It was utter chaos to Private Meliin Salaian. The Alliance assault troops were cutting through their lines like wheat before the scythe, most often literally. Their phaseblades thundered as they sliced through everything in their paths, not even heavy armor stood a chance.
Ersii class Fighters streaked above, providing CAS for their beleaguered troops. But they did more harm than good, having been scrambled without time for refit, their weapons were belching fragmenting airburst shells at the Alliance troops, often cutting down many of their own.
The throaty roar of another 110 millimeter chain-gun died in an explosion as particle bolts tore it apart. Assault rifle and machine gun fire thundered in his ears, thousands of rounds streaking towards the enemy's shock troopers.
He felt a presence loom behind him and he turned around. The last thing he would ever see was his own face reflected in the impassive cobalt faceplate of a 219A.
Calis let go of the corpse, sliding her fingers from the hole in his chest. She looked for other targets of opportunity, and her rHUD highlighted a Taiin class MBT. The hulk of metal burst into flames and exploded, plasma melting armor to slag.
“Roval!” She yelled “That was my kill!”
“Couldn't resist.” Roval said as the prolonged thunderclap of Big Sama burst through the comm.
A miniature star turned night to day for a brief moment, illuminating everything in startling clarity as another Taiin exploded.
Calis sighed and twirled her phaseblade, liberating several heads from their necks. Yelin ran past and took a flying leap, turned around and fired his particle rifle, blasting a Commonwealth soldier into chunks of roasted meat.
Taia lashed out with a kick, sending a Commonwealth soldier flying as his head separated from his neck. Her comm crackled to life and Deacon-Three's voice blared into her ears.
“We're going to breach.” He said “Be prepared to hold off any attackers.”
“Got that Taalim.”
“Okay,” Yelin said “Taia, form up with Rasil and cover the west entrance, breach on my mark. Calis, stick with me and Roval. We're gonna escort Deacon into the base and secure the SSG guns. Let the normal groundpounders handle the heat.”
“Aye sir.”
The garage entry loomed ahead of Yelin like the maw of a massive, sleeping dragon.
“So,” Deacon-Six asked “how are we gonna breach that.”
“We don't.” Yelin said “Deacon-One, plant a beacon on the door and call in a missile strike on my mark.”
“Sir!” Deacon-One rushed to the door and unpacked a cylindrical object from his equipment harness.
The device was stuck to the door and activated a moment later. A bright red light winked at them, it was active.
“Move back by half a klick.”
The soldiers moved backwards as Yelin requisitioned missile support from the waiting troop ship.
“Got that.” Camilla's voice filtered through the command frequency “Thunder and flash, that'll shake them up good. Take care hun.”
“Love you too.”
For a moment, nothing happened save for the occasional burst of gunfire. And two pinpricks of light became bright trails of fire tipped with a pure white light, like the Gods had decided to send their fury down upon the enemy installation.
An inhuman roar filled the air and the missiles slammed into the thick door a moment later, exploding in a flash of light and a gout of flame. Debris spun everywhere, trailing smoke and baking the soft ground where they landed.
The soldiers rushed in, Fury team with their advanced armor and weaponry, Deacon with powered exoskeletons and plasma rifles.
Fire blazed in the cavernous entry, several streams of foam shot at the flames and did little to kill the plasma fueled fires. The occasional body could be seen, but human shaped scorch marks were far more common.
Calis' rHUD highlighted an enemy APC in red. The autocannon turned to face them and belched fire.
“Scatter!” Calis yelled.
The squads broke up, finding cover as the cannon blasted large holes in the concrete. Yelin took the initiative and tossed a grenade at the APC. He counted to three and a bluish-white explosion swallowed the vehicle whole and spat flaming debris into the air.
“Go! Go!” Yelin yelled, gesturing with an arm.
The marines charged forward, their weapons panning the area. They approached a junction and Yelin held a fist up, they stopped and looked around as he took a look around.
“Three contacts, they're janitorDrones.” He said “Neutralize as quickly as possible. Go!”
Yelin, Calis and Roval each picked a drone for themselves and lunged. The first one turned around and managed to fire off a weapon before an armored fist slammed into its torso. Fragments of metal and circuitry flew from the impact and out of the back as the fist punched through the flimsy shell.
“They've been retrofitted or something.” Roval said.
“Way to go Sergeant Obvious.” Calis quipped.
The other drones were downed without any incident. And then a heavily armed patrol of Commonwealth soldiers happened upon them.
Machine guns roared and assault rifles chattered as the enemy opened up on the marines. Calis blew one apart with her particle rifle as two were consumed by flames from the flamer that Roval had picked up in the previous battle.
Blood painted the floor red as Calis decapitated one soldier with an uppercut. Yelin felt bone crunch as the butt of his rifle slammed into an unfortunate soldier's face.
Deacon-Two was hit by several armor piercing rounds, his arm fell useless as bullets shattered bone and ripped muscle. Blood mixed with adaptive crystal gel as broken electromuscle bands flailed and sparked. He was avenged by a shot from Deacon-One, which sent strings of brain matter and blood at the floor.
Sparks flew across Yelin's shields, making it glow with arcs as bullets slammed into the shimmering energy front. He leveled his particle rifle and fired, streaks of lightning flying from the weapon's barrel and into the enemy. Chunks of cooked meat rained down upon them as the last of the patrol was gunned down.
“Okay,” Yelin said “we're good. Let's steal something from the garage and get to the control room.”
When Yelin gave orders to steal something, he didn't expect to come up with three W21H5 Assault Tanks.
Each of the 'walking tanks' was covered in almost two inches of high-grade armor. Four arms extended from the main torso, which carried missile launchers and a chin mounted turret. All of that was mounted atop two backwards jointed legs.
They could hit a top speed of 120 kilometers an hour at a full load of 320 tons. They piled into the tanks, each requiring three men to operate due to the complexity of their systems. The rest of Deacon team commandeered two APCs and began driving.
Any opposition they encountered along the way to the control room quickly liquidated, evaporated, disintegrated or immolated as they faced the full firepower of the W21s. They would certainly bring them back to the ship for reverse-engineering.
The tanks loomed over a small door, there had been an argument about where it led to until Calis drew their attention to the sign painted above the door. CONTROL ROOM, it read.
Yelin was still amazed at how one could control the behemoth, a multitude of controls were arrayed before him and it was dizzying. It was like looking at the cockpit of a 20th century rotary wing, in contrast to the simplified controls and interface of Confederate armor.
It almost gave him a headache from trying to decipher which button did what, and he remained weary of any red buttons with hazard warnings. What little comfort he had was in the dual joystick layout of the main controls, even then, each joystick had five buttons and three triggers at a minimum.
The APCs were clustered around tanks' legs, weapons trained at the door.
“So,” Yelin said “do go in loud or do we go quiet?”
“I vote loud.” Calis said.
“Loud.” Came from Rasil.
The vote went to going in loud. And they were going to do it in the loudest way possible.
“Okay.” Yelin said “Five detpaks on each door. Drive the APC in ass-first and open with the AC, avoid hitting the command consoles. There's plenty of stun 'nades in the APC and we'll use all of them.”
A chorus of “Hoorah”s followed Yelin's orders. And by the tone in Calis' voice, she was almost about to wet herself from excitement.
“Go!” Yelin yelled.
Vents on the detpaks flared as internal temperatures skyrocketed to over 10,000 degrees. The resulting plasma was channeled through a hole in the dangerous face of the pack. The plasma jet cut through a foot of advanced composites and alloys, and exploded on contact with air.
A bright light accompanied by an earthshaking explosion was the cue, the APCs adaptive wheels grabbed the concrete floor and pushed the vehicle backward. The rear ramp slammed onto the floor with the vehicle still in motion. A screeching sound filled the air, and was drowned out by the throaty roar an autocannon cycling at three rounds per second.
Officers and soldiers were blown apart, concrete peppered and shattered, metal torn and melted by the fragmenting-thermal rounds which filled the autocannon's magazine. The Confederate marines charged out of the APC, cleaning house in a grand total of thirty seconds.
Bodies flew like ragdolls, most of the time missing a limb or a head. Strangely enough, the control panels remained untouched.
“Okay.” Yelin said, beaming the transmission to the waiting troopship “Love, we've secured the SSGs. Drop in when you're ready.”
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