NationStates Jolt Archive

A white horse on the clouds of death, a red warhorse to end all wars, a pale horse and pestilence led by a black horse with famine and scales!

"Target acquired, begin sighting the cannon."

"Aye captain."

Little more than a framework wrapped around a massive MAC, the newest orbital fortress, fourth of a planned ten, wasn't entirely complete, but sighting the gun in had to happen long before they closed it in, and equipped any secondary weapons or missile pods. The two polar batteries had been finished first, and their supporting batteries were well under way, though delays had plagued the southern battery for months, and it was well behind schedule.

The ripping canvas snarl of the gun discharging was something everyone on the station was used to. The sudden power failure after firing wasn't.

"Sir, we've identified the source of the problem, there's a bad relay in the matter conversion matrix. It blew the primary control runs for the gun and put the reactor into emergency shutdown. Should take about thirty minutes to fix. Emergency power has comms online, Ziva II says we have impact, thirty meters high, wide right, almost 200 meters."

"Understood. Offline the artificial gravity and have them start readjusting the targeting data and the gun. We should have that done by the time the reactor is back online."

"Aye captain. Reactor team says no gravity should add five minutes, but no other complications."

Planet Jefferson, Surface:

The amber glow of the teleportation rings faded to a cold golden shine, and a new soldier stepped out of the device, followed by his combat remote.

"Master Chief James Hardy, reporting as ordered, unit Sierra 001, accompanying."

"Sierra 001?"

"Aye sir. New deployment. Minor upgrades to the shield battery and frontal carapace."

"Very well Chief Hardy, report to second Charlie, they're waiting for you. I have your orders here."

"Very well."

The massive suit, and the shorter man accompanying it stepped away from the teleportation building, and followed the waypoint on the HUD towards the company headquarters.

Blue skies, a few scuddy clouds, and warm temperatures were all standards on Jefferson, but the dark line of clouds on the horizon heralded rain later, and Chief Hardy wanted to be well out of the rain and settled in before they arrived and dumped water all over him.

Steely Sentinels and Enforcers floated around the compound, truly automated weapons, recently deployed to all the forward bases to provide extra security, since the combat controllers of the infantry were deployed almost on top of the troops they commanded, and their deaths made the million dollar combat suits absolutely useless.

"Master Chief James Hardy reporting for duty as ordered, Sierra 001 accompanying."

"I was told you were coming, you've been assigned to second platoon of Charlie company, that's weapons. Draw your equipment, and stow your suit. Dismissed."

"Yes sir." The slim grey haired Master Chief left the captains office, and headed straight for the armory, drawing a Brute Shot, Shotgun, and a pair of pistols, and stowing his suit. The rain started just as he was settling in to his rack. The time was 21:00 hours. No one realized that this planets time would soon be up.

Aboard the Glorious Ruination
System Designation ADS05004

Karesh Etogaur stared into the Warp, and it stared back.

He stood alone in the aft observation chamber of the Glorious Ruination, gazing into the swirling, dancing colour of the Warp. Even amongst the devout, few could bear to look upon the Empyrean and retain control of their own actions. Many were driven insane by visions gifted to them by the Gods, still others either posessed or torn asunder by the myriad of hungering creatures which dwelt within it. Karesh Etogaur stared with eyes of smouldering iron, and the denizens of the Warp fled before his wrath.

"Etogaur-Magir," spoke a voice.

Karesh turned, his hands gently caressing a jet-black handrail which crawled under his touch. He saw the speaker, a junior Sirdar, lain flat upon the ground with his facemask pressed firmly to the obsidian floor. His eyes would be shut tight, Karesh knew. Common superstition held that the creatures of the warp would ignore those who did not provoke them with their gaze.

"Speak," said Karesh. He spoke slowly, his deep voice echoing throughout the chamber.

"Magir," began the officer, "we are approaching our exit vector. The Lord Captain begs your presence in his strategium."

Karesh looked away from the man, glancing once again out of the observation dome and into the flow of the Warp. A vaguely female form flowed close to the ship, the illusion spoiled by a thousand osseous growths protruding from the creature's spine and upper arms. He locked eyes with the creature and smiled at its evident discomfort, his tongue flicking over rows and rows of shark-like canines. He broke from the thing's unblinking, fearful stare, and looked back at the prostrate warrior.

"Inform the Lord Captain that I will be with him shortly."

"Yes, Magir," stuttered the man, thoroughly relieved by his dismissal.

***

The Glorious Ruination and her supporting warships tore into realspace like a jagged blade, ripping open the fabric of reality with terrifying ease and contemptuous disregard. The rift lay open like a wound upon the universe, disgorging a thousand blood-red vessels like maggots from a corpse, the breach rippling with every arrival.

Colossal weapons systems, ancient in manufacture and design and pitted with a hundred space-borne impacts, acquired their targets with menacing precision. Thousands of crewmen and slaves laboured within the guts of the Ruination to prepare her fearsome armaments for firing. Hooded, bare-chested overseers cracked whips and screamed curses at any who fell behind in the work, dragging those unfit for service away from the blessed weapons to a slow, squalid death at the hands of the ship's chaplains.

Their barrels purred with static as the immense guns were made ready. A searing, silent flash against the darkness of the universe was the only warning given to the enemy. Within the ship, the gun crews screamed their praise to the spirits of their cannons, one steaming weapon being blessed with a human sacrifice in honour of it's power. A pair of massively muscled overseers twisted the head from a terrifed slave with their bare hands, allowing his blood to flow and boil upon the scalding surface of their blasphemous armament. A low drone filled the decks as the thick, crimson liquid boiled into steam, and the crews cheered again.

The guns were hungry for more shells, and in the name of Khorne, they would be fed.

OOC: The fleet is firing upon your orbital positions, as I am sure you will have guessed. On with the war.

Surface deployment will be close to the entireity of my current forces (numbers available in factbook), though I'll give you specifics once we get to the real fun.

"UNKNOWN CONTACTS!"

"Identify, and acquire targeting solutions..." The blare of an incoming fire alarm silenced the commander of the half finished station. "Belay that order, fire as she bears, maximum rate." Without their armor, or light weapons, or even point defense fighters, this was going to be an incredibly short and one sided engagement. "Relay message to all the other stations, incoming enemy, drop ODSTs and scramble all fighters, no time once engagement begins. Best guess 800 plus vessels, unknown configuration, unkown ownership, hostile intent."

The half finished station had been unlucky. The fully completed stations were on the other side of the planet from it, and the enemy had appeared too far above the ecliptic for their supporting station to engage. The repaired power relay held up for three shots, before failing again. The problem had never been the relay in the first place. The fault was elsewhere, overstressing the relay and causing it to fail under combat conditions with a certainty. Three megaton weight shells blasted out towards targets large enough that any margin of error rated in meters would be immaterial, a shell weighing a thousand tons was going to hit these ships, it was only a matter of where. Fifteen seconds after the last shell launched, the station was wiped away in a cloud of destructive force rivalling the entirety of every battery in every system they controlled.

The three remaining batteries launched their few fighters, a paltry hundred each, and waited for the end to come. The light fighters powered down their engines, and slipped behind the far side of the moon, loaded with weapons designed to destroyships and stations. Their only hope of doing any damage was to let the enemy well within their range before revealing themselves, and that their massed fire might destroy a few more, give the civilians more time to evacuate. Archer missiles and plasma torpedoes came online, ready to dump their loads as soon as the enemy was in view. They didn't have time for anything else, no fancy tricks, just waves of thermonuclear destruction flung into the enemy's face, with the hope that they destroyed even one more ship.

On Jefferson's surface, the military scrambled. A trio of heavy Anti-Air Wraith tanks marshalled around the capitol. They might stop a few missiles or bombs, buy a few more precious seconds while more than ten million people fled the planet ahead of this onslaught, teleporting out a hundred at a time all over the city. It wasn't going to be enough. As soon as the enemy bombardment began, perhaps thirty minutes from now, depending on how well the stations fared, it would all be over, and no more than three million were going to escape.

"Hardy, draw a max load on ammo, in the event of enemy landing we want to be ready. Also, lose the shotgun. Everyone in weapons is doubling up on BR for precision work. If you want a shotgun swap for Maulers, clear?"

"Clear sir. I'll see that gets done. I'd like your permission to double up grenades on my team. Can never have too much fire power."

"Done Hardy. Make sure you relay that to your squad leader, I want everyone with as much as they can carry. Whatever these guys are, their infantry is likely to be as heavy as their ships, and that means we're outnumbered, even if they only have a company of 200 men on every ship."

"There may be more of them, but we're so much better it isn't even funny sir."

"You don't know that. If they land, be careful. It's hard to tell what we might be facing."

"Also, we're recieving a Hunter Team from Earth, it's the heaviest firepower they can push through a teleporter. We'll be getting a new team every hour or so, however long it takes them to get rounded up. The first team goes to your squad."

"I'll let everyone know sir."

"Dismissed. Make sure the word gets passed around, then get everyone to the command center. We have more sentinels en route, so everyone will be deployed for combat ops. We won't need troops to cover the base."

"Aye sir." Hardy clicked his heels together, saluted, and walked out. Once he was out of sight of the headquarters building he broke into a flat out run, activating his suit on the fly through voice commands, and getting it ready for arming and engagement. While he was doing that, more communications went out, to his squad leader, who had been prepping an operations order while Hardy dealt with the platoon leader, and to the rest of the squad, detailing their loadouts. "Jameson, Shot and BR, Maulers. Winston, Fuel Gun and BR, Spikers. Hale, Rocket and BR, Maulers. Daniels, Rocket and BR, Pistols. O'hara, Shot and BR, Plasma, pistols or rifles, up to you. Mckinney, Shot and BR, whichever O'hara picks, you get the other. Lovell, Fuel gun and BR, Spikers. Kensington, Laser and BR, SMGs. Boss has a second laser and SMGs, I've got Brute shot and Maulers. If they land and we can't win this, we'll sure kill alot of them."

"Listen up Marines. We are going to make these yahoo's regret ever engaging our beloved Corps. Saddle up, and load heavy. No SMGs, no Assault Rifles. If you take a pistol, make it a D, not C or G. We want the most bang for our buck. If you want rapid fire, take a spiker or needler, weapons needs to take three fuel guns for every rocket launcher. We don't expect heavy armor, but if it's there Fuel Rods can do the job, rockets don't work as well on massed infantry. We have a company of SPARTANs too, and three of Helljumpers. They answer to us, but we're deploying them independently. Make sure you're all ready to fight. They outnumber us big time, but they won't know what hit them when we're through with them."

The combat remote looked like any other, maybe a little more battered, but it was still the generic black skinned Johnson they'd been using for decades now. The man behind the controller was an entirely different story. Probably the best enlisted marine on the planet, he always ranked number one in simulations, and had expert certifications in just about every weapon. Master Sergeant Avery was a different breed. He was from the old corps, he had fought in wars where men had been shooting at him, and he had shot back. He was different. His regiment of Marines was paired with second platoon of Charlie company, they were there as scouts, and a strategic reserve. 50 men. Not much of a reserve. Even 50 SPARTANs wasn't much of a reserve. But, it was time to hurry up and wait. Thirty minutes to see how well their orbital forts fared against an unimaginable enemy. Thirty minutes to either prepare for the end, or prepare for war. Time to start the music.

The light cruiser Immaculate Disenchantment, whose iron hide was scarred with a thousand burning sigils and a hundred battle-wounds, recieved the first MAC round. The Disenchantment's layered void shields overloaded with a concussive blast that shook the ship, utterly unable to prevent the superdense projectile from reaching it's target. The MAC round struck the ship directly upon her ornamented prow, penetrating instantly and with unstoppable force. It smashed into the vessel's guts, obliterating everything in it's path until it emerged explosively from the rear of the ship.

The Disenchantment convulsed with detonations as a cascade of system failures crippled her ability to fight. An entire exhaust port, a baroque steel-composite tube fifty metres wide and the same in length, was shorn clear by the force of the attack and forced other ships to recalculate their approach. Automatic containment systems flared into action aboard the ship, sealing off a thousand corridors and walkways within the vessel from the vacuum of space, though too late for the multitude of lifeless, blackened bodies which bled from within the ship.

The Disenchantment began to drift, her burning hull still leaking atmosphere as she yawed mindlessly through the void.

***

The Ruination recieved another of the deadly MAC rounds. The ancient warship's void shields flared an incandescent blue, annihilating the projectile with energy and heat enough to rival a proton star.

***

Aboard the Glorious Ruination

The Lord Captain's Strategium was a cavalcade of technology, lit only by the red glow of information screens and sphere-maps. Every surface was a mass of wiring and interfaces, crewed by a hundred servitors and a score of select naval officers, their faces masked by grotesque masks and rebreathing equipment.

In the centre of the Strategium, Karesh Etogaur stood beside the immense computer-laden throne of the Lord Captain himself. The Captain was a hulking mass of fat, his stinking flesh punctured by an array of wires and shielded cabling, linking him directly to his vessel and it's crew. Though his body was wasted, his mind and will were as strong as steel, and through his bundled fiber-wires he conducted the battle like an orchestra.

Two ships had recieved damage from the enemy's weaponry, one of which had been effectively reduced to a useless hulk. He darted a firing code to the forward lances of his vessel, and watched with a satisfied, corpulent smirk as another of the blinking red runes on the central spherical display dimmed to nothing.

His bright eyes flickered to the Etogaur, seeking his attention.

"Etogaur... Magir," he wheezed, drooling nutrient paste from his flapping lips. A deformed attendant with sewn ears dabbed a cloth of pure silk at the smudge of brown fluid, quickly withdrawing again and lowering his eyes. "My estimation is that the... orbital positions above... the target world, will be... destroyed within approxi...mately fourteen minutes." He wheezed again, spitting through his words. "I would humbly advise... that you join your... forces, in readiness... for the ground assault."

Karesh nodded, almost to himself, before replying in rumbling tones; "I thank you, Lord Captain, for your valuable contribution to this engagement. Rest assured I will speak well of you when I present this... excremental planet to the Emperor."

The Captain gurgled in alarm. "The Emperor is... attending?" he babbled, his thought-processes violently interrupted.

"Of course," sneered Karesh. "I have already transmitted my utter confidence to his Imperial Majesty in the success of our campaign, and he is making his preparations. You, of course, have no objection to this, for our victory is undoubtedly assured."

"Of course," muttered the Captain, recovering his wits.

"Of course," intoned Karesh, as he left for the drop-bays.

The second platform to engage fared little better. Blazing plasma, lasers and last ditch gatlings swatted missiles and torpedoes from space, shields flared with momentary defiance, and then failed utterly as lances blasted through with near impunity. Archemissiles and plasma torpedoes flashed across the intervening distance, every bird targeted on the two leading ships of the enemy squadron, while the MAC gun went into maximum rate of fire. "The Mad Minute", sixty seconds of nearly triple fire rate, before the gun overheated from use and had to be shut down. They fired exactly eight shells. The eighth shell barely made it out of the barrel before incoming fire blotted it from space, along with the station behind it. The swarm of fire might just destroy another ship. They could only hope. Even a hundred to one exchange rate was horrendously in the enemies favor. One to one, the surface was doomed. In just five minutes, the last two stations would be under the enemies guns, as they rounded the planet. And then they would die.

On the surface, Marines scrambled to set up positions all about the city, throwing up barriers, laying trip mines and Auto-Turrets, and emplacing heavier manned turrets and missile pods at every important point or entrance. Revetments for Scorpions and Wraiths sprung up with surprising rapidity, as civilians pitched in to fill sandbags, men staying behind while their families fled. Warthogs served as mobile turrets, and troop transports, securing more lightly defended areas against enemy incursion. SPARTANs hauled loads of charges for weapons to the battle front, and brought forward cases of grenades. Piles of explosives and magazines formed in hasty sandbag bunkers, while all around the city barricades and defenses sprang up. There was no time for talk, every soldier and civilian with a personal firearm or ten was working triple time to make this a fight they had a chance of winning, if it came down to it.

The Chaos fleet had suffered under the fusillade of MAC shells, losing a pair of destroyers to the awesome firepower of the orbital stations. A high-velocity round penetrated the rear fusion reactor of the cruiser Gloria Damnati, triggering a cataclysmic series of explosions which ripped the warship into two ragged halves, each leaking blazing promethium from a score of stress fractures.

Now, however, their foremost vessels were within range of the remaining stations, and again the lances were charged. Twin energy beams, each burning with the contained fury of a sun, incised their way through the shielding and armour layers of the stations, opening their hulls to the hardness of space.

Aboard the Glorious Ruination, the Lord Captain relaxed as the last bastion of orbital resistance was extinguished, and turned his attention towards the minutae of the planetary assault, and of the bombardment. He made a mental note of the sophisticated point-defence systems thus encountered, which had competently defeated torpedo and missile attacks against them. The information was negligible in terms of the current campaign, but in strategic terms had an uncomfortable value.

***

Locust Orbital Assault Vehicle 821E,
60 standard kilometres above the surface.

Tural's helmet slammed back against his headrest as the Locust's pilot clumsily adjusted their approach vector. His teeth ground against each other behind his grotesque, the ornate rebreather array covering his lower face, as he steeled his stomach against the G-forces being inflicted upon it. He'd gone through worse in jump training on Sangaur III, where orbital infantry cadets were habitually thrown from transport aircraft into a twenty-kilometre freefall, but this felt more real than anything he'd ever experienced. He nearly blacked out, only remembering to breathe after the pain in his lungs eclipsed the pain of the accelleration.

Strapped into his seat with a solid steel frame, Tural gritted his teeth and re-familiarised himself with his situation. His weapon, a standard-issue Sangaur-pattern lasgun with folding stock and inbuilt optics, was secured in a moulded locking space behind his lower legs, along with six fresh fragmentation grenades.

He looked across to Yanden, one of two plasma gunners in the fifty-strong platoon contained within the transport. The hugely muscled man's knuckles were clenched white as he sought to crush the steel restaining frame with his bare hands, his mad eyes the only visible part of his face between his grotesque and his composite helmet. Catching the stare, Yanden gave a wink, an altogether un-reassuring gesture from the giant warrior.

The compartment's loudspeakers crackled into shrieking life.

"Thirty seconds to deployment!" they screamed, the shuddering Locust distorting their already shrill tones.

It seemed to take an age for the transport to make planetfall, shaking men like rag-dolls as it came to scraping, juddering halt. Weapons-fire popped against the armoured hull, the impacts audiable from within. Tural sprung himself free of the seat as the automatic locking systems disengaged, and immediately retrieved his equipment.

"Platoon!" bellowed Jurnagach Sirdar, the unit's commanding officer and a standard-issue meathead. "Check your cells! Check your frags! Objective Primaris is to secure the immediate area, so let's do this hard and fast, and get into some gakking cover!"

Twin exit ramps slammed open at the front of the transport, and Tural was dimly aware of a red mist as the soldier beside him lost most of his head in a burning energy discharge. Daylight blinded him and fear gripped him as his feet carried him out into the roaring, smoke-blinded battlefield...

OOC: Orbital bombardment preceding rapid assault by dropships, say 3,000 orbital infantry with heavy air support. Objective is to capture a secure landing area for heavy equipment and supplies.

Can I get an idea of what sort of population you have on this planet? What size cities, etc?

EDIT: Spaceport changed to 'immediate area'.

"We have dropships inbound. Significant numbers. Probable enemy deployment, regimental strength. AA Wraiths and all Banshees and Hornets are free to engage. Marine pilots only." Screaming alarms and a mass of red icons on the displays in the command center told the tale. Hundreds of dropships were descending on the surface, and there weren't but three Anti-Air Wraith tanks, and a score each of fighters to try and stop them.

Green tracks of fire rose into the dawn sky, blanketing the approach vector of the dropships with deadly radiation, as Marines scrambled into atmospheric fighters and rocketed into the sky. Banshee's howled as boosters drove them into the sky at intense speeds, rocketing past the sound barrier, and opening up with plasma batteries and fuel cannon as the first dropships came into range. Hornets rose with a turbine driven whine, and rose moere sedately, aiming their noses towards the enemy, and waiting for their guns to enter range, and their missiles to get a lock and swat more enemies from the sky.

"Marines, the enemy is looking for a landing site. Load Mongooses, rockets in the back, and get ready to deploy. Bravo Company Second Batt will sortie on ATVs and engage the enemy as they land. They will fire two shots a piece, and fall back to the lines here. Banshees and Hornets will provide support and targeting data along the way." Sergeant Avery relayed orders to the troops of the defense battalions, deploying a full third of the western flanks defenses to slow and harrass the enemy. Rockets weren't the best choice against incoming dropships, but it was the best choice they had that Marine infantry could operate from back of the ATVs, and sending out Warthogs was simply out of the question.

OOC:

The planet of Jefferson has one major city, and farmsteads scattered up a long array of canyons. The population of the planet is about ten million, 7 million of which will likely still be planetside when your troops hit the perimeter. There are no spaceports at the moment, as radiation issues with FTL drives have hindered the development of any space forces other than orbital constructs. To the east of the city is a flat floodplain where your troops could land and deploy. North and west the city is bordered by rivers, which would hinder movement, as there are only three bridges. South is more of the floodplain, and the coast that carved out the plains. The perimeter is most heavily fortified around the south and east, but the small perimeter means that any point on the defensive line is relatively well defended.

The defenses are a single mechanized division(30,000 troops) of Marines, backed by three companies of Helljumpers, and a company of SPARTANs.

The Vehicle section is rather large due to it being a mechanized Marine division. All of these vehicles need to be manned to fight.

Scorpions: 600(3 battalions)
Wraiths: 600(3 battalions)
Mongooses: 1200(2 battalion)
Chaingun Warthogs: 1608(4 battalions)
Troop Warthogs: 1440(6 battalions)
Gauss Warthogs: 1608(4 battalions)
Ghosts: 2400(2 battalions)
AA Wraiths: 3
Grizzlys: 200(1 battalion)
Prowlers: 50(1 company)

OOC: Okay, I've used your description of the terrain to draw a map, so hopefully we'll be on the same page. If we assume that the only approach to the city from the eastern flood plain is through the canyon network? That will provide plenty of combat and ambush opportunities.

Say that the landings are at the southeastern end of the canyons, and the city is near the opposite end.

Landing Area Alpha

Tactical indoctrination kicked in.

Tural flung himself to the ground with a curse, instinctively keeping the barrel of his lasgun high and out of the dirt. He jammed the weapon's steel stock into his shoulder, and blasted half a power cell in the direction of the incoming fire. The enemy rounds were piercing blue bolts of energy, similar to the pict-records of Tau weaponsfire Tural had viewed in basic. He had gripped the trigger for another burst when a body slammed awkwardly beside him, smacking his aim wide of filling his nostrils with the stink of ozone and cooked flesh. The soldier, his left leg cauterised by a searing plasma round, was firing his lasgun one-handed with hopeless inaccuracy at the unseen enemy.

The air was filled with the crackle of lasfire, interspersed with the faint, high-pitched whine of the enemy rounds. Another dropship, evidently damaged and trailing oily black smoke as it descended, managed to half-bury itself in the gravelly surface of the valley. It finally came to a halt at a jaunty angle at the edge of the depression, disgorging its passengers onto a patch of loose rubble. Tural saw them attempt to dig in, losing a couple of men as they scraped together a fire-barrier and set up a pair of stub-fifties. The valley soon echoed with their juddering fire as they hosed the enemy's position.

Tural's microbead crackled, filling his head with Jurnagach Sirdar's growling tones.

"Platoon!" screamed the microbead, distorting the officer's voice as it struggled to match his volume. "Sigma Platoon is providing suppressing fire! Make for the western side of the valley, and put some fire on their gakking infantry!"

Tural scrambled to his feet, his boots slipping on the sandy gravel of the valley floor. He grabbed at the wounded soldier's weapons harness and started to drag him towards their objective, the protesting warrior still firing his lasgun in staccato bursts. Seeing him, two other members of Tural's platoon quickly slung their weapons and helped him drag the wounded man, who cried out in pain as the gravel ripped open his burns. They swore at him to shut the hell up, or be left behind.

They tumbled to the stones after a hundred-metre dash, hastily dragging the gasping warrior behind a riser and out of the enemy's field of fire. A hissing plasma round scraped the shoulder of one of the soldiers, but his mind was so wired on adrenalin that the pain barely registered.

"Keep moving!" yelled Tural, stabbing a derma-ject painkiller into the fallen soldier. His companions were already scrambling up the embankment to follow the platoon, and Tural loaded a fresh clip and sprinted to catch them.

OOC: The short and sweet of it is that this is a fair-sized infantry engagement, numbers approx 100 on my side. Suppressing fire from two .50 cal stubbers and accompanying small arms to your south, with infantry attempting to flank from your southwest.

EDIT: Also, I'll be away from friday until sunday evening, as I'm visiting my grandparents.

"Hornerts target the Dropships, Banshees strafe their formations, careful with the fuel cannons."

"Roger. Preparing to engage. Infantry in cover?"

"We're good. Drop the hammer."

Forty atmospheric fighters howled overhead, plasma guns blazing across the enemy formation, while waves of rockets pounded into their grounded dropships. On the ground, the crack of battle rifle fire crossed paths with hissing beams of lascarbine fire, while rockets leapt across the intervening distance to smash into heavy weapons emplacements, slashing contrails through the smoke and the haze.

"They made it down intact, company strength. We have them bottled up in the canyon, but the troops are light on ammo. They'll be falling back soon."

"Helljumpers?"

"En route, but it'll be at least another thirty minutes before they make it. Too long."

The chatter of the command bunker was punctuated by the racket of gunfire and the voices of the troops at the mouth of Dead End Gorge, sent out with the expectation they could knock a few enemy ships out of the air, they were now stuck in a standup fight, with only light transports and poorly armed for infantry combat. The only redeeming factor was the fact that the enemy was outnumbered two to one. Even that wasn't a huge advantage. Half the troops only had six shots before their weapons would be empty.

"Destroy those machine guns. We can't let those guns mow us down!"

Tracers tracked across a squad, destroying four of the marines, and blowing an arm off of a fifth. The marines returned fire, a pair of rockets tracking back along the path the tracers had taken, bracketing the machinegun position with fire and shrapnel. The troops firing the rockets dropped their launchers and snatched up their fallen comrades battle rifles, and started servicing targets.

"Marines, we will fall back along the canyon. Rally points have been uploaded to your HUD. We will hold the enemy at each point for a minimum of ten minutes. If you have the choice between a battle rifle or a rocket launcher, take the rifle. Enemy armor has yet to make an appearance, and we can asume they either have none, or have only light armor. Consolidate ammunition and move out."

Thirty marines had been lost in the first clash, but everyone tore off on their ATVs, leaving behind the fifteen unmanned machines with their lost soldiers and weapons nearby. All three piles had grenades and tripmines distributed liberally throughout. They couldn't fight anymore, but they might still kill another enemy soldier.

"Requesting resupply of combat remotes. Enemy weapons are very effctive for their size. Require either further SPARTAN and Hunter support, or continuous resupply of Remotes to keep our soldiers operational. Analysis says mixed lasers and slugs are the enemies main armament. No evidence of armor or advanced infantry."

"Roger Jefferson command. We only have a few hundred spare remotes. We will deploy them at first opportunity. Would you like them at their companies, or at the command post?"

"Command post. Losses will be reconstituted into a reserve, and assist in emplacing heavy defenses around the bunker."

"Understood. First Hunters en route, remotes to follow. ETA 13:53 EST."

The commander did a quick calculation, from Earth eastern standard time, to Jeffersonian Standard Time, factored in his loss rate over an open fiueld engagement with the enemy, and reached an unsettling conclusion. He would have lost more than double the reinforcements promised him before they reached him. More than triple if his forces sallied against the whole of the enemy force. Projections said Helljumpers and SPARTANs would be significantly more effective, but there were only Eight hundred of them total. No choice...

"Roger command, will await reinforcements. Projected losses are heavy. Request SPARTANs, or a Scarab, or something."

"Understood. We will see what we can do. Support is unlikely. Insurgents are pressing the third division hard on Tau Ceti. We don't have much left with our other commitments. Not without stripping the capitol."

"Understod. Jefferson out."

The communications went silent, and the commander sighed, forced by circumstance to stop an enemy that outnumbered him probably ten to one. Just another day in the corps.

The drop ship juddered its way through through the atmosphere, leaving a pair of silver vapour trails in its wake. A pair of screaming petrochemical engines under each angular, sloping wing, propelling the bulky aircraft towards its planetside destination. Within the armoured troop compartment, Amdai Urudane Sirdar-Magir sat strapped into his descent-position, his head swarming with combat reports as he monitored those of his regiment already on the ground. A pair of tac-screens attached to his harness-chair displayed a hundred individual platoon locators, some groundside, some in transit, and some merely black marks registering the last known position and coordinates.

An impact shook the ship, slamming eighty tons of steel-composite hull sideways with terrifying force and forcing the flesh-wired pilot to physically drag his steed back on course. An entire wall of the troop compartment was ripped away, annihilating fifteen armoured infantrymen and dropping their mangled remains over ten kilometres above their objective. Amdai's earpiece shrieked, the direct cockpit link filled with panicked voices. A fire had started in the crew compartment, and within seconds the speaker was quickly filled by the hysterical screams of the co-pilot as he was slowly cooked alive. The ship shook again as secondary detonations blew out the cockpit view-plate, the rushing vacuum instantly sucking the pilot and the mewling, half-charred body of his assistant out into the stratosphere. The nose immediately dropped by fifteen degrees, slanting the angle of descent from a controlled crash to a suicide run.

Amdai shook away his tac-slates, sending them skittering across the stainless steel flooring to crack hollowly against a bulkhead at the far end of the troop compartment. He activated his squad-level intercom, his growling voice barking sharp commands to his remaining men as the atmosphere bled from the ship.

"Platoon!" he yelled, his words muffled by his grotesque. "Emergency evacuation of the aircraft! Hit your emergency release and strap your chutes, because we're going for a walk!"

Amdai slammed his own release, quickly grabbing his equipment and a backpack grav-chute. One by one the remaining soldiers of his platoon leapt through the rushing vacuum and into the open sky.

"Like you mean it, drokk-head!" he bellowed, shoving a reluctant warrior through the yawning wound of torn steel and flapping spall-liner. The soldier fell through, tumbling into a twenty-thousand-foot fall, and all Amdai could do was hope the idiot wouldn't panic on the way down.

He threw himself out into the blue.

***

From his position at the crest of the hill, Tural could see a group of Locusts making planetfall a little further back in the valley, kicking up a cloud of sand and dust as their landing thrusters burst into flame. Twin tongues of white fire spat from paired thrusters along the length of the armoured transports, slowing their landing to a mere bone-jarring crunch instead of a semi-controlled crash. The exit ramps opened, spilling their cargo of ochre-clad infantrymen onto the rubble-strewn ground.

Roaring engines and sarcastic applause signalled the arrival of the regiment's mobile element as a platoon of five STeG 4 attack vehicles emerged from their transport. The eight-wheeled armoured cars powered forward, accelerating with incredible speed as they traversed the broken valley floor. One of the machines arrogantly ventured too close to the enemy, and was rewarded as a pair of missiles which burst from their positions, slashing through the air to shear away the rearmost section of the vehicle. The STeG span a quarter-turn with the impact, careening wildly as the driver struggled to control his vehicle. It jerked back and forth, trailing thick, greasy smoke, before finally flipping onto its side and sliding across the valley floor in a cloud of dust. A blood-smeared crewman who attempted to escape his smouldering vehicle was cut down by a long burst of stub-fire, his squalid demise jeered by the unsympathetic drop troops.

A warning shout made Tural turn back towards the enemy.

"Take cover!" crackled his microbead. "Enemy aircraft incoming!"

Tural lifted his eyes to the sky, and could just make out a mixed swarm of fighters. They angled for attack, diving towards their targets before releasing their missiles, which ripped into the grounded Locusts. The vulnerable ships popped like watermelons, easy targets for the enemy's weapons. Their fuel supplies cooked off with devastating explosions, annihilating the ships and shredding a group of infantrymen with burning hull fragments. The faster fighters, streamlined alien craft which were impossible to follow with a rifle scope, strafed the disembarked infantry. The panicking soldiers were cut down by blistering plasma fire, trapped without cover. They retreated back towards the blazing wrecks of their dropships, trying to use the burning hulks to block the enemy's line of sight.

The STeG 4s span about, their chattering autocannons spitting a barrage of armour-piercing rounds at the slower heavy fighters. A missile slashed towards them in response, blasting a crater in the earth and blowing a STeG onto it's side. The vehicle was undamaged, but essentially disabled in terms of the current combat. The three remaining vehicles scored direct hits on the enemy aircraft, damaging one and sending another spinning out of control. The entrenched drop troops, still under fire from a barrage of screaming rockets and sizzling plasma rounds, managed to set up a pair of heavy stubbers on anti-aircraft mounts behind their position and return fire at the strafing fighters.

Tural rolled onto his back, trying to get his bearings amidst the intensifying combat. To his right, the remainder of his platoon had finally moved into position overlooking the enemy infantry, and had opened fire. His ears were filled with the crackle of lasfire and the chattering report of high-RPM stubbers. A missile team had set up their weapon beside a blasted tree, and were launching their high-ex rounds towards the enemy as Jurnagach Sirdar bellowed into his vox set for air cover. Yanden, the big plasma gunner, roared in triumph and screamed obscenities at the enemy as he scored a confirmed kill, his first of the campaign.

Tural checked the cell of his lasgun, and began firing.

OOC: Tadaa. Heavy air support incoming in approx 8 minutes.

One Hornet went down hard, smashing into the side of a nearby cliff face, while a second had a wing blown off, and spiraled out of control into the ground. The impact point, one of the already destroyed dropships, erupted into an even larger fireball as rockets and explosives detonated violently, while fifty caliber rounds cooked off in rapidfire chains in the ammunition bays of the destroyed fghter.

"Retarget, priority is enemy triple A, engage at will with rockets and machine guns. Banshees, drop fuel rods on massed infantry on your next pass."

Howling engines heralded another strafing run of banshees, plasma guns burning tracks across the much bloodied and blackened dirt, while light anti-air guns tried to swat them from the sky. As each fighter launched a single shot from their Fuel Rod Gun, it turned shaply upwards and its engines howled as they tore off straight up into the sky. Nearly a mile and a half up, they nosed over and came straight back down, dropping explosive radioactive rounds all across the contested canyon, slamming bolt after bolt into the grounded dropships, enemy AA guns, and even their light pintle mounts. Just five hundred feet short of the ground, they flattened out, and banked as a single unit out and away from the battlefield, disappearing behind the next line of mountains, gaining rapidly on the slower Hornets, and dropping below the line of peaks to pass out of sight of the enemy formations.

"Fire mission complete. Friendly infantry is out of area. Holding position three miles up the canyon. Minimal losses, enemy anti-air is ineffective against Banshees, several damaged but none lost. Three Hornets rendered combat ineffective. Damaged bird returning to base."

"Roger. Is airspace clear for dropships?"

"Unknown. Advise staying below the peaks and following the canyon. Banshees can be tasked for escort if needed."

"Understood. Pelicans enroute. Dispatch Banshees for cover."

The dropships were loaded down with resupply canisters and a company of ODSTs, dropped well away from the combat zone, rapid recovery was about to put them into the middle of the biggest firefight anyone had ever imagined. Lightly armed, and bearing a relatively old model of shield, a circular disk of projected force, they were shock and scout troops, fast and dangerous, but not the best at long fights. Snipers slapped 14.5mm magazines into rifles, and racked rounds into the chamber.

"Boothe, you ready?"

"Yeah boss. Shield's hot. SMG or Needler?" The ODSTs had a fair selection of weaponry strewn about the rear bay of the pelican, and most of it was either explosive or projectile in nature. The particular ODST in question was a bit of a rookie, but only in the sense that he'd only been in one or two firefights back homeside, as opposed to the campaign hardened veterans of his Platoon, who had all served, mostly intact, during the Jovian Rebellion.

"Take the needler. We're going hot, and things that go boom are better than things that go pop. Seven shots is a critical kill, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember." Made from a mildly reactive explosive, Needler crystals naturally shattered on their owen after a certain amount of time. Put seven or more of them into a body however, and they detonated violently, tearing apart their target and anyone happening to be too close to the hapless target. The rookie's remote displayed a fairly impressive array of awards, mostly expert marksmanship qualifications, with a CIB and a lone Bronze Star to round things out, but the ones that mattered right now were the one displaying what appeared to be a small pink crystal, and the other displaying a handgun.

"Rookie! Heads up!" A M6 Magnum flew across the compartment to smack into the ODSTs hand, before disappearing into his remotes hip holster. Six grenades dangled from his harness, and his shield blinked green, indicating ready at the press of a button.

"We drop in five. We are not to become decisively engaged. If the enemy appears to be present in more than Regimental strength we are to engage in a fighting retreat up the canyon, taking as long as possible to reach Maze Gap. Warthogs will meet us there if it comes down to it."

The cockpit of the pelican blinked with readouts, airspeed, altitude, fuel(why did they bother with fuel? It was rated in years.), and payload.

"Weapons hot?" Each pelican mounted a pair of rocket pods for defense or assault, but they couldn't maneuver to engage enemy fighters in the tight canyon, so firing first was going to be their best bet. The chin mounted gatling was going to be next to useless in this fght if it happened, but it was all the pilot had to work with, so he double checked his own power readout while his gunner readied the rest of their payload.

"We're hot. Single fire, multiple locks. I've got it set up for massed anti-air rather than anti-tank or gunship work. I have...23 shots in one wing, 24 in the other. Bad charge on a backup cell."

"Roger. Kilo lead this is Two Three, ready to go."

"Good, that makes you the last bird up. We're on the way then. ETA defensive line in ten minutes, pickle over drop point and boogie out, copy?"

"Drop our load and run, got it."

Secondary Defensive Line

"Start digging in, I want trip mines out in front, see if we can kill anything with them, or at least slow them down. We're offloading gatlings from the Pelicans, I want them with clear fields of fire. We'll have enough to cover the valley, but we need more antivehicle weapons, so we're going to consolidate rockets and redistribute BRs when the guns get here." They had lost thirty troops in the first clash, and most had been rifle troops. They were doing fairly well on ammo, but they didn't have enough rockets, and they had them in too many hands. That meant it was time to get rid of some of the rocket launchers, give their rockets to the twenty or so troops that would be acting as anti-vehicle support, and arm them with rifles.

"Here ya go." The Private held out a pair of reloads for a rocket launcher, and gave them up to the sargeant managing the redistribution of weapons. "I still have one loaded barrel in my launcher, permission to retain that weapon?"

"Granted. Won't hurt to have a few extras scattered in the troops, and one shot can't be yanked. Use it good though, don't just pop it into an enemy squad unless you have to."

"Understood. I'll make sure it does something useful."

"Get a move on then. We got a fight to win."

Shallow foxholes were all that could be dug out of the rocky ground, even by the stronger than average remotes, but even a three footdeep foxhole is better than none, and with a two foot dirt rampart, it was a fair defense for a trooper in combat. Nothing in the world(barring water) stopped old fashioned bullets as well as dirt, and lasers tended to not have much penetration, so it was an all around defense against attack. With five or six troops digging each foxhole, they went fairly quickly, troops finishing their holes faster than others pitched in to assist the slower troops in digging theirs, and preparing a warm reception for the unknown enemy who would soon be following them up the canyon.

Landing Area Alpha
Ground Assault +144 Minutes

Amdai Sirdar-Magir crested the last hill, and was greeted with the acrid, morbid stench of burning flesh. A smouldering pyre of blackened bodies dominated the bustling scene, fed by a platoon of ghoulish corpse-bearers. Scores of armoured vehicles and ochre-clad infantrymen assembled before the grim bonfire, which suffocated the valley in a grey, ashen haze. Behind him followed the thirty-four surviving members of his platoon, each soldier a merciless butcher, veterans hardened to the visceral reality of war and single-minded in their loyalty to him. They had survived the mid-air destruction of their drop ship and a ten kilometre freefall before double-timing over ten miles of rough country to regroup with their comrades, and he could read the heartfelt dismay in their eyes that they had arrived too late for the fighting.

Amdai waved them forwards, and started down the hill towards his regiment.

***

"Hold him still, you feth-wits!" snapped Chirurgeon-Magir Unjarat Sirdar, hissing his impatience at his uniformed orderlies. His whirring artificial eyes refocused, and he tightened his grip on the surgical saw as it grated against the shattered remains of the screaming soldier's lower leg. He worked with terrible efficiency, sawing away the splintered bone to leave a clean, angular break which would heal far more effieciently. Thick blood oozed from the wound, coating Unjarat's hands and surgical robes in a layer of gore.

"Patient is entering hypovolemic shock," he muttered, his voice betraying a degree of irritation as the soldier began to convulse. He snapped his fingers at an orderly, "Prepare the patient for autologous transfusion, blood type A positive. Bring two intravenous frames."

The corpsman obeyed immediately, and silently. Unjarat snatched a plastic single-use tranquiliser from a steel table, removing the cover and inserting the long needle into the prostrate soldier's upper leg.

"Apply a counterseptic to the wound," Unjarat instructed the remaining orderly, "and put him with the others once the transfusion has arrived."

The Chirurgeon left the canopied operating room, entering the main section of the field hospital. His face remained unreadable as his ears were filled with the screams of his gruesomely wounded charges, too accustomed to human suffering to be revolted by the horror. Soldiers lay blind or deaf, or with missing limbs. Some had lost the power of speech, while others would not survive the hour. At the far end of the hospital stood a dust-covered officer, his lasgun slung across his chest. He looked up at Unjarat's approach, revealing a face covered with brutal scars.

"Sirdar-Magir," muttered Unjarat, bowing to his commanding officer. "I am honoured that you visit my..."

"Spare me," snapped Amdai Sirdar-Magir, his impatience obvious. "And tell me how my regiment has suffered."

Unjarat blinked away his irritation at the rebuke, his voice assuming a far less reverential tone. "I have processed two hundred and five patients, of which one hundred and eight will never be able to fight again. Ninety-seven have sustained minor wounds, or will be able to accept augmetic limbs, and should be able to recover within six months.
"The one hundred and six confirmed dead... you will no doubt have already noticed on your way to my hospital."

Amdai's face contorted as he fought the urge to crush the surgeon's impassive, mocking face, his head pulsing in time with his increasing heartbeat.

"I should have been here," he snarled through gritted teeth.

***

Ground Assault +178 Minutes

A squadron of Lightnings screamed through the atmosphere as the column began its advance, headed by a battalion of dismounted infantry spread across the canyon floor. They advanced slowly, loaded and ready for combat, combing the myriad corridors and pathways of the canyon system for enemy emplacements. At their forefront were a score of soldiers equipped with sweeper-sets, scanning constantly for mines and booby-traps, while snipers attached to each squad provided overwatch.

Half a mile behind them, thousands of infantrymen marched beside and rode atop hundreds of armoured vehicles ranging from STeG 4 attack vehicles and motorised half-tracks to Leman Russ battle tanks and Scorpion tank destroyers. The harsh lessons learnt during the landings had been taken to heart by the column's commander, and scores of Hydra and Manticore anti-aircraft platforms escorted the vulnerable ground troops.

Amdai Sirdar-Magir rode in an open-topped Salamander command vehicle, accompanied by a trio of infantrymen in addition to the light tank's crew. His regiment would hopefully not be involved in any fighting for a few days, the march giving his men time to rest after the losses sustained during the landing. Hopefully, they would emerge hardened from the experience, but he knew that none would be able to forget what they had been through.

He saw movement along the edge of the canyon, nearly three hundred metres above, and was comforted. Once local air security had been established, Amdai had requisitioned a group of Locust dropships, and ordered six platoons to ascend the sheer cliffs. Now they marched in loose order on the dust plains above the canyon network, autocannons ready and eyes peeled for aircraft.

The salamander bucked as it struck a bump in the dusty track, and Amdai tightened the straps of his rebreather mask. The wind was picking up.

OOC: Sorry for the short update. Funeral tomorrow, will be away for approx. 2-3 days.

Infantry above canyon are equipped with standard armaments (Las, stubbers, RPGs) and a few 40mm AA autocannons.