Conquests of a Supervillain, Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – Status Report

The first days of the Silexian invasion were rough. Military forces didn’t have the ability to repel the landers before they reached ground, and the Silexian fleet managed to buy enough time for their solders to set up devices which allowed reinforcements to flow out like water from their worlds. Clearly, they had practiced this form of invasion before.

Unfortunately, I was forced to sit out of the fighting those first few weeks, as I was trapped in endless meetings. There were meetings about getting my ships repaired, and the missing fighters replaced, and requisitioning new crewmembers to replace the fallen, and so on. Then there were meetings to debrief and share the information we’d stolen from the Silexian systems while we delayed them. Then there were strategy meetings, to decide on what the next move would be.

I hated all of it, of course, but it was necessary. If I didn’t play ball, I wouldn’t get the things I needed to carry on the Vendetta, or I wouldn’t get them as easily. And we were still the underdogs, despite our success. Sure, it was a major bonus that Earth had finally come under a single banner, with the United Solari Federation, but that didn’t mean that the individual nations hadn’t kept some nationalistic pride, or rivalries. I needed to keep an eye on things, so I could smack people around if they were losing sight of the true goal.

“Iceblade, sir!”

I was just leaving another meeting on ship production when someone called for me. Turning, I saw a young officer in a Solari Navy uniform, a Lieutenant by the looks of her. I smirked behind my mask as I looked her over. Bright-eyed and eager. Probably straight out of officer training school, or whatever they did.

“What is it, Lieutenant?”

“I am Lieutenant Mary Calloway, and I’ve been assigned as your liaison with Solari Naval Command. I have an update for you on the status of the Vendetta fleet repairs. Also, I have status reports on the state of the fighting around the six incursion points.”

I nodded. “Excellent. Walk with me, Lieutenant, and start with the report on my ships.”

As we started walking through the halls, the Lieutenant began speaking. “Yes, sir. The repair yards are reporting that it will be three to four months to repair all the Vendetta ships. Unfortunately, there isn’t much that can be done to speed things up, as the Vengeance is still mostly alien tech, and producing replacement parts and repairs is going to be tricky, and they’ll need to be tested before going back into battle. For the Dragonflame, the issue is the pulse torpedo launchers. The repairs need to be done properly, and the engineers patently refuse to rush that, for obvious reasons.”

“Very well. Send word to the yards, tell them to concentrate on the Dragonflame for now. If we can get her back into the fight, we can coordinate with the gunboats in orbit to see about keeping the Silexians from supporting their ground forces as easily. What’s next?”

“The ground fighting is progressing, but attempts to drive the aliens back through their gateways has been met with failure so far. They’ve established additional gate facilities in their beachheads, and have been able to bring through artillery and vehicles to support their infantry. Unfortunately, according to intel, the Silexians have twelve major inhabited worlds to draw troops from, and we only have the one.”

“Tell me about the different beachheads.”

“Well, sir, the closest one would be the Nevada incursion, near Las Vegas. Thankfully, there were several army bases nearby, and the National Guard had already mobilized as soon as the ships came through the warp gate. However, the desert terrain makes it difficult to set up a true perimeter, as we simply don’t have any infrastructure out there to base a defense off of. Las Vegas, Fort Irwin, and Fort Mojave all are in our hands, but the aliens have spread out significantly in the area between those points.”

“Have they tried to break out at all?”

“No, sir. They expanded to the point where we were able to effectively resist them, and then focused on constructing defenses. Intelligence thinks that this base is a command center of some kind, as the defenses are a whole order of magnitude more robust than at the other sites. However, they have been building up troops and weapons. Initial skirmishes have shown that their vehicles are vulnerable to RPG and anti-tank weapons, but it takes multiple hits to get through their shields and armor. Their vehicle weapons appear plasma based, and have been very effective against our tanks.”

Calloway took a breath, and continued. “The second incursion point is in the Amazon, near the remains of the Kratuan hiveship. The jungle is a double-edged sword there. Local military forces have been unable to mobilize forces to push them back into the gap, but they are unable to bring their vehicles to bear. They seem intent on capturing the hiveship, for reasons unknown, which has made the defense much easier. Stealth-focused supers and special forces units have spread through the jungle, harassing patrols and keeping the Silexians from spreading out through the jungle.”

I nodded as we reached the private conference room. Sitting in one of the chairs, I waved at the one next to me, indicating she should sit. “They probably want to study the hiveship and figure out just how we stopped a Kratuan invasion without rendering a planet uninhabitable to all life. The Silexians have no love for the Kratuans, and their biological technology is literally as alien to them as it is to us, so anything they could learn would help them. For the same reasons, they don’t want us to have it. Can’t have us figuring out some key technological secrets from the Kratuans, and then turning it against them in the field, right?”

“Command believes the same. Unfortunately, the other incursions are not in ideal positions. The African incursion point is located in nearly the center of the entire continent, in what was formerly known as Zaire. Unfortunately, the governments there have been shaky, at best, for the last hundred years or more, and their military primarily consists of barely trained troops with AK-47s. The Silexians were able to rapidly take control of a large area, reaching from Pointe-Noire in the west to Mumbasa in the east. They’ve effectively bisected the African continent.”

“Furthermore, when the governments collapsed, many of the soldiers either deserted, or began attempting to carry out revenge on decades old grudges. We have reports of ethnic cleansing being conducted in Rwanda, again, even as those troops also kill any Silexian patrols they can ambush. Kenya’s government is one of the few in the area that is still functioning, and they’ve lost half their country already to the Silexians. Reinforcements are being flown in, but it will take time for them to arrive, obviously.”

“Australia’s in almost as bad a situation, I’m afraid. The Silexians landed near the city of Kintore, on the western edge of the Northern Territory, and have expanded rapidly thanks to Australia’s relatively small standing army and the lack of population centers in the outback. Currently, forces in the western part of the continent have been pushed back to a defensive cordon stretching from Balladonia in the south, through Kalgoorlie, to Geraldton in the west, though most of that cordon is only held because of the mountains. In the east, they’re holding at Windorah and White Cliffs, and a strong force is holding Nicholson in the north, keeping the Silexians from sweeping into Queensland.”

“While the situation is dire in Australia, the fighting seems to have halted temporarily. Causes unknown, though scouts who slipped behind enemy lines have signaled that some of the native animal life and aboriginal tribes have been giving the Silexians some trouble. And there have been twenty-seven bombing runs on a particular location near Warburton in the last week alone!”

I frowned, and said, “Let me see the map.” Calloway handed it to me, and I looked at the location. “Hmm. Inform your superiors that the Warburton site is close to one of the lairs that the Tasmanian Devil used to use, before his death. It is likely that someone either found or reclaimed the base, and is putting it to use holding off the Silexians.”

Calloway nodded. “I will let them know. That will be welcome news for many that there might be survivors behind enemy lines. Despite the speed of the Silexian advance, the sheer amount of terrain meant that most of the civilians in the conquered area managed to stay ahead of the front.”

“What are the Silexians doing with those they catch?”

The Lieutenant’s face grew grim. “Civilians who surrender are being herded into camps. We believe they’re being prepared for transport through the gates back to the Silexian worlds. According to Ambassador Grendit, taking a captured population as slaves is a common occurrence in galactic warfare. Combatants who are captured are also placed in camps, separate from the civilians. We have reports that there may be war crimes going on in the POW camps.”

I nodded. One couldn’t expect the aliens to abide by human rules of war, of course. There was the slim comfort that at least the Silexians weren’t eating those they captured, which put them several steps above the Kratuans, who were captured on video eating people alive during their invasion of Kansas City. Still, this kind of behavior was informative. Not that I cared overly much about the fate of the captured sheep. But atrocities committed by the Silexians would mean that there would be fewer people to argue against the message I would start sending to them, once I got back out in the field.

“And the other incursions?”

“Europe is in bad shape. The Silexians landed practically on top of Cologne, Germany, and quickly took the city. Since then, they’ve pushed into the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, and France, using what we can only describe as hovertanks. French reinforcements have stopped the advance so far, and the Silexians are holding at Reims. The Germans have dug in around Frankfort and Bremen, and the aliens have not been able to push them back so far. However, this has compromised a lot of the industrial might of Europe, as the area include many large factory complexes. This, in turn, is leading to a logistics nightmare, as I’m sure you can understand.”

“And Asia? I heard they landed in China.”

“Yes, Sir. They landed in Qinghai Province, and quickly expanded to the south and west. The Chinese army fell back, abandoning Tibet and other areas to focus on the defense of critical sites in Xinjiang, and the Silexians took over Tibet in a matter of days. The current fighting is centered around Sichuan Province, where the Silexians are attempting to push into the more populous areas of China. However, China’s very large military stalled out the advance, and the Russians and North Koreans have both reinforced the line. Indian and Pakistani troops are holding the southern border. Unfortunately, the enemy currently has air superiority, since they’ve brought several wings of fighters through their gates, and it is only thanks to the gunboats in space that the enemy is unable to park a ship over the front and use orbital bombardments to swing the fighting the other way.”

“Hmm. If they’re doing so well in other theaters, why are they making the North American base their headquarters?”

“Unknown, sir. It may be that the theater commander is more cautious than some of the other commanders. Intelligence believes the local commander wishes to consolidate his base before launching a massive offensive, to ensure that any attack will be swift, brutal, and successful, instead of becoming a slugging match.”

Lieutenant Calloway paused, and then looked him in the eye. “Also, interrogation of captured soldiers has revealed that they have all had an extensive briefing on ‘the Butcher of Rithena’, and what you’ve done to their forces on the invasion fleet. They appear to be very wary of you, sir.”

I laughed at that. “Of course, they are! They aren’t stupid enough to not be afraid of my reputation. And I intend to build on that. I’ve been sitting out for a while now, because people wanted me to be in these strategy sessions, and my people needed a rest after the work we put in, but it is time for me to get back in action.”

“Do you have a plan, sir?”

“The first plan is to make a statement, letting the Silexians know that I’m back in the mix. It needs to be someplace big and important, so that the enemy can’t help but have plenty of eyes on when we hit them. If they are anything like human soldiers, scuttlebutt will have the news around the planet faster than light speed. Once they know I’m back, then, we go to the next plan.”