From the jungles of Burma you could see what the Heinlein’s Light just did to Kolkata. An instant of illumination followed by a shockwave that echoes for hundreds of klicks. Relativistic Strike, Operation Stardust’s real game changer. Everyone acted like the new troops from the colonials were what finally turned this war around, but the looks on the faces of every soldier and civilian who saw the Strike on Kolkata told you the truth. Relativistic weapons had existed in theory for centuries, but only recently did it become possible to achieve near light speed in a railgun. That’s what the colonial fleet really was, a bunch of guns pointed down loaded with Angelfire. An iron slug, not much bigger than a person, is superheated to molten temperatures just by the friction generated between its own atoms from the force of the railgun’s magnets. It is then flung at near light speed at whatever poor sod was unlucky enough to be standing in that general area, and upon impact it releases as much energy as is needed. At near light speed mass expands significantly, so depending on how fast you fire one of these slugs it can hit with the force of a bunker buster or a megaton bomb. The Strike on Kolkata was in the later category.

The colonials didn’t use these things before Mianyang. They were under orders not to use relativistic weapons, only conventional munitions. After tearing through the Mexican Orbitals, the first bombardment campaign took care of the worst of the rebel bases. When the first wave made landfall, China seemed like mop up work with the reb bases fragged. They pushed the separatists out of Feddy China, and rolled into southern China like it would be the easiest thing in the world. While that was going on another deployment dropped into India and Bangladesh to give a break to those of us who’d been slugging it out before the war had officially started. Once the colonials made it to Fuzhou Mexico got desperate and 5000 colonials were burned by nuclear mines set off in Fuzhou and Mianyang. Zaya wasn’t gonna let that stand, and neither was the President. After Mianyang, the Colonials lit up southern China with angelfire. The rebs in India got the same treatment after they nuked New Delhi; thankfully most of our guys were able to divert their drop before they vaped the place. The colonials are putting on a big show in South Asia, but most of them are slugging it out stateside, the few forces that made it to Eurasia are just waiting for the second and third waves to arrive. All I care about right now is that they’re taking most of the punishment while the rest of us get acquainted with holding positions and patrolling streets. Zaya’s rebuilt the Shanghai regime we propped up before the war started, and she’s got all of us old-timers holding what her colonials take back from the rebs. I’m not complaining, and the locals sure as hell aren’t. After they took back the Beanstalk it’s like life in Asia became livable again. They also got this “Asian Working Group” set up, building new highways and tearing out the old slums for some pretty nice new neighborhoods.

The colonials are an odd bunch, but the one thing that really freaks me out is that, for the most part, they don’t see the difference between “America,” and US-Allies. Like, to them they’re here to sort Earth out and tie the whole rock together under the stars and stripes. The crazy part is, no one’s really stopping them, their working groups have done a better job at running China than the last pile of crooks we propped up, and the Burmies actually seem relieved to have someone in charge who isn’t a complete loon. I talked with one of the colonials yesterday, huge girl (guy? Hard to tell with them), said she was from Cairo, apparently they got one on Mars too. Sounds like they’re gonna be pushing south into Indonesia soon enough, I cut my teeth there during the Borneo War back in 05’. I'm wearing armor roughly the same as what I had back then, but this gal is rocking hardware that I though only spooks got access to; between the armor and the angelfire, our guest from the colonies are turning this war into something else. I keep hearing rumors from the front lines... huge refugee camps being set up to house all the people running from fallout and angelfire, forced relocation programs, and mass deprogramming of brainhacked soldiers and civilians. And eveytime you bring up the push into Indonesia, the colonials always end up talking about Venus for some reason. I sometimes worry that they think Earth is nothing more than a breeding ground for new colonists.



-Sgt. Clayton Smith

422nd Ranger Regiment

Pyay, Burma

September 14, 2137