to Level 31 sub basement of the AlphaTek Tower. And civilians are quietly moved to the under ground safety bunkers. Nick Ryder had spent pretty much everything he was given to build this city and he made sure that the population would be taken care of in the event the Imperium made a foothold. Won't hold out forever, but long enough for people like us to get them off our planet." Jon said as they followed the Marines out of what was left of the office part of the Compound. "All this can be rebuilt in a month, since that's how long it took in the first place... and I'm not going down in history as the President that was in office when we lost Terra Alpha. But where the bloody hell are our air defenses? Having tea?!"
]

[Ethan Talon]

"Two squadrons were taken out on the ground, and another three in the air against their fighters and attack ships," Garza replied. "We have a runabout ready on the front lawn with fighter escort."

[Tali’Zorha]

"Well you've got me now." Tali said as she looked at Garza. "I do have some... abilities that will keep anyone attempting to attack us from regretting it. I'm through having hang ups using it... they come near us, they're turning into armor plated meatballs."

[Shrin]

"Sergeant Garza come in."

Diego tapped his combadge, "Go ahead General."

"We just broke thorough the communications lockout. Do you have the package?"

"Yes General. We are heading for the Ryder contingency plan."

"Good job Sergeant. We'll see you when you get here. General Shrin out."

[Tomarah t'Sei]

- AlphaTech Inc. Secrete bunker.

Tomarah was standing next to General Shrin when President Price and his party entered. Tomarah saluted. "Good to see you Mr. President."

Before her was a holographic map of Terra Alpha. "They hit is hard sir. Hiroshima is a smoldering ruin. Camps Grant, Archer, and Ryder were destroyed by enemy bombers. Our air force is down to twenty-five percent capacity, and our fleet is outnumbered two to one. Now, for the good news. The attack on New Scotland has stalled. Vice-president Foster is wrapping up operations. King James is sending his remaining army and air force to link up with our forces amassing outside Hag Harbor. Emperor Stormrage has pledged their First Fleet and Admiral Ryder belives the Shadow fleet will assist."

[Tony Ryder]

"Oh they'll assist, bastards owe us for getting them set up after the Imperium War." Tony said as he limped into the war room. "Sorry I'm late... been trying to shore up defenses and get our nanotech and other experimental stuff deployed." he gestured to his leg. "Tripped over my sister's high heels when she was running." he rolled his eyes.

"Well you HAD to install stinkin' marble flooring, I'm not breaking my neck on running down marble floors in Louboutins!" Natalia chided and shook her head. "AlphaTek Tower is fully online with structural defenses and offensive weaponry online. We can control it all from here and other control centers around the complex underground. I had no idea Nick and Tony put so much into the Tower."

"The original intent was that the Tower was going to be the new seat of government and the Compound was going to revert to Nick's private residence instead it all switched when he found he liked the Compound and moved everything there. I was only going to lease out the upper ten floors of the tower for AlphaTek and the rest were going to be government." Tony explained as he glanced at a padd and made some changes ."In any case, these sub levels are full equipped to be your new Compound until we rebuild or build you something new. That was always Nick's home, didn't have to be yours."

"I'll take it under advisement, in the meantime... we're going to have a lot of work on our hands to defeat this insanely large cloned army." Jon said as he sat down and rubbed his knee and looked up at Tony and Tomarah. "I fear that we're going to have to also institute something of a draft or deputization program immediately, anyone that can fight and not on the criminal watchlists... gets made a deputized agent of the Alliance and considered a part of the military."

"One thing at a time Mister President, as your Secretary of Defense, i'm going to pull some rank and use tech and systems that we haven't fully tested but we've got sitting around, good a time as any to justify why I bill so much for paint and toilet seats and hammers...." Tony said with a wink.