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Fort Legion
“Look at that,” Private Hsing said as he activated his bio eye enhancement. “They’re moving out. Looks like infantry first. No sign of aircraft, those damn gnats. Moving kind of slow. It doesn’t look like they’re using roads.”
“Any evidence of bunching?” Melanie ‘Mel’ Cassaroni asked. Not for the first time the newly promoted General Cassaroni was irritated at her state of affairs. For once in her career she was short of even the most basic equipment, like surveillance and recon, and was having to make due with the ability some of her new cyborg recruits had to offer. Still, she was quite happy to have them. Each was an excellent soldier, much better than she had been in their place 35 years ago.
“No, Sir. Not much - kind of indistinct, though. It’s like looking through mirage heat waves. Is that some sort of new cloaking device?” he asked.
“Not likely,” she said. “Probably due to the extreme range and the enhancements you have to use. Good work. Let me know if anything significant changes.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. Then he resumed scanning the horizon.
Mel walked away from her borrowed squad, and her brand new lieutenant walked up to her. “How much time do we have?” he asked.
“I’d day about six hours, just in time for daylight. Send out a general alert, and tell the artillery they are to open fire as soon as they can acquire target resolution. Any new drops from Rifle Blast Crag or Centurion Base?”
“No,” Lieutenant Marless said. “Both of those bases have almost been abandoned, and they’ll do the best they can. We have a couple of local new builds, but are short on offensive firepower. We did get some energy from the Gaians, and adding that to our Planetpearls we will be able to form three more shard AA rover squads. No armor, though.”
“Good. Do it,” she said. “We only hold our own if we attack. If we defend, we lose. Carry on.”
*~*~*~*
Vnar enjoyed his work. It was most satisfying to purge and burn the alien vegetation that infested Manifold Six. One thing he did not like was the offensive stink of the burning. Who knew the odious stuff would burn in such a way, and give off such plumes of smoke and ash? It was not like a proper fungus, which did not burn in such a way, nor did it stink. Removing this blight would be a benefit to all.
He looked over at his brood mate Vlar, who was finally moving normally and had fully recovered from his ordeals from the mindworm attacks. It was worrying that the fungus eruptions had occurred just as they were moving to attack. The new fungus was nice, and much more aesthetic putrid green of the invasive Invader vegetation. But, it also contained massive numbers of feral mindworms, which every soldier was prepared to deal with them, but not in these numbers. At least three infantry units had been consumed when they happened to be between three eruptions, and countless numbers had been damaged and recalled to base. A few had been ordered to proceed damaged.
That did not matter. The Invaders would fall quickly, and they had proven their cowardice in their retreat and their fighting style, which bordered on blasphemous. Imagine, turning down the Rite of the Warriors ritual before combat, such as not eating your vanquished, if they fought bravely? Such was simply not done, not by civilized beings at least. But still, when these Invaders did fight they fought well; there was no denying them that.
Vnar heard a trill, and noticed that several members of his squad wanted his attention. He looked up and they indicated they were done and the alien forest had been exterminated. His small portion was all that remained, and he activated his singularity laser to remove the last offending bit of infestation.
“Unit 34, reporting,” he said. “Sector cleared of Invader vegetation infestation. Proceeding west.”
Looking around he saw that the other squads in nearby sectors were also done. It was time to advance, and then they would be only two sectors from the nearest alien base. Then they could stop burning vegetation and start destroying Invaders! Vnar’s hearts fairly sung with joy at the prospect.
*~*~*~*
“Sir,” Lieutenant Marless said, “guns report target acquisition in two minutes. They will fire on the most concentrated units to the northeast. Countermand?”
“No,” Mel said as she strapped herself into her command rover. “Tell them to have at it.”
*~*~*~*
A dull booming permeated the air, and Vnar felt the artillery shards impact in the next sector. The pounding was relentless, but he felt proud of the infantry as they stood their ground and did their duty. Great plumes of smoke were lifting into the air from the razed forest, and that great burning was not from the artillery. It took twice as long to move and then remove the vegetation, but Great Conqueror Marr had decreed that the planet was to be scorched and they would do it.
Vnar targeted and torched another section of forest, shattering the 100-year-old trees and setting some of them on fire.
*~*~*~
“They aren’t advancing,” Hsing said to as she sat in her communication station in her rover. “Just like before, they advance, torch some forest, and then advance again.”
“Good,” Mel said, “that gives us more target practice, softening them up. How much of the forest are they removing?”
“Looks like almost all of it. They are being pretty thorough,” he said.
Mel smiled. Rover crews liked nothing better than bunched up, damaged infantry that were sitting in the open! Kind of like a shooting gallery except this shooting really mattered. “Tell the artillery to blast the forests next to east of Legion. Let’s give them a nice, warm reception out in the open. We wouldn’t want them to waste their time chopping down trees when we can do it form them, now would we?”
Lieutenant Marless smiled. “Of course not, Sir. I’ll see to it right away.”
“Caught sight of their aircraft yet? And their ogres?”
“Nothing on the ogres, but the aircraft are in the air now. We see two of those Deathspheres, but no gnats.”
The deathspheres were the worst. They could only be attacked from the air or from ground-based units with anti-aircraft ability. After the pummeling at Sparta Command there was precious little of that left now, only a few new builds, a couple dropped in, and one or two tattered remnants from the decimated assault rover group Rolling Thunder. Two new shard choppers had just arrived, but only two. It would not be enough, if it came to that.
“Revised ETA?” Mel asked.
“Two hours,” Hsing said. “I’ll have to go to my unit then. Do I have permission to leave?”
“You do not,” Mel said. “Stay here under as much cover as you can, and help to coordinate our remaining flyeyes. Our command and control is shot with the Command Nexus gone. Any others in your squad with your optical enhancements?”
“Yes, Sir – Privates Marlo and Fitzgerald.”
“Call them in, and work together. I need you as my eyes and ears. Give your squad commander my comm channel if he gives you any flak. Do it now; we don’t have time to waste.”
“Yes, Sir,” he said, and Cassaroni signed off.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Vnar’s squad was a little battered, but their singularity powered neutronium armor was holding up well under the Invader’s artillery. Still, it was irritating to have to dodge their flak since it was generally frightfully accurate, even if it wasn’t all that effective.
Then there was silence. Vnar looked up, and no ordinance was falling. Had the Invaders given up?
No. Now they were pounding the forests in front of their own city! Vnar felt a wash of confusion. This made no sense. Why would the invaders destroy their own vegetation?
Vnar dismissed the thought. What mattered is that they were doing his work for him, and in a few minutes he and his squad would meet in the field of battle. He felt a flush of elation at the thought that he would be able to fight for the grand Conquer Marr! The Invaders would fall before his talons, his tusks would gore them, and trills of victory were permeating the very air! Already the alien forest was ending, and the edges of the city were near.
*~*~*~*
She was a firm believer in giving those under her command as much information as possible. In the thick of battle she would not have time to give them specific or even general orders, and she knew she had to rely on their intuition and battle experience to take advantage of situations, or fill a breach. This led to flexibility, and inspired trust. But, it only worked if you had first-rate people, and Mel knew she had that, in abundance.
“Looks like their coming in groups of two units per sector along four perimeter sectors, thinking they’ll overwhelm us,” Mel said to her unit commanders as the Progenitors boiled out of the tattered remnants of the woods.
“Rovers attack first since they are good in the open, then follow up with armed infantry. Call in artillery if you need it, and remember that air support is at a minimum,” she said. “Mel out.”
Mel called up some flyeye data on the units behind the first rank of Progenitors. “Jesus,” she breathed. There were Progenitors as far as the eye could see, and they easily outnumbered the Spartans four-to-one. “They go on forever.”
“Hsing reports the eastern sector under direct attack. He’s shunting feed now,” Lieutenant Marless said.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “They can take care of themselves. We’ve got our own visitors. Tactical, get me Rov 1.”
A miniature holo of Captain Markain of Rov 1 appeared. “Shoot and scoot, Scott.”
The image saluted smartly, then winked out. Mel watched through the left view plate as ten rovers left the edges of the city, kicking up an incredible amount of debris as they tore and around the sad, shattered forest. A few moments after they had left they started taking target-of-opportunity shots, which seemed to almost miraculously hit their target almost every time. This time the gouts of flame and smoke were from the Progenitor Usurper troops. There were a few ‘whoops’ over the comm channel, and Mel smiled at the breach of protocol on using secure comm for non-command purposes.
Of course, there was return fire, and the rover crews had to get very close to get penetrating shots on the singularity-powered armor, which was almost four times as powerful as anything humans possessed. It was hard to get a mere fusion-powered shard gun to get a solid hit, even with elite Spartan crews. Not for the first time was Mel impressed by both the innate maneuverability of these elite crews; it looked like a choreographed dance. And the gunning was nothing short of amazing.
But, a few alien shots found their mark, but not as many as Mel might have expected. A couple of tell-tales indicated that parts of the rover unit had been crippled or destroyed. These had no armor, after all – they were all attack.
Mel took a moment to check up on the other sector defense areas by downloading a squirt from Hsing, who was doing an admirable job collecting and processing all these data. It was amusing that each rover commander was approaching their attack in a different way, and their innovation was striking. Markain was doing a classic shoot-and-scoot, while Johns used a series of subtle feigns and decoys to draw and kill the ponderously slow Usurper infantry. Commander Waller was more direct as she simply blasted her way through.
It turned out she had the first kill. The tactical screen registered an explosion as the Usurper’s siege gun went critical and erupted in a stupendous firestorm, damaging nearby Progenitor units. A quick check showed she was down by 30 percent. Shortly, the other crews caused critical damage to their blighted targets, and they also went super-critical. Instead of a stupendous explosion, like fission or fusion reactors, these strange singularity reactors simply imploded, and then released their torrents of energy. The two-fold implosion/explosion had horrendous effects on the other closely packed Usurper troops.
Mel took no time to rejoice since the second and third ranks of alien troops were still advancing.
*~*~*~*
Conqueror Zzar was more than annoyed. His subcommanders sensed this and stayed well away until called, and that was not often. The Invaders had already destroyed the first and second rank of infantry and, while the Invaders were steadily losing under the weight of numbers, the Usurper portion of the battle was…uninspired.
Still, it was clear the Invaders were going to lose. Their superb attack rovers were all critically damaged, as was most of their infantry armor. It was only a matter of time.
*~*~*~*
Mel wiped the blood away from her eyes and tried to concentrate. Her driver was dead, and her engineer was steering the rover back to the defensive perimeter, but it was limping along at half speed. The rest of the attack rovers had gotten back to base, thankfully, but now there was nothing to keep the Usurpers from advancing en mass toward the front lines.
“Hsing,” she croaked.
A crackle greeted her. “Yes,” he said.
“Call up elite suicide infantry one through four. Tell them to deploy,” she said. She hated doing this, but in war all was fair, the old saying went. The crews new their duties, and knew what they were fighting for, they all did: the survival of the human race.
Mel took a deep breath and jabbed a tranc into her arm and immediately felt better as the powerful elixir of drugs took hold. They dulled the pain, and heightened her awareness and mental acuity. There would be hell to pay later, but then there might not be a later.
*~*~*~*
“These Invaders are truly desperate,” Infantry Squadron Leader Sn’s said. “They send their unarmored warriors to meet us. That is honorable. Let us commence battle!”
Other Progenitor infantry had the same idea, and soon the unarmored fusion infantry were surrounded. At the last minute, and just as the singularity guns were about to fire, each Spartan squad entered the command to self-destruct.
A ripple of new explosions ripped through the edge of the city, decimating even more Progenitor warriors. Buffeted on multiple sides, the Usurper infantry were pummeled, and those that happened to be in the unhappy meeting of the explosions of three of the Spartan suicide squads added their own singularity explosion to the fray. With that explosion the sixth wave of alien infantry was damaged.
Alone and in his command Deathsphere, Zzar watched the displays in growing horror. Choreographed suicide! It was against all tradition, and against all logic!
Then a new battle alarm warned him something else was happening, and Zzar looked up at the displays of the battered Spartan city.
Two of a new type of aircraft was taking off, one he had not even contemplated in his worst nightmares. It did not have the noble fixed wing, but a series of obscene twirling rotors. And, it had an amazing maneuverability. In close to a panic he called up his Hivean database on these monstrosities and found an entry: shard fusion attack rotors.
After viewing these Zzar was mollified. These were simply another variant, and not more effective at attack than any other Invader aircraft. They would destroy one or two damaged infantry, then retire like all other aircraft.
And, as he watched, they did so. But, they did not return to base – they kept firing! There were more muffled explosions as the damaged and crippled Usurper infantry were picked off, one after the other.
That did it; Zzar was fed up with Conqueror Marr’s orders. He would win this battle, even if that meant his disobedience meant Marr would order that had his carapace be a trophy in his Hall of Defeated Enemies.
“Gnats,” he ordered. He immediately got a series of electronic trills, indicating readiness. “Remove all defenders at the Invader city. Leave none alive!”
*~*~*
Mel didn’t have time to enjoy the turkey shoot; she had another evacuation to execute.
“By general order 84-4, and authorized by Coronal Santiago, I order that all infrastructure in this city be liquidated and that all assets be removed to our fallback position,” she said. It was like dust in her mouth – another retreat, another defeat.
Within minutes all units with functioning airpods launched, bounding to the west and their haven at Survival Base. Land units made for the west on the roads, knowing they had only a small chance of making it.
All saw the horde of alien fighter-killer aircraft banking in to the kill. Antiaircraft fire was intense, and all remaining forces were expended removing and crippling as many of the cursed aircraft as possible.
A few irreplaceable gnats went down, but most did not.
All remaining Spartans at Fort Legion died at their posts.
“Look at that,” Private Hsing said as he activated his bio eye enhancement. “They’re moving out. Looks like infantry first. No sign of aircraft, those damn gnats. Moving kind of slow. It doesn’t look like they’re using roads.”
“Any evidence of bunching?” Melanie ‘Mel’ Cassaroni asked. Not for the first time the newly promoted General Cassaroni was irritated at her state of affairs. For once in her career she was short of even the most basic equipment, like surveillance and recon, and was having to make due with the ability some of her new cyborg recruits had to offer. Still, she was quite happy to have them. Each was an excellent soldier, much better than she had been in their place 35 years ago.
“No, Sir. Not much - kind of indistinct, though. It’s like looking through mirage heat waves. Is that some sort of new cloaking device?” he asked.
“Not likely,” she said. “Probably due to the extreme range and the enhancements you have to use. Good work. Let me know if anything significant changes.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. Then he resumed scanning the horizon.
Mel walked away from her borrowed squad, and her brand new lieutenant walked up to her. “How much time do we have?” he asked.
“I’d day about six hours, just in time for daylight. Send out a general alert, and tell the artillery they are to open fire as soon as they can acquire target resolution. Any new drops from Rifle Blast Crag or Centurion Base?”
“No,” Lieutenant Marless said. “Both of those bases have almost been abandoned, and they’ll do the best they can. We have a couple of local new builds, but are short on offensive firepower. We did get some energy from the Gaians, and adding that to our Planetpearls we will be able to form three more shard AA rover squads. No armor, though.”
“Good. Do it,” she said. “We only hold our own if we attack. If we defend, we lose. Carry on.”
*~*~*~*
Vnar enjoyed his work. It was most satisfying to purge and burn the alien vegetation that infested Manifold Six. One thing he did not like was the offensive stink of the burning. Who knew the odious stuff would burn in such a way, and give off such plumes of smoke and ash? It was not like a proper fungus, which did not burn in such a way, nor did it stink. Removing this blight would be a benefit to all.
He looked over at his brood mate Vlar, who was finally moving normally and had fully recovered from his ordeals from the mindworm attacks. It was worrying that the fungus eruptions had occurred just as they were moving to attack. The new fungus was nice, and much more aesthetic putrid green of the invasive Invader vegetation. But, it also contained massive numbers of feral mindworms, which every soldier was prepared to deal with them, but not in these numbers. At least three infantry units had been consumed when they happened to be between three eruptions, and countless numbers had been damaged and recalled to base. A few had been ordered to proceed damaged.
That did not matter. The Invaders would fall quickly, and they had proven their cowardice in their retreat and their fighting style, which bordered on blasphemous. Imagine, turning down the Rite of the Warriors ritual before combat, such as not eating your vanquished, if they fought bravely? Such was simply not done, not by civilized beings at least. But still, when these Invaders did fight they fought well; there was no denying them that.
Vnar heard a trill, and noticed that several members of his squad wanted his attention. He looked up and they indicated they were done and the alien forest had been exterminated. His small portion was all that remained, and he activated his singularity laser to remove the last offending bit of infestation.
“Unit 34, reporting,” he said. “Sector cleared of Invader vegetation infestation. Proceeding west.”
Looking around he saw that the other squads in nearby sectors were also done. It was time to advance, and then they would be only two sectors from the nearest alien base. Then they could stop burning vegetation and start destroying Invaders! Vnar’s hearts fairly sung with joy at the prospect.
*~*~*~*
“Sir,” Lieutenant Marless said, “guns report target acquisition in two minutes. They will fire on the most concentrated units to the northeast. Countermand?”
“No,” Mel said as she strapped herself into her command rover. “Tell them to have at it.”
*~*~*~*
A dull booming permeated the air, and Vnar felt the artillery shards impact in the next sector. The pounding was relentless, but he felt proud of the infantry as they stood their ground and did their duty. Great plumes of smoke were lifting into the air from the razed forest, and that great burning was not from the artillery. It took twice as long to move and then remove the vegetation, but Great Conqueror Marr had decreed that the planet was to be scorched and they would do it.
Vnar targeted and torched another section of forest, shattering the 100-year-old trees and setting some of them on fire.
*~*~*~
“They aren’t advancing,” Hsing said to as she sat in her communication station in her rover. “Just like before, they advance, torch some forest, and then advance again.”
“Good,” Mel said, “that gives us more target practice, softening them up. How much of the forest are they removing?”
“Looks like almost all of it. They are being pretty thorough,” he said.
Mel smiled. Rover crews liked nothing better than bunched up, damaged infantry that were sitting in the open! Kind of like a shooting gallery except this shooting really mattered. “Tell the artillery to blast the forests next to east of Legion. Let’s give them a nice, warm reception out in the open. We wouldn’t want them to waste their time chopping down trees when we can do it form them, now would we?”
Lieutenant Marless smiled. “Of course not, Sir. I’ll see to it right away.”
“Caught sight of their aircraft yet? And their ogres?”
“Nothing on the ogres, but the aircraft are in the air now. We see two of those Deathspheres, but no gnats.”
The deathspheres were the worst. They could only be attacked from the air or from ground-based units with anti-aircraft ability. After the pummeling at Sparta Command there was precious little of that left now, only a few new builds, a couple dropped in, and one or two tattered remnants from the decimated assault rover group Rolling Thunder. Two new shard choppers had just arrived, but only two. It would not be enough, if it came to that.
“Revised ETA?” Mel asked.
“Two hours,” Hsing said. “I’ll have to go to my unit then. Do I have permission to leave?”
“You do not,” Mel said. “Stay here under as much cover as you can, and help to coordinate our remaining flyeyes. Our command and control is shot with the Command Nexus gone. Any others in your squad with your optical enhancements?”
“Yes, Sir – Privates Marlo and Fitzgerald.”
“Call them in, and work together. I need you as my eyes and ears. Give your squad commander my comm channel if he gives you any flak. Do it now; we don’t have time to waste.”
“Yes, Sir,” he said, and Cassaroni signed off.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Vnar’s squad was a little battered, but their singularity powered neutronium armor was holding up well under the Invader’s artillery. Still, it was irritating to have to dodge their flak since it was generally frightfully accurate, even if it wasn’t all that effective.
Then there was silence. Vnar looked up, and no ordinance was falling. Had the Invaders given up?
No. Now they were pounding the forests in front of their own city! Vnar felt a wash of confusion. This made no sense. Why would the invaders destroy their own vegetation?
Vnar dismissed the thought. What mattered is that they were doing his work for him, and in a few minutes he and his squad would meet in the field of battle. He felt a flush of elation at the thought that he would be able to fight for the grand Conquer Marr! The Invaders would fall before his talons, his tusks would gore them, and trills of victory were permeating the very air! Already the alien forest was ending, and the edges of the city were near.
*~*~*~*
She was a firm believer in giving those under her command as much information as possible. In the thick of battle she would not have time to give them specific or even general orders, and she knew she had to rely on their intuition and battle experience to take advantage of situations, or fill a breach. This led to flexibility, and inspired trust. But, it only worked if you had first-rate people, and Mel knew she had that, in abundance.
“Looks like their coming in groups of two units per sector along four perimeter sectors, thinking they’ll overwhelm us,” Mel said to her unit commanders as the Progenitors boiled out of the tattered remnants of the woods.
“Rovers attack first since they are good in the open, then follow up with armed infantry. Call in artillery if you need it, and remember that air support is at a minimum,” she said. “Mel out.”
Mel called up some flyeye data on the units behind the first rank of Progenitors. “Jesus,” she breathed. There were Progenitors as far as the eye could see, and they easily outnumbered the Spartans four-to-one. “They go on forever.”
“Hsing reports the eastern sector under direct attack. He’s shunting feed now,” Lieutenant Marless said.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “They can take care of themselves. We’ve got our own visitors. Tactical, get me Rov 1.”
A miniature holo of Captain Markain of Rov 1 appeared. “Shoot and scoot, Scott.”
The image saluted smartly, then winked out. Mel watched through the left view plate as ten rovers left the edges of the city, kicking up an incredible amount of debris as they tore and around the sad, shattered forest. A few moments after they had left they started taking target-of-opportunity shots, which seemed to almost miraculously hit their target almost every time. This time the gouts of flame and smoke were from the Progenitor Usurper troops. There were a few ‘whoops’ over the comm channel, and Mel smiled at the breach of protocol on using secure comm for non-command purposes.
Of course, there was return fire, and the rover crews had to get very close to get penetrating shots on the singularity-powered armor, which was almost four times as powerful as anything humans possessed. It was hard to get a mere fusion-powered shard gun to get a solid hit, even with elite Spartan crews. Not for the first time was Mel impressed by both the innate maneuverability of these elite crews; it looked like a choreographed dance. And the gunning was nothing short of amazing.
But, a few alien shots found their mark, but not as many as Mel might have expected. A couple of tell-tales indicated that parts of the rover unit had been crippled or destroyed. These had no armor, after all – they were all attack.
Mel took a moment to check up on the other sector defense areas by downloading a squirt from Hsing, who was doing an admirable job collecting and processing all these data. It was amusing that each rover commander was approaching their attack in a different way, and their innovation was striking. Markain was doing a classic shoot-and-scoot, while Johns used a series of subtle feigns and decoys to draw and kill the ponderously slow Usurper infantry. Commander Waller was more direct as she simply blasted her way through.
It turned out she had the first kill. The tactical screen registered an explosion as the Usurper’s siege gun went critical and erupted in a stupendous firestorm, damaging nearby Progenitor units. A quick check showed she was down by 30 percent. Shortly, the other crews caused critical damage to their blighted targets, and they also went super-critical. Instead of a stupendous explosion, like fission or fusion reactors, these strange singularity reactors simply imploded, and then released their torrents of energy. The two-fold implosion/explosion had horrendous effects on the other closely packed Usurper troops.
Mel took no time to rejoice since the second and third ranks of alien troops were still advancing.
*~*~*~*
Conqueror Zzar was more than annoyed. His subcommanders sensed this and stayed well away until called, and that was not often. The Invaders had already destroyed the first and second rank of infantry and, while the Invaders were steadily losing under the weight of numbers, the Usurper portion of the battle was…uninspired.
Still, it was clear the Invaders were going to lose. Their superb attack rovers were all critically damaged, as was most of their infantry armor. It was only a matter of time.
*~*~*~*
Mel wiped the blood away from her eyes and tried to concentrate. Her driver was dead, and her engineer was steering the rover back to the defensive perimeter, but it was limping along at half speed. The rest of the attack rovers had gotten back to base, thankfully, but now there was nothing to keep the Usurpers from advancing en mass toward the front lines.
“Hsing,” she croaked.
A crackle greeted her. “Yes,” he said.
“Call up elite suicide infantry one through four. Tell them to deploy,” she said. She hated doing this, but in war all was fair, the old saying went. The crews new their duties, and knew what they were fighting for, they all did: the survival of the human race.
Mel took a deep breath and jabbed a tranc into her arm and immediately felt better as the powerful elixir of drugs took hold. They dulled the pain, and heightened her awareness and mental acuity. There would be hell to pay later, but then there might not be a later.
*~*~*~*
“These Invaders are truly desperate,” Infantry Squadron Leader Sn’s said. “They send their unarmored warriors to meet us. That is honorable. Let us commence battle!”
Other Progenitor infantry had the same idea, and soon the unarmored fusion infantry were surrounded. At the last minute, and just as the singularity guns were about to fire, each Spartan squad entered the command to self-destruct.
A ripple of new explosions ripped through the edge of the city, decimating even more Progenitor warriors. Buffeted on multiple sides, the Usurper infantry were pummeled, and those that happened to be in the unhappy meeting of the explosions of three of the Spartan suicide squads added their own singularity explosion to the fray. With that explosion the sixth wave of alien infantry was damaged.
Alone and in his command Deathsphere, Zzar watched the displays in growing horror. Choreographed suicide! It was against all tradition, and against all logic!
Then a new battle alarm warned him something else was happening, and Zzar looked up at the displays of the battered Spartan city.
Two of a new type of aircraft was taking off, one he had not even contemplated in his worst nightmares. It did not have the noble fixed wing, but a series of obscene twirling rotors. And, it had an amazing maneuverability. In close to a panic he called up his Hivean database on these monstrosities and found an entry: shard fusion attack rotors.
After viewing these Zzar was mollified. These were simply another variant, and not more effective at attack than any other Invader aircraft. They would destroy one or two damaged infantry, then retire like all other aircraft.
And, as he watched, they did so. But, they did not return to base – they kept firing! There were more muffled explosions as the damaged and crippled Usurper infantry were picked off, one after the other.
That did it; Zzar was fed up with Conqueror Marr’s orders. He would win this battle, even if that meant his disobedience meant Marr would order that had his carapace be a trophy in his Hall of Defeated Enemies.
“Gnats,” he ordered. He immediately got a series of electronic trills, indicating readiness. “Remove all defenders at the Invader city. Leave none alive!”
*~*~*
Mel didn’t have time to enjoy the turkey shoot; she had another evacuation to execute.
“By general order 84-4, and authorized by Coronal Santiago, I order that all infrastructure in this city be liquidated and that all assets be removed to our fallback position,” she said. It was like dust in her mouth – another retreat, another defeat.
Within minutes all units with functioning airpods launched, bounding to the west and their haven at Survival Base. Land units made for the west on the roads, knowing they had only a small chance of making it.
All saw the horde of alien fighter-killer aircraft banking in to the kill. Antiaircraft fire was intense, and all remaining forces were expended removing and crippling as many of the cursed aircraft as possible.
A few irreplaceable gnats went down, but most did not.
All remaining Spartans at Fort Legion died at their posts.
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