AN: Finished the OG Thrawn Trilogy and the Dark Empire comics. Not looking forward to reformatting all the dialogue punctuation to conform to normal standards. Don’t know if I’ll do that so meh. I dunno if it bothered anyone other than my old editor. From now on I’ll try to conform it to conventional standards.
Also, in your kindness please pray for the repose of my father’s soul who passed away eight years ago.
Taris
Lieutenant Fletcher let out a series of dry hoarse coughs as he scrabbled around the dust filled fighting position for his carbine and helmet. The descent of the Republic fleet into the atmosphere was the second wind, both in terms of morale and reinforcements, that they needed to resume offensive action. Infantry had been brushing up and down Easy Company’s sector for hours. The Republic had been probing the entire line for the better part of the day and decided that dusk would be the best time to launch an all out assault.
The airspace was hotly contested, not only through fighter combat but also from air defense batteries erected by both sides, though the UNSC had seen much greater success from their systems. The only air support Easy Company had received in the last hour had been a drone strike from a pair of Wombats and a few strafing runs by Longswords returning in low. Adding to the difficulty of air support were the skyscrapers frequently rising high into the sky, restricting munitions in some areas to steep trajectories. Luckily, the artillery guns behind the lines had been performing their orchestral cacophony the whole time, though Fletcher hadn’t received priority fires since midafternoon. It was hard for him to imagine there were more pressing situations than the one in which he found his platoon. The one saving grace preventing them from being entirely overrun was the company’s mortars which had yet to let up during the past few hours of fighting.
As another round from a Republic beetle walker hit the floor above him, he hugged the floor even harder. His hands met his helmet, which he grasped and gave a hard knock against the concrete floor to shake the dust out. He slid it over his head and got his bearings. With the aid of his helmet, he was quickly able to locate his weapon in the increasing gloom.
Crawling on his belly over spent mags and empty casings, he made his way to his radioman who was also prone. “Corporal, I need you to call for-” Fletcher noticed first the pool of blood beneath him, then the piece of jagged metal wedged in the man’s armor plating between his neck and shoulder.
Cursing, he affixed the boxy manpack radio to himself and interfaced with the device. It was lightweight, but Fletcher didn’t feel like humping it the rest of the campaign so he’d offload it to the most competent corporal the first chance he;d get. Such were the privileges of rank.
Thankfully it was still working. He scrolled through the local battlenet, cross-referencing with his TACMAP for a list of units before he heard Captain Springer beat him to the punch.
“This is Easy 6, I’ve got enemy armor and infantry threatening to break through! Colonel, if your battalion doesn’t counterattack, me and my boys are going to be sitting at the bottom of a six foot ditch by the end of the day! Over!”
There was no response from the radio for a few seconds before a cool voice filled the frequency. “This is Lieutenant Colonel Hale. My battalion is on the move. E.T.A. five mikes away, out.”
Fletcher skittered across the ground to an opening in the wall. The Republic armor column they had spotted via recon drone had now spread out across the apartment blocks into line abreast, pummeling the apartment blocks with their main and secondary cannons. Only one had succumbed to the minefield which had been laid during the morning, suffering enough damage to its feet that it was rendered immobile. A Republic hovertank had been forced to a crawl in order to maneuver around the wreck.
“On me!” He said hoarsely to the rest of the HQ element, doing his best to project his voice over the sounds of battle. “C’mon Cooper.” They clambered downstairs to 2nd Squad’s position amid plasma raining in from every opening.
“You guys okay?” Fletcher asked. “Where’s our damn AT?”
“We ran out of rockets a while ago,” their sergeant, Ramos, replied. “I sent two of my boys down to fetch the Gauss Hog and extras.” He peeked around his cover and struck down an advancing clone 200 meters distant with his rifle.
Over the pitched battle, Fletcher heard the familiar whine of an approaching M12 Warthog. “Sergeant, rockets, with me!” He ordered, tapping the man armed with the M57 Pilum on the shoulder.
He popped out the back of their position and saw a private whip the vehicle around a corner. “Sir!” the man, really more of a boy in terms of age, greeted. “Where’d you want her?” he said as 2nd Squad’s NCO and AT rifleman began snatching up the M57 Pilum magazines from the vehicle.
“Get the Hog ‘round that corner Private, shoot and scoot using those buildings. Corporal,” Fletcher turned towards the gunner, “put a shot on the main turret and then one through the driver canopy. Get a move on!” He slammed his fist on the rear of the Warthog.
The vehicle sped around the corner. The electric whining of the weapon discharged twice before the vehicle retreated and drove further down
Fletcher, 2nd Squad’s sergeant, and the Pilum encumbered trooper rushed back inside the building.
“I say we pull back sir. We’re only the first line.” Sergeant Ramos suggested.
“That’s not my call to make,” he countered. “Not while we still got some fight left in us. No. It’s up to the Captain… For now spread those rockets around and let ‘em rip.”
“Yes sir,” Ramos said with no particular enthusiasm before turning towards the rest of his squad. “Alright, I want you two on the third story. Here, take these rockets and pass ‘em down to the other squads. Move!”
Fletcher peered out a firing port. Angry blue, green, and red lasers lanced towards the UNSC positions. The rattles of 1st Platoon’s, his platoon’s, machine guns roared back. He rested his carbine inside the port and began firing at no one in particular, just to keep enemy heads down. Then, he spotted a white-armored body and expertly put a burst into its center mass. The enemy dropped like a sack of bricks onto the pavement.
“Hostiles moving to our southwest!” A concerned voice came in over the radio. That was towards 3rd Squad’s position.
“Let’s get upstairs.” Fletcher ordered his headquarters element. Following the AT section from 2nd Squad, they now had a more commanding view of the battlefield. After acquiring them, Fletcher noticed the attackers were already pinned down. “Waste them!”
The other four alongside him rattled the enemy positions. Fletcher got so caught up in the heat of the moment he hadn’t noticed a Pilum rocket being fired above and to his left until it had already obliterated them.
With that threat dealt with, he turned his attention once again to his front. The closest AT-TE was dead in the water, the barrel was twisted and the cockpit nothing more than a bloody mess.
A blaster bolt shot in from his 12 o’clock. Fletcher instantly hugged the wall for cover. Below him, he could hear the bellow of an M247. Fletcher saw the increasing number of red dots appearing on his personal motion sensor; the Republic forces had closed the gap to within 150 meters. He opened his TACMAP, giving him a commanding view of the surrounding terrain overlaid with data collected from every corner of the battlenet, from the satellite constellation overhead to the motion sensor network they’d set up in front. He spotted infantry dots, armor silhouettes, a bad afternoon at any rate.
Peering over with his rifle, he let off a few bursts at a building from which plasma bolts were emanating forth. He slid down out of sight when a trio of plasma bolts missed him by inches. New personal shielding or not, it was always a stupid thing to take unnecessary hits. Suddenly, the whole building shook after being hit by an enemy rocket and the entire battle seemed to reach a whole new level of fury.
Fletcher retrieved a fresh mag, his last full one, from a pouch and swapped his three-quarter spent one. Another explosion caused him to jerk his head down, a large chunk of concrete nearly hitting him from above.
Only now, half an hour after their assault had begun, did Fletcher hear the sounds of Republic artillery. It seemed their assault wasn’t nearly as well put together as he initially believed. Possibly due to the fact the fleet had an Anlace frigate, hidden out of sight of the Republic’s guns by hiding under the horizon, spitting out a billion decoy signals a second. Their lines of communication were likely to be heavily degraded from their rear to the frontlines.
“Cover!” He barked over his platoon freq as artillery shells began impacting the building. The enemy artillery was heavy, and accurate. Perhaps they were actually well coordinated after all. Fletcher keyed his radio. “All squads, make for the ground floors of your buildings!”
Red dots on his motion tracker had closed the distance to 100 meters. Even with precision guided munitions it was insanity to creep up that tightly against a barrage. Fletcher and his HQ section had joined with what remained of the squad below, the AT infantrymen not far behind. As they clamored down the stairs, the rumble of the top floor collapsing vibrated through the whole structure.
“What are we gonna do Lieutenant!?” A PFC asked desperately. Even under their helmets, Fletcher could tell the other newbies were discomfited by their sudden change of fortunes.
Fletcher turned towards Sergeant Ramos. “Sergeant, get your people ready to fight. Got any wounded?”
“Only a few nicks. One KIA,” the Sergeant jerked his head towards a body and brandished a set of dog tags before stowing them in a pouch.
He nodded and keyed the platoon freq, “All squads, take up defensive positions. Our relief will be here any minute-”
His broadcast was cut short as a shell burst through the front of the building, literally blowing him off his feet and sending him flying to the other end of the room.
Blood pooled on the inside of his helmet and Fletcher let his heavy eyelids shut.
UNSC Warhound
“The supercarrier’s acceleration is only pushing to seventy percent of what its intelligence profile says it should be capable of. Interesting.” Fleet Admiral Cole rubbed his chin.
“MacArthur thinks that intrasystem jump wasn’t some new improvement on Republic FTL capabilities. Intercepted fleet transmissions refer to a Detainer CC-2200 cruiser, MacArthur thinks it can generate artificial gravity fields which can pull hyperdrive equipped ships back into subspace.” Admiral White replied to the video feed. “Something in their propulsion must have failed from entering and exiting FTL so fast.”
“I see.” Cole paused, turning to something in the background. “I need you to take your battlegroup and intercept that ship, Admiral.”
“Yes sir.” White nodded. A trio of vibrations shook the deck plating beneath his feet, heavy MACs firing at Republic Imperators. The fourth MAC, the one running the length of the dorsal section, had been taken out of action by a barrage of Republic ion cannons which had messily disabled the superconducting coils of the weapon.
“I’ll handle this mess, Admiral Cole out.”
Admiral White immediately got to business. “Captain, get us on a flanking course to the supercarrier’s approach and relay Admiral Cole’s orders to the rest of our battlegroup.”
“Aye sir,” came Captain Haithum’s dutiful reply.
As Haithum set about his tasks, White stared intently at the central tactical display. That dreadnought had taken dozens of MAC slugs like it was nobody’s business. Perhaps that also contributed to the underperforming engines as a result of the strain placed on the reactor from the sheer firepower which its shields had been forced to absorb and deflect.
Even with 30% of its acceleration gone, it was still making good speed towards Taris and Admiral Kitzler’s forces held in reserve. The combined fire from over eighty MACs would make short work of it, White was sure of that. He’d catch them in a crossfire with Admiral Kitzler and tear them to shreds.
The Warhound turned hard to port, letting loose a continuous broadside from her secondary guns. The main Republic attack, or at least what had been the main Republic attack until this point, was beginning to falter. Nevertheless, White felt something sink in the pit of his stomach as he watched a Strident heavy frigate spew flames out of its reactor compartment. The UNSC wouldn’t be able to afford to brawl like this forever, not if they wanted any hope of winning the war.
Cole’s clever maneuver evening the odds a bit notwithstanding, only 170 warships had come out combat capable so far against the 230 remaining Republic vessels.
Sure, they’d effectively destroyed the five hundred still in port before they’d ever stepped foot on Taris plus the six hundred others in combat, but that was just a drop in the bucket.
Corroborated by ONI snooping, the Republic was producing capital ships daily at a rate the UNSC was producing monthly. Should the Republic find their footing again after the Confederate offensives and set their eyes back on the Milky Way…
“We’ve passed the horizon, sir.” Captain Haithum snapped him out of it. “Fighters are reforming the CAP, bombers are rearming.”
“Keep us on our current vector,” White said. “Has Admiral Kitzler moved out of position?”
“No sir, they’re staying in defensive posture, no signs of movement.” Haithum replied. “Do you think they should pull back, sir?”
“Not until the Republic can fire back,” White said, opening a channel to Admiral Kitzler and informing him as such. Admiral White’s fleet continued accelerating parallel to the incoming Republic threat. “MacArthur, get the Titanium Tub on a new course running under the ventral surface of the supercarrier.”
“Yes sir,” the AI briskly replied, wasting no time in his task.
As MacArthur calculated an optimal vector and relayed that to the Titanium Tub and her escorts, White was pouring through the damage reports of his force. The Warhound herself was in pretty good shape all things considered. Ten dozen destroyed weapon mounts and armor integrity at 81% wasn’t bad at all compared to what she went through at Reach and so many battles against the Covenant before that. The worst of it was the disabled MAC. For that, they might have to put her in spacedock for a full superconducting coil rebuild if the engineers couldn’t fix it.
But reviewing the reports was more than just routine housekeeping. White keyed his command console and a new layer filtered over the main tactical display appeared showing him the arcs of fire across the entire fleet, which areas were now thinner in point defense, where the Republic could maneuver to receive less damage. He tapped in a series of orders to corresponding ships to adjust their course.
“Enemy battlegroup at one million seven hundred thousand kilometers and closing.” MacArthur reported. “They’ve spread out, thousand kilometer spacing.” There wouldn’t be any crazy long range shots for his MACs this time around.
“Hm.” White grunted. “They’re not splitting up.” He’d been hoping the various angles of attack by the UNSC forces would’ve forced them to divide their firepower which invariably seemed concentrated on their dorsal faces.
“Wait sir, that group is rotating beneath the supercarrier.” Captain Haithum pointed out.
Sure enough, on the display a group of Venators twisted ‘upside down’ relative to the supercarrier, coming extraordinarily close to the ventral side of the ship. It looked awfully like a group of remora sucking up to a whale back on Earth, White mused privately.
“All ships fire at will as soon as they’re in range,” White ordered via broadcast. Soon after, the ships so equipped opened fire with capital grade directed energy weapons.
A pair of Mulsanne light frigates fired their Brightlance reflex lasers one after the other. The first beam flared brilliantly as its lance of energy impacted against the shields of an Imperator. The other lance came in not a split-second later to punch through into the heart of the opposing warship. Flames spewed out of the superstructure where armor plating had been burned away before exploding in a brilliant fireball.
The Helios capital-scale high-energy laser of the sole Anlace light frigate in White’s formation streaked towards a Carrack-class light cruiser, by UNSC standards a light frigate. The enemy ship was subsequently obliterated in the closest imitation a warship could make of a funeral pyre.
Howler missiles left their pods concurrently with the first MAC barrage, taking out a dozen Republic capital ships. Admiral Kitzler’s battlegroup soon opened fire likewise as both sides loomed closer to each other.
“Interesting.” MacArthur commented idly. “Once they entered into range of our MACs they clustered together again. Maybe their shield systems allow them to ‘overlap’ their shields over each other.”
“That would explain why they’re taking more punishment than back at Alpha Rendara,” Captain Haithum suggested.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Is there anything we can do to counter it?” White asked.
“They’re bunched up, Admiral.” MacArthur’s avatar chewed its corncob pipe.
“Right. Lieutenant Haynes, give me firing solutions for half our Bident missiles right on the center axis of each of those Venator-types surrounding the supercarrier. Fire the other half towards the center of their main cluster. Follow up with Variant Vs right in the middle.”
“Aye sir.” The weapons officer replied as the near-continuous barrage of Archer missiles pummeled the enemy fleet.
“Relay that to the rest of the fleet, Lieutenant.” Admiral White said behind the communications.officer’s station before opening a comm channel of his own. “Titanium Tub, concentrate your fire with your escorts onto the underside of that supercarrier.”
“Affirmative,” came the swift reply of the Titanium Tub’s captain. “Titanium Tub on the move, Admiral.”
“Aye sir. Message coming through from HIGHCOM. Infinity E.T.A. ten minutes!” Lieutenant Scheffer gushed.
White nodded. “Good, because that supercarrier is about to chew Admiral Kitzler apart,” he muttered grimly to himself, narrowing his eyes at the tactical display as the Republic fleet drew closer.
“That’s not all, sir,” Scheffer continued. “The Republic is in full retreat, Admirals Whitcomb and Trench have broken through.”
White nodded in grim satisfaction, but the news was a double edged sword. That means there’d be retreating Republic forces jumping in at any given moment.
Eight M4020 Bident missiles, nuclear weapons propelled by a downscaled version of a UNSC fusion drive and armed with nuclear-pumped X-Ray laser warheads, shot out from the Warhound followed shortly by Variant V HAVOK missiles. The Variant V was made to have greater performance in vacuum than standard nukes, so White was hoping they’d do greater damage on the relatively clumped up Republic forces.
“Shouldn’t we be moving out of their range, sir?” Captain Haithum cocked a brow as the deadly packages began to disappear from eyesight in the void.
“I’m trying to draw some of their ships away,” White clarified as the Republic fleet drew nearer. “See if they’re dumb enough to split themselves up.”
“Well it’s either that or they let us pummel them with impunity.” Haithum pointed out as the deck vibrated thrice, scoring three more kills on a pair of Dreadnaught heavy cruisers and a Carrack light cruiser. White’s forces cut their acceleration and drifted on.
The Bident missiles reached the end of their approach under the cover of thousands of conventional UNSC missiles. The four Venators cozied up to the Mandator II were violently peeled off as the nuclear-pumped X-Ray laser warheads cut through their weakened shields. The Mandator remained dauntless, emerging from the hellstorm like a blazing sabot round ditching its petals as it continued to accelerate past its destroyed escorts.
The Variant Vs hit shortly after, the first five blew a gap in the overlapping shields of the Republic formation, already trying to spread out, to let the other ten slip into the middle where they detonated to devastating effect. The effects of the nuclear weapons had varying negative effects on each of the three dozen warships, but they were all certainly weaker.
“Concentrate fire on their heavy plasma turrets with our secondary batteries!” White yelled.
“Energy signatures spiking, they’re opening fire!” Lieutenant Portier, the sensor officer, reported. The enemy supercarrier seemed to be giving the Warhound special attention from her portside guns, though that didn’t stop it from unleashing a barrage to blow apart a Paris heavy frigate. The two engine ‘wings’ of the frigate blasted into space away from the wreck.
White scowled before opening a channel to Admiral Kitzler. “Admiral, start withdrawing your formation around the curvature of the planet.”
“Yes Admiral,” Kitzler’s tight voice came back, no doubt witnessing the firepower being unleashed at White’s battlegroup.
“Shield strength at forty, thirty five, thirty percent!” Lieutenant Portier announced from his readouts.
The Warhound’s own energy weapons answered back. Energy projector fire lashed angrily out, and for a split second one of the fine blue-white beams of energy scorched the surface plating of the behemoth which had been taking an especial beating from the Fire And Forget and her escorts.
“Our shields are down!” Portier screeched.
“Fire MACs!” White slammed his fist on the edge of a handrail as turbolaser and ion cannon fire began to vaporize titanium.
“Ninety-nine percent charged! Firing!” Haynes spat out.
The deck thudded three times. The first two slugs overpenetrated the city-like superstructure which ran the length of the Mandator II’s dorsal surface. The third made it three quarters of the way through a noncritical area and stopped uselessly.
Even as the secondary batteries across his battlegroup fired, Admiral White knew his chance to stop the thing was gone. There wasn’t much they could do, what with Admiral Kitzler already withdrawing, his own forces having to flip and burn their accelerations, and the fact that the next MAC volley wouldn’t be for at least another minute and a half.
The Mandator II and its companions passed on by, its shields recharging even as smoky atmosphere billowed out of pierced durasteel and secondary guns pinged away at its hide. They continued toward the planet without hesitating for a moment, not even breaking off any of their fighter screens.
“All ships move to intercept,” White barked into the battlegroup channel. “Titanium Tub, keep on your current vector, we’ll catch them in a pincer again.”
Affirmations sounded back as the Warhound began a furious acceleration burn back towards the Republic fleet.
“The Republic supercarrier is passing the L2 Lagrange point.” Lieutenant Portier reported.
“Get our bombers running harassment strikes on those trailing cruisers,” White ordered Lieutenant Portier.
“Aye sir.” The operations officer replied, relaying the orders down before urgently looking back up. “Sir, I’ve got enemy contacts coming in off starboard!”
“Two dozen new contacts and rapidly counting, five million kilometers distant,” MacArthur paused. “Skirting the edge of the system. It seems they want to avoid battle.”
“Reinforcements from the First or Third Sector Armies…” Haithum speculated offhandedly next to the weapons officer’s station.
“Negative, Captain,” MacArthur said, removing the corncob pipe from the mouth of its avatar.
“It’s the retreating Republic ships,” White said before MacArthur could finish. “Admiral Trench must not be far behind.
“Affirmative, Admiral. The Liberty’s intercepting Republic communications and trying to jam them as best as she can,” MacArthur said, referring to the Anlace frigate in White’s battlegroup. “They’re trying to prevent them from retreating all the way to Brentaal and make their stand here at Taris.”
“Damn. Has Admiral Cole finished mopping up the other enemy fleet?”
“No sir, the enemy’s regrouping around one of the moons. Admiral Cole is pursuing.” MacArthur’s avatar flashed momentarily as data flowed through the AI.
“Admiral Cole better speed it up, we need-”
“Admiral, slipspace rupture off our bow!” Lieutenant Portier all but screamed.
It was as though the heart of the universe had skipped a beat as a hole was torn into it, the thin membrane of space and time rent in two with surgical precision. A gaping maw expanded outwards from the point of rupture, consuming the majority of the midsection of a Venator entire, sucked into the howling deep never to return. Crewers and officers alike stole momentary glances away from their stations towards the main tactical display or magnified visual feeds as a ship began to emerge, no, wrench itself free from the dark blackness of the dimensions of slipspace. Tendrils of amethyst blue-white radiation surrounded it as if trying in vain to desperately contain the metal beast within the arcane prisons of the higher dimensions. The outcome of the technological terror’s portentous birth onto the battlefield was further made manifest as it physically lanced through an Imperator. Already weakened shields gave way under the colossal mass of the fifteen kilometer long warship which had just now finished its crawl out of the abyssal plane of an alternate spacetime. Metal sheared off of metal as the superstructure of the Imperator found itself unburdened of its attachments to its lower half before being pressed once again into it. Armor furled around its assailant before crumpling completely inwards. Seams between hull plates grew before bursting with a groaning and creaking which was felt more than heard over the vacuum of space. The once venerable grey wedge of the Republic warship twisted as flames began to engulf the point of contact between the two, resisting for a second before giving way to the deluge of the ferocity of the impact. The warship split apart with a violent flash of light emanating from the newfound opening where the fiery shields of the emerging vessel glowed white-hot.
Once the fifteen kilometer long behemoth freed itself from the shackles of the Imperator wreck, a new broadcast began on the UNSC frequency, “Rear Admiral Lasky reporting, UNSC Infinity ready for action!”
White couldn’t help but think of that millenia old verse, though applied to the natural rather than the supernatural:
Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?
Taris
Fletcher awoke confused, choking on his own blood after an indeterminate amount of time spent unconscious. He panicked for a moment, gagging on the taste of tinny copper before lifting his helmet and clearing the obstruction in a fit of wet, wracking coughs.
He spat out the phlegm and got his bearings on the debris-laden floor, blinking away the fuzziness obstructing his eyesight. The front of the building had cratered in, probably as a result of an artillery shell or whatever the plasma equivalent to that was, and the facade of the apartment complex had collapsed on top of the front of the first floor to create a thick pile of rubble.
He blinked and squinted hard locating his rifle not far from him, thankfully still intact under a chunk of concrete. Fletcher shook the dust and gravel out of the ejection port and made certain of its functionality.
“Sir!” a hand shook his shoulder.
Fletcher whirled around to see a private goggling at him through the unpolarized visor of his helmet.
“Sergeant Ramos, he’s...” the private stared off at the corpse buried halfway under the collapsed portion of the building.
“Wasted, kid.” Fletcher wiped the inside of his helmet with the hem of his fatigues before donning the helmet. It was serviceable enough, the smeared blood which made his sight a little hazy notwithstanding. “First Platoon, sitrep, over!” Fletcher joined the remaining members of the HQ section and 2nd Squad on their impromptu urban firestep.
“First Squad, three KIA, one wounded, over.” A private first class said.
“Second Squad, Five KIA, over,” a corporal next to Fletcher sounded into his mic.
“Third Squad, one KIA, three wounded, over.” Sergeant Rodriguez reported.
“Fourth Squad, three KIA, over.” Staff Sergeant Izotov said.
“All squads dig in and hold tight. Reinforcements will be here any minute.” Fletcher just now noticed the absence of enemy artillery fire. He glanced down to find a swarm of red enemy contacts on his motion tracker. It was at this point that he also realized his shield generator went out. “Fuck.”
“Clones on the wire! Clones on the wire!” A scream came out from one of 1st Squad’s privates followed shortly by a fresh staccato of gunfire.
“Bagrov, get your shit together!” he hissed. “Squad leads coordinate fields of fire on your MGs!” Fletcher snuffed his broadcast and brought his rifle up on the firing line. Shell casing clattered against his helmet as 2nd Squad’s M739 swept back and forth over the field of barbed wire obstacles erected in front of the building.
“On the right! On the right!” The assistant gunner pinged a hasty waypoint and shifted his rifle fire toward a group of clones negotiating the obstructions a hundred meters away. The machine gunner snapped his gun around and let off a fifty round burst of grazing fire which caught the clones from the waist down.
Fletcher’s vision was impaired, both by the vestiges of drying blood on the interior of his visor and by general battlefield conditions. Switching on his VISR, he was met with digital artifacts and intermittent static in some places. Obviously his helmet took the brunt of his impact against the wall.
He muttered a curse under his breath as he switched back to his mark 1 eyeballs. With dusk slipping closer into twilight and dust being kicked up from all manner of sources, he could hardly make out what was going on out there.
Fletcher sighted in his MA40K, thankfully his smart-link was still working. He began firing at fuzzy white silhouettes creeping up and down over the various craters which had been dug out by explosive force.
A stream of plasma fire suddenly scorched overhead. Fletcher clenched his teeth hard and sunk a little deeper into the prone position he assumed over the rubble. He fired another furious burst over the heads of the approaching clones. In the distance he heard the approaching hum he had come to associate with Republic hovercraft, not too dissimilar from Covenant ones. “Mancini, bring the Gauss Hog around!”
Too late. A rapid-fire barrage from the heavy laser cannons of an enemy tank rattled the first and second floors. Fletcher bowed his head towards the ground momentarily and his men briefly paused their firing as rubble poured from above.
“ARGH! DAMMIT!” Fletcher twisted his head towards the machine gunner screaming through grinding teeth. A sizable portion of his bicep had been vaporized and his arm dangled by a thread attached to the grip of the machine gun. Melted flesh flapped over the hole burned through his armor and fatigues.
“Cooper!” Fletcher grabbed the corporal lying next to him. “Get him to the company casualty collection point!”
“No! I can walk!” the machine gunner insisted, extricating his limp arm from the weapon. The precariously attached limb seemed to cling to it with a ghostly touch, both moving and not moving under its own power at the same time. The man shifted away from the fighting and crawled away with a whimper.
“Get that fuckin’ gun up, now!” Fletcher slid the weapon across the gravel into the assistant gunner’s hands. He shifted closer using his elbows and snapped his hand over the private’s shoulder. “Grazing fire between those two buildings!” He swiftly placed down two waypoints.
“Yes sir!” The hundred or so rounds still linked together on the belt of the M739 began to dwindle once again.
Fletcher fired, dropped the spent mag, and slammed a half-full one in. He tucked his head to the ground as a missile barrage from the hovertank thrashed the planet around him. He wasted no time sending radio traffic, “Mancini, where the hell are you?”
No response.
Looking at his motion tracker, Fletcher saw red dots a scant fifty meters away. He turned to face them only to be met with the shockwave of an explosion. It didn’t do any damage to him other than rattle his teeth, but as he peered over cover with his rifle at the ready he soon found a lane had been cleared in the concertina wire.
He began to fire into the gap, catching a clone trooper who had been climbing out of a nearby ditch. “On the right! Two o’clock!” He shoved the newly minted machine gunner in the shoulder, causing his weapon to pivot on its bipod towards the new targets.
The attackers rushing in viciously discharged their plasma weapons, superheated gas splashed against the interior of the building. Molten concrete spangled off and onto Fletcher’s armor. The machine gun roared to life with a fresh two hundred round belt. Two were cut down by the flood of bullets. The other attackers dived for the ground as soon as they reached an opening in the razorwire. “Keep ‘em pinned!”
“Yes sir!” the private said anxiously.
“All squads, they’ve breached 2nd Squad’s perimeter!”
Right now was as good a time as any to start chucking grenades, Fletcher figured. He retrieved a trio of the plump M9 grenades from his pouches and began chucking them towards the enemy. Three thumps later and the enemy was thoroughly pinned down. “Keep at ‘em,” Fletcher encouraged the machine gunner, shifting his own aim towards shifting figures in the distance.
A beam of light sliced into the air above him. “Shit.” Fletcher muttured. He slid back down the pile of rubble slightly and got the attention of the remaining AT rifleman who was fiddling with a Pilum magazine. “I need you to hit that tank, now corporal!”
“I’m trying, sir! This thing’s fucked!” The soldier was violently slamming the magazine against his helmet as all manner of debris poured out of it. “We need to get the hell out of here!”
Fletcher hesitated for a split second, considering the man’s suggestion. Then he heard a distinct sound split through the rest of the chaos, a steady electric thunderclap, a deep whining fzchunk fzchunk fzchunk. It was the 50mm autocannon of an M494 Oryx IFV.
Scrambling to the peak of the rubble mound, he saw clearly in the growing gloom the blazing hot hypersonic penetrators cleave straight through both sides of the lightly armored repulsortank. It was always a bad day to be on the receiving end of a 50mm coilgun.
Next was the resounding boom of a tank cannon, and suddenly the situation was turning in their favor with the arrival of the 2nd Battalion, 34th Mechanized Regiment, 53rd Armored Division.
After they repulsed the Republic attack, Fletcher and his men were relieved and Easy Company withdrew from the frontline to a rear area. Out of the roughly 200 men who had comprised E Company, they’d taken 38 KIA and 35 too wounded to fight on.
They now sat strewn about at Battalion HQ under the roof of a second rate hotel two kilometers to the rear. Fletcher remained motionless on a stool, cigarette still burning between his lips as one of the maintenance personnel fiddled around with his power pack and another gimmicked with his helmet. He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement as Captain Springer approached.
“Get your men regrouped and rearmed Lieutenant. We brief in thirty,” the captain laid a reassuring grip on Fletcher’s shoulder.
“What the hell? Why?” Fletcher’s brows furrowed as he shook the hand off himself. He flinched to the tech’s annoyance as the quad 40mm cannons of an M808B2 Sun Devil spat not far off, probably disintegrating an enemy recon drone in a hail of flak.
“They want the front pushed another five klicks in this area. They’re gonna bring up some heavy duty coilguns, Onagers towed by Elephants probably, to make those things think twice about getting cozy.” He pointed vaguely in the distance, referring to the Republic ships looming ominously overhead. “Or so they told me.”
“By ourselves, sir?”
“No, we’re tagging along with the 105th, the Helljumpers themselves. We’ll follow the arty and bombers in by stages. We’ll go in right when they let off block by block. I’ll explain to the platoon and squad leaders later. For now, I’d get familiar with the local maps if you hadn’t already.”
“Yes sir,” Fletcher said half-heartedly.
He didn’t like the idea of going on the attack, but the chance to show the ODSTs how it was done sounded like a fun time.
A very fun time.
UNSC Warhound
The fifteen kilometer long UNSC Infinity, with an elegance which belied its immense hulking form, turned its attention towards its new quarry. It rotated its four CR-03B MACs, measuring dozens of meters in diameter, towards the Mandator II supercarrier and fired all four simultaneously. 3000 ton slugs traveling at a quarter the speed of light punched straight through the aftwards shields of the vessel and burrowed into its guts. One of the slugs punched a hole clean through the capital ship, dragging in its wake thousands of pieces of relativistic shrapnel.
The primary propulsion engines flashed and pulsated in a modulating death rattle as it made its dive towards the planet. Interior explosions sent debris flying outwards, it almost looked like there was a firestorm breathing just beneath its hull plating as vented atmosphere billowed out of breached decks.
Then, as if holding its breath, an inferno exploded outwards from the interior of the once formidable dreadnought. The hypermatter annihilation reactor failed in a garish display of light, consuming everything in the path of its expanding explosion. One of the main thrusters blew outwards, flung away from the ship by the force of the detonation.
The once proud vessel was now no more than a debris field filled with jagged scraps of metal and cosmic dust.
The Infinity’s secondary batteries opened fire at the rest of the beleaguered fleet as they edged closer and closer to high orbit. Railguns and coilguns deflected and ripped through opened sections like infection into a gaping wound, and missiles gave chase hot on their tails. Beams of energy swatted down capital ships, point defense guns tore through fighter formations, salvos of ferrous slugs penetrated into armored hulls.
The enemy offered only a paltry retaliation. Heavy turbolaser fire sporadically answered back, slapping almost uselessly against the Infinity’s shields. A few began to turn around to face it down.
White watched the whole thing unfold with a giddy hurriedness. The sooner they’d be able to take out what remained of that fleet, the better.
However, it didn’t look like the Infinity was up to the task on her lonesome. He glowered at the sight of the two dozen Republic capital ships reaching the relative safety of Taris’s atmosphere on the tactical display.
His life just got a whole lot more complicated.
AN: Next chapter will wrap up the Battle Of Taris