It was about half an hour before Shysa and Dala showed up with the last of the Protectors. By then most of the Mandalorians had assembled into orderly ranks about twenty-five soldiers across and fourteen deep. The fifty assembled Berserkers prowled back and forth in front of the army, hefting huge battle-axes, hammers, or other crude weapons of war in one hand and holding their huge circular shields in the other.
The Berserkers had still decided to forgo heavy battle armor. As they paced restlessly back and forth in front of the army, Jay saw that the women would fight in little more than work pants and cloth tank tops while the men would fight bare-chested. Since the order to set up, the mountain Mandos had traced over their intricate tattoos with green Trandoshan blood, making them look all the more fearsome.
Jay fidgeted as she waited, uncomfortable in her bulky armor. A MandalMotors design created specifically for aruetii auxiliaries on deployment, the armor was made of a rigid fiber material that was shaped similar to the hourglass shape of the sparring armor she'd used during melee practice. It wasn't as durable as beskar but was more than enough protection to stop a blaster bolt and even small arms projectile fire. The armored black combat vest and ribbed survival gauntlets reminded her of urban riot police back on her homeworld of Corellia.
Protection aside, though, she wasn't used to fighting in such a bulky outfit. She didn't know how that would affect her abilities in the coming battle. She hoped it wouldn't get her killed.
Killed because I'm too well-protected, she thought, rolling her eyes. That would be an ironic death.
The dark clouds above had begun to release a soft, drizzling rain when Shysa's lanky frame strode in front of the ranks, accompanied by the much bulkier figure of Tobbi Dala.
"All right, lads and lasses," Shysa called, clapping his hands together. "By now you all know why we're all out on this lovely day."
There were scattered murmurs throughout the crowd. Shysa paused for a moment, talking with a few Mandos in the front row or shaking their hands before raising his voice and continuing.
"Further down the street," he said, gesturing to the wide road at his back, "we got ourselves a horde of bloodthirsty lizards just waitin' to rip into us."
Jay had to crane her neck to see over the heads of the Mandos in front of her. She and Vhetin were stationed in the second line of infantry, so close to the front that Jay could hear the crunch of Shysa's heavy combat boots on the splintered duracrete chips underfoot as he paced back and forth.
"Now, for this assault," he said, "we're going to let our Berserker vode take the first attack. Norac, I'm sure you and your soldiers are ready?"
The Berserker leader leaned on his battle-axe. "As ready as we'll ever be. Just point us at the enemy."
Shysa pointed down the street. "That way, vod."
"Ha ha," Norac said sarcastically. "Very funny, bucket-head."
"You watch your language," Dala snarled, clenching a fist.
Norac was about to say more when a shrill reptilian screech split the silence, echoing toward them from further down the street. Shysa looked over his shoulder and chuckled quietly.
"Sounds like the lizards are getting impatient," he said. He turned back to the assembled Mandos and continued, "This is a simple sweep 'n clear operation, everyone. We need to punch through the Trandoshan lines so we can set up some comm signal boosters and communicate with the Hodayc in orbit."
"So it's true," a Mandalorian said. "We're cut off?"
"Not from each other," he replied calmly. "Our short-range comms still work. But something is scrambling our long-range sensors, yes. So we'll need your help fixing that problem."
Another shrill screech and Shysa clapped his hands together. "Okay lads, let's get this show on the road. The snipers are deployed up top and will be giving you cover fire. If you need help, transmit your location to them and they'll help you out."
A sudden flash of fire exploded from down the street and Jay could hear the rumble of hundreds of reptilian feet. Shysa turned toward the sound, pulling his helmet over his head. He stepped back and the ranks of Protectors parted to give him a space as he took his place in the first line of infantry.
A huge mass of Trandoshans rushed toward them from down a side street. Jay's heart skipped a beat as she saw at least a hundred Trandoshans, some of them holding angular shotguns and others wielding deadly looking daggers. She could also see several Trandos that towered above the others, shoving smaller aliens aside as they charged. They were at least ten feet tall and stomped through the army with heavy, lumbering footsteps.
"Trandoshan Elites?" she asked Vhetin.
He nodded, flexing his grip on his rifle.
The Trandoshans stopped about eighty meters from the Mandalorian lines. They raised their rifles and roared at their enemies.
"All right," Shysa said, shouting to be heard over the Trandos. "Get ready! Norac, you're up!"
Norac turned to his own Mandalorians and raised his battle-axe over his head. His eyes blazed as he shook the weapon and shouted, "Kote!"
The assembled Berserkers beat their chests and roared back, "Kote! Darasuum kote!"
"Parjai bal kote!"
"Parjai bal kote!"
Norac turned to the onrushing mass of Trandoshans and grasped his axe firmly with both hands, his arm looped through the straps of his shield. His Berserkers formed up behind him as he pointed his axe at the enemy and screamed, "Rangir aruetiise!"
"Rangir aruetiise!" the Berserkers echoed, then surged forward. They sprinted for a few meters before splitting up into little more than a mob. They leaped up onto the roofs of crashed speeders that clogged the street ahead, shouting and cursing at their enemies while shaking their weapons over their heads. At Norac's signal they began pounding their weapons against the faces of their shields and letting out screams of rage and defiance. The sounds sent shivers down Jay's spine; she'd never heard anything like it. She hadn't even known human vocal cords could make an otherworldly sound like the screaming roars of the Berserkers.
Hearing the screams of the Mandalorians, the Trandos roared back their own battle cry and shook their leathery heads. They were close enough that Jay could see long tendrils of drool dripping from their mouths.
"Mando'ade!" Norac screamed, pounding his axe against his shield. The loud clang clang clang could be heard even over the shouting of his fellow Berserkers. He lowered his axe, pointing at the Trando lines, and bellowed, "Jurkadir!"
With a roar the army of Berserkers surged forward, leaping from one speeder roof to another, pausing sporadically to slam their weapon against the face of their shield.
"Hold," Shysa shouted as the Berserkers neared the enemy lines. "Wait till they've broken through the front lines."
"What is he talking about?" Jay whispered to Vhetin. "Those Trandoshans have shotguns! They'll be ripped apart!"
Jay had barely begun her statement before she was proved wrong. She saw Norac leap off a speeder and land right in front of the Trandoshan lines. The lizards in the first lines snarled at him and raised their shotguns.
Norac raised his shield just as the aliens fired. The shotgun rounds bounced off his beskar shield with a loud bam before he stepped forward and slammed the shield against the Trando's face. The alien sprawled back on his back as Norac pivoted and slashed his battle-axe across another Trandoshan's chest. A spray of bright green blood splashed across Norac's face but he didn't pay it any mind.
All around him the other Berserkers slammed into the Trandoshan lines. There was no grace or tactical skill to their attack; they simply smashed into the Trandoshans and began hacking away with their crude weapons. Green blood sprayed through the air, spattering the Berserkers from head to foot. Jay watched in a mixture of awe and revulsion as she saw Beten drive her three-pronged spear through a Trando's chest before swinging her shield at another. The sharpened rim caught the alien in the neck, taking his head off at the shoulders. The woman screamed in rage and yanked her weapon from the first dead Trando before moving on.
"Wait for it…" Shysa shouted, watching the Berserker's process intently. "Wait for it…"
Norac and his Berserkers fought on, swinging and stabbing their weapons with deadly force. Like their first assault, their fighting style lacked any kind of skill or grace. They just laid into their enemies, hacking and slashing with their crude weapons. At the sheer brutality of the Mandalorian attack Trandoshan bodies began to fall in piles and green blood flowed in rivers across the ground.
As Jay watched, the Trandoshan front line buckled. Aliens in the center scrambled away from the Mandalorian onslaught and the two sides surged forward to try and compensate. The Berserkers grew closer and closer to being surrounded.
"Now!" Shysa shouted.
With a collective shout, the army of Mandalorians surged onto the street. Jay sprinted forward as fast as she could, more to avoid being crushed by the Mandos around her then by any feeling of exhilaration. She leaped up onto the roof of a speeder and fired two shots at the closest Trando she could see. As the alien fell she began hopping from speeder to speeder, heading for the Trandoshan lines. She drew closer and saw that the fifty Berserkers were now completely surrounded by snarling, drooling aliens.
"Hit 'em!" she heard Shysa shout from somewhere else on the street.
The Mandalorians spread out, taking cover behind wrecked speeders or diving through windows in the buildings that flanked the street. Moments later multi-colored blasterfire lit up the street.
Jay ducked down into a gap between two nearby speeders before simply mashing her finger on the trigger of her rifle and spraying the Trandoshan lines with blaster fire. Many of the aliens absorbed the laser bolts and did nothing but roar even louder. She ducked back down behind the speeder as shotgun pellets ricocheted off the surface of the speeder in front of her.
Her ear-mounted comm unit was flooded with the shouts of fighting Mandos and auxiliaries.
"Tem! You've got a Trando behind you!"
"Drop that target! Drop him now!"
"This is Flemming. I'm sighting in on an elite… ha ha! Lizard down."
"Gah! I'm hit... Damn, I need a medic!"
She turned down the comm volume and focused on dropping the Trandoshans nearest to her cover. She popped up, fired for a moment, then ducked back down before the aliens could pin down her location.
"Jay," someone said over her comm. She recognized Rame's voice.
She pressed a finger to her comlink earpiece. "Rame? What do you need?"
"You've got incoming hostile contacts in front of your speeder. They're heading for Dala."
"You want me to take care of them?" she asked, peeking over the hood of the speeder.
"I would drop them, but I don't have a clear shot. It's hell down there."
"Tell me about it." She said sarcastically as she found the three Trandoshans making their way for Shysa's second-in-command. She slowly rested her rifle against the hood of the speeder to steady her shot, sighting in on the lizards.
She squeezed of six precise shots, two for each Trandoshan. The aliens crumpled to the ground just as Dala turned to deal with them. He saw their bodies on the ground and turned his helmeted gaze to find his savior. He spotted Jay crouching behind her speeder and nodded slightly. She nodded back before ducking back down.
She activated her comm. "Cin? Vhetin, where the hell are you?"
"Right here." Vhetin suddenly jumped down behind the speeder as well, firing twice before he landed. He cursed as a shotgun blast caught him in the shoulder, scratching the paint off the armor plate. He ducked as another shot flew over his head.
"Those aliens really aren't messing around," he grunted. "How're you doing?"
Jay stuck her head up from behind the speeder and sprayed full automatic fire toward the Trandoshans for a few moments. She ducked back down before fire grew too thick.
She cursed. "The Berserkers are still cut off. We're going to lose them if we don't get down there."
"Call in the snipers," he said, firing twice over the hood of the speeder. He ducked as a Trandoshan fired at him before shooting quickly at the lizard. Jay heard a loud reptilian scream.
"Rame?" she said into her comm. "Rame-"
She shouted in surprise as a Trandoshan suddenly leaped onto the roof of her speeder. She ducked as the alien fired a shotgun blast at her face. The spray of pellets missed her and she scrambled back to avoid another shot.
Vhetin stepped between her and the Trandoshan, whipping his fist across the alien's face. The creature roared and grabbed Vhetin's throat.
Too late. Vhetin jammed his rifle barrel into the creature's stomach and fired three times. The Trando writhed and toppled back over the speeder and out of sight.
Jay scrambled forward, more out of instinct than anything else, and scooped up the fallen creature's shotgun. Then she sat back and rested her head against the speeder behind her, pausing a moment to catch her breath. Then she activated her comm unit again and continued, "Rame, come in. Are you there?"
"What do you need?"
"The Berserkers are cut off from the rest of the Mando forces," she said. "They need support, but we can't get in to help them. They need cover fire now!"
"I'm on it," he said. "I'll get the other snipers to help 'em out. Anything else?"
"Just that, unless you can-"
She was cut off as she heard a loud bam and Vhetin was suddenly thrown back against the speeder behind him. He slammed against the speeder door hard enough to dent the surface and crumpled.
"Vhetin!" she said, moving forward to kneel next to him. "Are you all right?"
Before he had a chance to reply she heard a deafening roar and something big hit the other side of the speeder she was using for cover. She froze and turned in time to see a huge Trandoshan Elite stomp up over the hood. The creature sported a large two-bladed vibrosword and its heavy battle armor was splattered with dark red blood.
"Damn it," Jay cursed as the Trando leaped for her. She rolled back over the hood of the speeder behind her as the Elite's sword slammed down where she had stood. The blade carved a deep gash out of the duracrete.
The Elite stomped up and over the speeder, the metal surface bending with a tortured groan under the alien's weight. As she retreated Jay raised her stolen shotgun and fired. The metallic pellets just bounced off the Trando's heavy chest plate.
Jay was about to call for help when another huge figure barreled into the Trando from the side, knocking the massive alien over. Jay started in surprise as the second figure – a human – slammed the Elite into the side of a nearby speeder. The man took a step back and slammed his huge battle hammer into the alien's chest, crushing the armor. The man didn't stop there, though. He just continued to lay into the Trando, beating every inch of it with his deadly hammer. Jay suddenly heard a sickening crunch and the alien slumped over, dead.
The man towered over the corpse, breathing hard and gripping his hammer so tight his knuckles were white. After what seemed like an eternity he turned to Jay and fixed her with a dark glare.
"Damn Trando scum," he grunted. "They're barely tough enough for this to be considered a fair fight."
"Droun?" she said. The man was barely recognizable. His entire muscular body was covered from head to toe in pale green Trandoshan blood. He was bleeding from several wounds to the arms and chest, including a nasty-looking shotgun wound to the shoulder.
He just sneered at her. "Don't make me have to save your life again, girlie."
She nodded nervously and watched as he stomped off, hefting his huge hammer. As soon as he was gone she scrambled back toward Vhetin.
She found him fending off a lanky Trandoshan with two wickedly curved daggers. He was gripping both of the alien's wrists, holding the blades away from his throat. The chest of his armor's flight suit was stained red and his arms were shaking from exertion.
Jay quickly fired her shotgun at the Trando's back, blasting the alien off its feet. Vhetin collapsed backward as the alien fell on top of him. He shoved it off with a grunt as she knelt next to him.
"Sorry about that," she said, helping him up. "Are you all right? It looked like you were shot earlier."
He grunted and struggled to rise to his knees. "I'm… I'm all right," he gasped, clutching at his chest plates. "I just… took a shotgun spray to the chest."
"You're bleeding," she said. A dark stain was spreading across the pale gray jumpsuit beneath his green-painted chest plates.
He shook his head dismissively. "I'm fine. Just a little scrape."
She stared at him, but knew better than to argue. She just moved back to her earlier cover and peeked out at the Trando front lines.
Things had deteriorated dramatically in just the first few minutes of the fight. The previously well-organized Trandoshans had dissolved into a mob of slobbering, roaring lizards. Brightly colored blaster fire flashed through the air, knocking Trandos in the front line off their feet. Flame sprayed from the contoured barrels of alien shotguns.
Jay instinctively ducked as the loud bam of projectile sniper rifle fire rang out from the street behind her. A Trandoshan near her speeder roared and fell with a spray of green blood. She was almost deafened by the sounds of weapons fire, Trandoshan roars, and the screams of Mandalorians. It was everything she could do to keep herself from dropping her rifle and covering her ears.
Further down the street, the Berserkers were fighting their hardest to free themselves from the Trando lines, hacking away at their enemies with furious resolve. Jay could see them clearly from her vantage point some twenty meters away, their hair flying wildly about their heads and their faces, chests, and arms spattered with pale green blood. They were screaming as they fought and their eyes were almost rolled back in their heads.
She stared in wonder as she heard that they were laughing. They were cackling and screeching their heads off as they waded through the enemies, lopping off limbs and heads with their heavy weapons. She had never seen such violence in her entire life.
"Keep fighting, lads!" Shysa shouted. "We're pushing them back! We've got 'em on the run!"
"Do we?" Jay shouted to Vhetin over the noise. "It doesn't look to me like they're retreating!"
"…-ey're not!" Rame suddenly cried over the comm. His voice was interrupted sporadically by bursts of static. "They… falling back… flank you guys! Get out of there!"
"What?" Vhetin said, still holding his bleeding chest.
"They're going… side street!" Rame shouted through the static. "Fall back before… surrounded!"
Shysa cut over Rame's transmission, shouting with urgency. Like Rame, his voice was cut with static. "The Berserkers are clear! I repeat… Berserkers are clear! Every… all back… fore we're encircled!"
"What the hell is wrong with the comms?" Jay shouted, popping up from behind cover and spraying the approaching Trando lines with fire. Three aliens toppled, but the rest just trampled their fallen comrades in their haste to overwhelm the Mando lines.
A hulking Berserker spattered with green blood suddenly threw himself over the hood of the speeder. He collapsed in a heap, letting out a gravelly chuckle. He shook hair out of his eyes and growled, "Aye, there's nothin' like killin' some lizards to wake you up in the mornin'."
"Droun," Vhetin said, still holding his chest. "You look like you've seen better days."
The Berserker had a large cut over his eye, a shotgun wound in his muscular shoulder, and his entire body was battered and bloodied by both Trando blood and his own.
The huge man chuckled nastily, leaning on his heavy battle hammer. "You don't look so good yourself."
Vhetin grabbed hold of the speeder behind him, hauling himself to his feet. The entire front of his chest was stained red now, but it didn't seem to be impeding his ability to move. He just shouldered his rifle and jerked his head behind him.
"Come on," he said, sounding only slightly out of breath. "Let's get out of here before we're trapped."
Jay's comm suddenly sputtered and Shysa's voice said, "…hetin? Jay? You with me, vode?"
Vhetin put a hand to his helmet-mounted comlink and said, "Vhetin here. What do you need?"
"…extraction job," the Mandalore said. "Ramser shifted position… different building to slow… -andoshan advance… discovered his position and surrounded him. He's pinned down… need someone to get in there and help him out."
Vhetin clambered up over the hood of the speeder, keeping low to avoid shotgun fire. "We're on it, Mand'alor. We'll get him out of there, then all fall back to the plaza."
"… -ake it quick would you? This whole counteroffensive… going to haran."
"What's going on?" Jay asked over her own comm headset. "One minute you say we're pushing them back, then we're about to be surrounded? And what the hell is wrong with comms?"
"…Trandos brought up more reinforcements than… -repared for… swarmed up some of the side streets. I deployed snipers to slow… -til the infantry could pull out… weren't fast enough. Some of them were overrun. I'm sending… teams to get them out… -on't know what's wrong with comms. Jaing's… -orking on it."
"How are you going to deal with the bulk of the Trando force?" Vhetin asked as he sprinted from speeder roof to speeder roof. Jay was right behind him, struggling to keep up with his better-than-average abilities. "There still has to be a hundred of them."
"I'm sending… Canderous tanks to clear… out. I'd suggest… -et out of there quick. Those mass driver cannons can… whole lot of damage and they're bloody inaccurate at short range. I'm pulling everyone off the street… regroup at the plaza."
"Are we being pushed back?"
"'Course not... haven't suffered a single casualty yet. But keeping Protectors deployed… just asking for trouble."
"Aye, Mand'alor," Vhetin said, then signed off the comm. He grunted and rubbed his chest, then said, "Let's get on it. The sooner we get Ramser out of there, the sooner we can fall back and regroup with the rest of our forces."
"Where is he, exactly? Shysa didn't specify."
"He transmitted his location to my HUD," Vhetin explained. "It just barely made it through whatever crap is scrambling the transmission. Just keep close to me and I'll get us there."
