Free War Against the White Knights by Tim C. Taylor Page A

diverted away from.
    The critical dropship launches had actually landed undetected on Tallerman-3 several days ago, their uprated stealth systems defeating enemy air defense sensors. Via FTL comm links that could not be intercepted, the Force Recon Marines who had faded away from those dropships reported themselves and their equipment in position. If they hadn’t, then Arun would not have risked the launch of the next wave of non-stealthed dropships.
    Barney informed him that the Force Recon Teams had deployed their cyber weapons around the military communication hubs of the defenders. The weapons were developments of the cyber grapples used to disable the Hardit planet killers at Khallini. Somewhere on the ship, Tremayne’s team of Khallene mudsuckers would be hard at work.
    Barney relayed a report from the cyber-ops team. Success! Enemy communications on Tallerman-3 were under Legion control. The Armageddon bombs were about to get a bad case of the gremlins.
    Some of the orbital defense platforms must have stayed isolated from the planetary comms network. They began firing at the incoming Legion dropships. The distance was still long range, and the dropship countermeasures deflected most of the fire, but the orbital defenses would soon be taking a much heavier toll as the range narrowed.
    The next phase of the Legion plan swung into action.
    More concealed assets on the surface of Tallerman-4 threw off their coverings and powered up. They were long-range missile and x-ray laser batteries that had been dismounted from Legion naval vessels and dug into the captured planet. They blasted away at the Imperial orbital defense network, winning void superiority for the dropships to cross in relative safety to the atmosphere of Tallerman-3 where they began their descent.
    A second wave of transports set off from orbit on the far side of Tallerman-4, carrying infantry, armor and artillery, escorted by warboats with combined void and atmospheric capability. A third wave was getting ready.
    The dropship landings would be fiercely opposed by the still-formidable conventional defenses of the enemy, but the opposition would not be enough. The Legion conquest of Tallerman-3 was assured. The only question was how many good people would die before the defenders accepted that fact.

— Chapter 10 —
    Winning a battle was infinitely preferable to losing, but brought its own responsibilities. The victorious Legion forces had prisoners to interrogate, free, or execute; bodies to bury, disease outbreaks to stifle, infrastructure to rebuild… the aftermath of war was messy and hard.
    In the case of the Tallerman system, Arun’s mind was elsewhere. Content to play the role of figurehead while his subordinates rebuilt the planet, he concentrated instead on planning the final push to liberate the White Knight Emperor. And more importantly, what would happen after that. He couldn’t afford distractions.
    So, when his adjutant, a Littorane called Major Spreese, pinged Arun’s private channel one day, he was not exactly in a receptive frame of mind.
    “There’s an individual requesting an audience, General.”
    “Has your brain gone dry, Spreese? In the first place, I am not a frakking king. People make appointments to see me, they don’t request an audience. Secondly, it’s your job to screen people so I see as few as possible. I trust you to decide whom I need to meet so that–”
    Arun’s brain caught up with his mouth. Spreese was superb at her job, and there was someone who used to joke about requesting an audience. Someone who went missing when the Hardits took this system. “It’s him, isn’t it, Spreese?”
    “Yes, General. Shall I send him in?”
    Arun hadn’t grinned so much in years. “If you need to ask, you’re out of a job.”
    The doors to his human-climate controlled office opened and Spreese showed in a tattered human in his late fifties, a graying beard half-covering a weather-worn face.
    “Good to see you,