On a planet where children just trying to survive are being mowed down, where soldiers were flown in to murder them, and their families lived hiding in tunnels to survive, those that knew of this could no longer sit idly by. Several large ships came, other humans, heavily armed. They were not going to try to take over the planet or overthrow the government, they were there to remove the bombs and rescue the kids, and the families, out in the wastes. But Powers help the militant Dereggers that ruled the planet if they tried to stop this large mass of space marines. This was not a game! Problem with such things, though, is how often the innocent, the people they're trying to rescue, get caught in the middle.
@internutter/challenge-03075-h167-fighting-to-survive -- NotSoSimple
They say war never changes, but it does. That change is never for the better. It only gets nastier, crueler, more disgusting. Child soldiers, trained by adults - who never went into battle - to lust for the glory of bloodshed. It's amazing how the sons and daughters of those in charge rarely see a bullet and never get into the mess of war.
Nobody knew by now why the war had started. The news had a different reason to fight every week, when it didn't default to 'rights' and 'freedoms'. It made the 'proper' people angry about the 'handouts' that were also heartwarming humanitarian fluff stories.
They were also fighting invaders, somehow. Nebulous outside forces apparently determined to destroy their moral values. They were a distant and vague threat to sell war bonds... until the first Galactic smugglers decided to pay truth to the lies.
The ships were small and fast and heavily protected by the best technology the Alliance had to hand. They sailed through the chinks in the world's armour with grace, poise, and a lot of swearing. They landed in areas where even the leaders feared to send ordinance. Once there, they got to work.
The smugglers made immediate friends with the 'insurgents' underground, handing them supplies for free and then releasing what appeared to be toys on the war-torn battlefields. They were bright orange, small, and very bulletproof. They set to work upon release and, they soon learned, started eating the mines and UXB's[1].
When the toys couldn't find those, they ate shrapnel and debris. Then they 'birthed' more robots. Four or more would come together with their payloads and fabricate more bright orange toys to set loose to eat more battle metal.
Meanwhile, the smugglers were "Stealing our people" from the surface of the planet. Never mind that these people were the former enemy, they were still people who belonged there. You could be next.
This was a war fought with fast bits of metal and machines with full options for chemistry. Needless to say all of that had little impact on the Alliance-origin smugglers, who were phenominally prepared for a bunch of scofflaws operating outside the reach of the CRC.
Not that the CRC were expending much effort trying to stop them.
It went on for a year. Trying to fight off, destroy, or otherwise stop the smugglers doing whatever they were doing with the "dangerous insurgents" while they were "abducting tax-paying citizens" and "spreading terror".
And then one day... it stopped.
The charitable drops for the "mislead innocent" remained in the field, untouched. The sightings of "insurgent resistors" ceased entirely. The intermittent and random gunfire stopped. After a couple of weeks, the heroic forces investigated to find jury-rigged systems to make it look like the insurgents were still there and fighting.
Worse and worse, the little orange toys were turning the war-ruined battlefield into fertile fields full of free food crops. Disgusting.
Just when they got up in arms about that, the Space Marines and the Pax Humanis forces landed to make sure they weren't about to pick on anybody else.
[1] Un-eXploded Bomb. WWII parlance.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / chesky]
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