Survivors

The Federation Military on Robert IV had fewer than 120,000 troops it could actually commit to battle.

And they were spread across multiple bases around the planet.

On a vast Earth-like planet, that was a drop in the ocean.

But in ordinary times, they were more than enough as a "presence force" symbolizing Federation control over the planet.

After all, the planet was home to farmers and more farmers.

The few rebellions that broke out now and then had never amounted to much.

Even when a rebellion erupted far from every Federation Military base on the planet, forcing ground troops to spend a long time getting there,

there was still a Defensive Fleet above Robert IV's atmosphere.

The fleet's marines could drop from orbit and reach anywhere on the planet within an hour.

Some might think the planet's garrison was still too small.

But this was only an agricultural planet.

Even if it lay in a border system, it was still just an agricultural planet.

The Federation controlled more than four hundred planets like it.

Even at the current troop deployment level, that added up to an enormous force.

Besides, in the age of interstellar warfare, massing troops on a handful of border planets was foolish.

The boundless reaches of space were the perfect stage for surprise attacks and leapfrog tactics.

If troops were scattered across individual planets, it would be difficult even to assemble a large force quickly.

That was why both the Federation and the Star Dragon Empire had settled on stationing small "presence forces" on their inhabited planets.

Their main fleets and ground forces were concentrated on a dozen or so military planets positioned in strategic depth.

When war broke out, those main forces could assemble quickly and deploy wherever they were needed.

Seen another way, the "presence forces" on border planets were tools meant to be sacrificed to buy time.

The lucky ones could hold out until reinforcements arrived, then make the headlines as new heroes.

The unlucky ones would become entries on the casualty lists.

Then there were the problems with training and organization mentioned earlier.

The result was that, after tactical hydrogen bombs and various tactical missiles struck the defenders on Robert IV,

the surviving soldiers could barely fight back against the Empire's Orbital Paratroopers.

The Federation soldiers trapped in a valley before Amber were a perfect example.

"Tsk, tsk. They're making a real mess of this."

The target of Amber's criticism was a light mechanized unit.

It had roughly a platoon of Mobile Infantry and seven light armored vehicles.

The Empire's Orbital Paratroopers had ambushed them under cover of darkness.

They were positioned directly below Amber's slope and across the valley.

Amber made a rough count. There were fewer than twenty of them.

But their training was clearly several leagues above that of the Federation soldiers.

By the time the firefight drew Amber over, the Empire's Orbital Paratroopers had already knocked out the lead and rear vehicles with infantry anti-vehicle missiles.

The old tactic of taking out the head and tail before hitting the middle still worked as well as ever.

The ambushed Federation soldiers scrambled out of their vehicles and returned fire on the spot, following combat procedure almost in a panic.

But under the dense suppressing fire, the Federation's Mobile Infantry couldn't spread out.

They were pinned down beside their vehicles. Many couldn't even lift their heads through the streams of fire from the chain guns.

Fighting back was out of the question.

"Your Federation soldiers aren't much good at tactics or fighting, are they?"

Lying shoulder to shoulder with Amber on the slope, Isabel watched the pinned-down soldiers and spoke at her leisure.

Amber couldn't really argue with her.

These "border troops," whether in tactical skill or combat experience,

were no match for the Orbital Paratroopers the Empire had committed to this battle.

In the Mobile Infantry's previous "combat" experience, the heaviest barrage they had probably faced was rocks thrown by a few hundred rioters.

As for the Empire's side, Amber wouldn't claim they were exceptional.

But at least they had their fire allocation and attack sequence right in the ambush.

And thanks to the exoskeleton systems issued to every infantryman, they could carry far more equipment.

That had greatly increased the firepower of an infantry squad in this era.

Though the unit numbered only twenty, besides the standard Gauss Rifles and 40mm Automatic Grenade Launchers,

it had two 25mm Chain Guns, a Portable Electromagnetic Cannon, and an unknown number of infantry anti-vehicle missiles.

Boom!

A shell dropped from above and struck several Mobile Infantry soldiers who had clustered together.

When the dust cleared, only a huge crater, severed limbs, and fragments of equipment remained.

"Seriously? A unit this small brought a mortar?"

Amber tapped his wrist terminal a few times, and the Ballistic Detection Program built into his Tactical Visor began calculating.

It soon marked several possible firing positions on his HUD.

Amber adjusted the zoom on his visor's optical lenses, switched on Infrared Detection Mode, and scanned them one by one.

He finally spotted a heat source and shifting figures behind a thicket at his three o'clock, about five hundred meters away.

"I'm going to help. If I wait any longer, those grunts will all be dead, and I was hoping to catch a ride with them!"

"Are you coming to help, or staying here to watch?"

Amber ducked back behind the slope, checked the weapon in his hands again, and glanced at Isabel as she ducked back beside him.

"Not stopping you from attacking Empire soldiers is already as far as I can go."

The female spy who had been branded a "traitor" replied irritably:

"I will never fire on soldiers from my own country."

"Fair enough. I respect your choice."

Amber wasted no more words on her. Sniper Rifle in hand, he darted out.

"Just stay here."

As his words faded, Amber's outline blurred, then vanished completely into the air.

He had activated Optical Cloaking and broken into a full sprint.

The fierce firefight would completely mask the noise of his running.

His first target was the mortar position he had just found.

That thing posed too great a threat to infantry.

If it fired a few more times, the Federation Mobile Infantry in the valley would probably break.

With his exoskeleton propelling him at full speed, Amber covered the five hundred meters in just over thirty seconds.

He quickly reached the edge of the thicket and saw his target.

A 120mm Portable Mortar and two Empire Orbital Paratroopers operating it.