Con-Red: Recourse by Max Feinstein Page A

to its original strength.  The entire base had been constructed from the material and could heal itself, within reason, should the need arise.  Satisfied that the shell would not collapse on top of them, General Stelle looked down to study his CCT once more.
    The holographic display showed a complete rendering of the surrounding area, including the mountain side housing the base itself as well as the surrounding area into which his ground forces had deployed to reinforce the perimeter.  Brinek had two entire combat divisions, over twelve thousand men and women, assigned to the Command Headquarters and a majority of those troops had already been deployed.  There were other company and battalion sized units strewn around the countryside, which had been on training maneuvers when the hostilities had begun.  These units had been recalled as soon as the laser data network had come online. They would join their comrades in defense of the base if the need called for.
    “Sir, they just hit the entire TLaR network.  We registered five direct i mpacts, but one system is still online.  That relay is half blocked by debris, however,” reported the Colonel as he leaned closer to one of the large displays.
    “Well, that didn’t take them long, did it?” sighed General Stelle as more aspects of his defensive preparations deteriorated.  “Did you get the message out to all forces?”
    “Roger that sir, CON Red-Charlie was the first message we got out.”
    Another shudder ran through the facility and kicked up the dust that had collected on the CCT.  General Stelle shook his head and blinked quickly as some of it attacked his eyes.  He ran his hand through his shortly cut hair at the same time and wiped away any debris particles that might have coated his scalp.  As he opened his lacrimating eyes and focused once more on the holographic image in front of him, Brinek instantly realized that something was very wrong with the picture and took a double take.  He was sure that no more than seconds ago there had been many more units on the map than there were now.  This was confirmed when his neural implant read his thoughts and called up previous unit locations, marking them with representative icons, which featured every units designation and statistics.  These units had seemed to simply vanish from the planet’s surface.
    “General , we just registered multiple surface impacts and detonations along the entire perimeter, both length and width.  We lost contact with the 48 th , 12 th , 335 th , and the 572 nd .  Half of the remaining units reporting mass casualties from ten to fifty percent.  We got hit hard sir, very hard.” Stated Colonel Lakler as he got direct updates from the communications station.
    “They knew just where t o hit us and how to do it right,” the General acknowledged in a surprisingly calm voice as he studied the map in front of him closer.
    “Sir, we also lost contact with Colonel Slaige’s team .”
    The map rotated and changed as he instructed , focusing on the area that had received the greatest amount of punishment.  It was also the area that had contained the highest concentration of military might.  The bombardment seemed to have cleared a fairly defined path through the security line leading straight to the base itself.  This realization hit the general like a driver to the head.
    “Colonel, deploy all remaining reserves to Sector Alpha!  Lock this base down and prepare for an assault.” Even as the last words of this command left his mouth an alarm sounded throughout the base and his two body guards instantly unbound their weapons, holding them at the ready while facing the large blastdoors that separated the Command Room from the rest of the base.
    “We got reports of enemy soldiers inside the perimeter, sir!  The 85 th found what look like orbital drop pods less than four hundred meters from base entrance.”
    “They used to the bombardment as a cover for the drop pods.  Well