CC-2224 isn't bothering to fight. He and A-03 are pouring over a hologram of the local area, watching the red dots indicating the enemy as they advance. Whoever they are, they're cautious. The large blurs of red that indicate their artillery pieces are forming up on the far side of the earthworks, out of line of sight of the walls, and, unfortunately, all of their weaponry. Already, those strange glowing balls of light are flashing up from the artillery pieces and arcing out over the field toward the walls. So far, they're falling short, but he knows they're only range finding. Once they're dialed in on the walls, they can begin taking apart his defenses without any way for him to stop them.
Thus why he and A-03 are pouring over the hologram. Those artillery pieces need to die, and soon. With five squads of commandos and ten ARC troopers, there has to be something he can do. But the problem is how open the fields between the earthworks and the walls are. What was an advantage of an open killing ground is now working against him - any deployment means trying to make their way across almost fifteen hundred feet of open ground before the first real cover of the earthworks. Which are, he realizes ruefully, mined and rigged to explode.
But as the first of the frighteningly deadly bolts strike the wall, eating a fifteen foot hemisphere out of it in a flash of purple and blue lightning and taking six troopers with it, Cody gives the order.
All five Commando squads are to deploy at once with the objective to destroy the artillery.
He's squirming through the mud in armor caked in filth. Feet at a time, he creeps down the far side of the earthworks, trying not to think of all the explosive he laced into it only hours before. RC-1919, known better as 'King' to his brothers, is the last of his squad. Thimble, Shiv and Tracker are lying back in the field between the fortress and the earthworks. Even their Katarn armor and mud camouflage hadn't hidden them from the alien's sensors. Whatever hit Thimble had vaporized his upper body and left his legs still standing there, calf-deep in the muck. The three of them then tried to slip around the aliens filling the field, ignoring the snaps of laser fire streaking overhead and the strange luminous balls of energy being fired back at their brothers on the walls. The aliens were deploying some kinds of portable shields, big semicircular deflectors that absorbed laser fire like it was nothing. And there were a lot of them.
Then Shiv took a green bolt of energy through the eye and went down, vitals instantly flatlining. Whatever it was, it had come out of the darkness from the top of the earthworks. Something was up there.
Another hundred feet more, and the Commander had finally tripped the explosives. The light flare shamed the lightning of the storm as hundreds of meters of the earthworks collapsed in plumes of mud and flame. The divide between the two arms of earthworks sloughed off and filled in the carefully placed demolition charges brought down the mounds to fill the gap. He would've cheered if he could have, seeing fleeting impressions of bodies vaporized atop parts of the earthworks, but with so much land to cover and so few explosives, he knew it was just a delaying action.
His real goal was the artillery.
Tracker was the last to die. They had been less than two hundred feet from the earthworks when something came out of the darkness and sent King flying. He landed on his back, skidding in the muck, and saw an enormous shadowed form charging toward Tracker.
"Go!" Tracker had shouted over the short range com. "I'll draw him off, complete the objective!" Blue lances from a DC lit up the night, and King could see some kind of enormous, shaggy monster bearing down on his brother.
But Tracker was right. The alien was chasing Tracker, who was running directly away from the earthworks. King had a clear shot. So he ran, head down, legs pumping, blood hammering in his ears as he heard his brother's shouts and grunts as he tried to fight whatever that monster was.
Tracker had gone silent all too quickly.
And now here he is, all alone, slithering through the mud toward one of the strange artillery pieces. It is shamed like some kind of deep-sea mollusk, all smooth lines and domed armor. A flanged projection off the back glows bright, and then slams out another one of those devastatingly beautiful plasma bolts. King snorts as he sees it hovering on a cushion of air - so much for the mud slowing down any vehicles. An AT-TE would've ground to a halt and even a Juggernaut would have a problem, but these aliens just float over it all.
But the artillery is alone. There are no aliens nearby, just one peeking out of a hatch on the top. It seems almost bored, resting chin on hand as it idly rotates back and forth in what looks like some kind of gun cradle. Keeping an eye on the alien, King creeps forward. Another bolt launches away, off to kill another bunch of his brothers, no doubt. Any other being would've had to fight the urge to get up and charge, eager to save the lives of their comrades, but King is a Commando of the Grand Army. Trained to be the best, ready to die for the Republic.
When the charge is planted, King slides out from underneath the artillery, the pressure on his chest suddenly vanishing. Way stranger than a repulsorlift, he thinks, and wiggles away from the hovering construct. The explosive satchel was in place, right in the centre of the vehicle, adhered to the strange metal it was made of. Flick of a thumb, and it would go up in so many pieces.
He can only hope his other brothers had succeeded in their missions, because one is not enough. All five need to go, or else this battle is over before it really begun.
He takes one final look around, scanning through the various wavelengths with his visor, and, confident that no other enemies are nearby, slowly gets to his feet, crouching behind the tank.
And the tank, impossibly, starts to turn to face him.
"Oh, krif."
He knows he can't run. The mud is too thick, too dense. He knows he can't fight it. He knows he can't hide, now. How they saw him, detected him, he'll never know.
He pulls out the detonator as the tank comes to a halt facing him, the alien in the gun cradle half out of the turret and peering down at him in what he imagines is complete surprise.
"Compliments of Iota squad."
The last artillery piece dies ten minutes from the fourth, and the shelling finally stops, but it's a mixed blessing. CC-2224 is pacing, because the hologram tells him nothing good. Swaths of red fill the display, a sea of it on the field between the fortress and the smoldering earthworks. The artillery pieces, firing uncontested for almost two hours, have done their job. He is down to one hundred and seventy-two ambulatory troopers, another sixteen critically injured. Most of the wall is in ruins, molten and running, throwing out blankets of steam as the rain strikes superheated stone. The keep is still holding well enough, and he suspects they were trying to take down the wall so they could encircle the keep, and prevent any escapes. Of the weapons salvaged from the battered LAAT/i, only one composite is still intact, and two of the antipersonal lasers. While they had reaped a toll of their own, with the wrecks of four of the smaller, bright purple speeders and two of the large dual wheeled vehicles scattered across the killing field, the artillery pieces had homed in on them all too quickly, and Cody had been forced to give the order to cease firing. Out on the field, there are dozens of those strange shield generators, giving mobile protection to the aliens as they advanced.
And from his five squads of commandos, not a single one has reported back in. Three ARCS had also been sent as support, and all are silent as well. He can only assume the worst, and has mentally removed them from the list of assets. He circles the hologram again, racking his brain for anything, anything that could pull this out, but a sharp voice across the com cuts off his musing.
"Commander! They're on the move!" The hologram shimmers and updates and he sees for himself. In three prongs, the aliens are advancing, no, charging across the field toward the shattered walls and the keep.
"They have heavy...mechs? I don't know what they are sir, but we can't scratch them. They're leading the charge and we-" the transmission cuts off with a shriek of superheated air, and the keep shakes. The hologram flickers and loses resolution, but CC-2224 is already out the door, pulling his deece to his shoulder.
On the walls of the keep it is chaos. The composite is firing, bright beam of green light howling off the wall into the stormy dark below. It traces lines in the mud, sending up curtains of steam and flash-dried soil, briefly illuminating tiny forms before they erode under its punishment. But as his gaze follows another burst of laser fire, he sees it strike some massive, vaguely humanoid form, which does not vanish or fall. Instead, the composite laser simply leaves a glowing line along an enormous shield-like limb, and as lightning lights the sky, Cody sees not one, not two, but fifty of the monstrous forms lumbering toward the keep, each with a horde of other shapes at their back.
One raises a limb, and boiling green light lazily spins out, a long tendril licking from the creature to the keep, blasting troopers off their feet as it eats into the aged stone and then cores a line down the facing, calving off an entire segment of the wall. The keep groans, masonry quaking loose and falling away down into the dark.
He knows immediately they can't hold the keep. Their only chance is to bottleneck the enemy at one of the gates where their superior numbers and weaponry can't be all brought to bear at once.
"Fall back! Pattern Aurek, reform in the hall and gateroom! Get that composite down from there, we're going to need it-" Cody grabs a passing trooper by the arm, and shoves him towards the composite laser. The trooper doesn't even respond, instantly dashing up the short flight of stairs to aid the gun crew in breaking it down.
This is it, he knows. The gates are gone, blasted away in green fire from the alien heavies, and now his troopers cluster around the edges of the frame, occasionally leaning out to fire down the causeway toward the advancing aliens. They are close enough now Cody can hear the guttural shouts and snarls as the alien commanders no doubt bark orders to their underlings.
The language is unknown, and his translation software can't make heads or tails of it.
Not that it matters. They're here to kill his men, and that's all he has to know.
They can't hold this, and he knows it's time for the final option. He calls the last seven ARCs, and sends with them a detachment of two platoons of troopers.
"Make for the caves," he says. "Seal them off, and go silent. Wait for rescue, and make sure the Republic gets the telemetry from the Murmillo and from your combat cameras." He hands off the datachip from Murmillo, and A-03 takes it gravely.
"It's been an honor, commander." the ARC says, snapping a salute.
"It has. Now go make me proud." The ARCS and troopers rush off, making for the stairs down toward the entrance to the caves within the keep. Cody turns back to his dwindling soldiers, and knows this is where he dies. He can't really ask for better than to die alongside his brothers, doing the Republic proud. Once again, he wishes General Kenobi was here, but since wishes aren't standard issue Army gear, he pushes it aside and brings up his deece. They'll take their toll before the aliens kill them all, he's sure of it.
The Sangheili plants his cloven foot against the strange white armor of the human, and with a kick hurls it off the blades of his energy sword to slam into a wall. It slides down slowly, leaving a trail of red blood on the stone. The young Sangheili, a duelist of rare skill and aptitude, already an Ultra, looks at Tuls 'Turamee in shock, as if he cannot believe his eyes.
"Were they all demons?" he asks with some trepidation, almost afraid to hear the answer. Tuls shakes his head, and crouches next to one, this one distinct by dint of its yellow highlights on its armor. It is still alive, barely, he can tell, with a deep plasma burn in its chest. He grabs its helmet, and with a wrench, tears it away. A dark skinned face, lined and worn stares back up at him, a trickle of blood leaking down its cheek.
"Hmph. This is no demon. They are false demons, who pretend to be those they are not." Tuls reached out one hand, grabbing the human's chin and turning its head from side to side. There is a strange look to it, as it if it is somehow...stretched, or attenuated. Like it is young-but-old. It's close cropped hair is black, and he looks into its eyes, and is surprised to see not a single hint of fear. The human stares back in a hard-edged glare.
There is honor to this heretic, inasmuch as a heretic can have honor. Tuls flexes his hand, and the short bladed energy dagger snaps into life above his gauntlet, and he drives it into the human's chest. The human's eyes bulge and its mouth works, but no sound comes out. He lets it slump back as he stands.
"They fought well, for infidels. Be proud and honored, my brothers, for we have won a great victory today! The Forerunner smile on us, and know that those who died will be borne with honor unto the Great Journey." Tuls takes in the large chamber, covered in blast marks and char, littered with white armored bodies, dead Unggoy and Kig-yar, and his mandibles spread in a grin within his mask.
He has spilt the blood of many humans this night, and they fought well enough for it to be a treat. He has killed many thousands personally in the past, and while the slaughter of the young has its own delight, he savors the knowledge when he kills humans that fight well; for he knows with their demise the armies of the infidels are that much weaker and closer to their inevitable defeat.
Deciding that this is an enemy worth remembering, he crouches down again, and with his plasma knife, slices off the battered yellow pauldron from the human's armor. He holds it up, inspecting it, feeling the texture of the material, and decides it will go nicely in his collection. There is a helmet from the human elite soldiers with the strange runes "Helljumper" on it, along with a skull from a Brute chieftain who dared question his authority.
As he waves to his troops, leading them outside to where Phantoms descend from Path of the Penitent in orbit, he wonders how his brother's hunt progresses.