Chapter 10: Portents
I Never Think of the Future. It Comes Soon Enough.
Albert Einstein
"This is some weird shit," was Commander McNeil's ever eloquent and informative commentary on the current situation.
"Can't say I disagree," Chandra said. "But I suggest we save our admiration and awe for later, sir. That ion storm's about to hit and until it's over, we're not going to get any backup."
"Right."
Stepping away from the strange ship, McNeil surveyed the hastily erected defenses. The RPG turrets would be very useful in holding off Nod tanks and he wasn't terribly worried about the Brotherhood managing to fight through his perimeter. It was the complete lack of pavement that concerned him. If Devil's Tongues or APCs got through, things were liable to get very messy.
"Alright, everyone hunker down! Set up a perimeter around the ship and don't let anything through!"
McNeil joined his men behind the sandbags, though it wasn't like there was anything he could do but wait. They needed to weather this storm and if the ship survived, they could move it to a more secure location for the eggheads to drool over. Even now, the few engineers he had with him couldn't seem to help themselves.
"Hey! Get your ass back over here!" McNeil shouted.
The engineer in question reluctantly obeyed and retreated to the barracks and McNeil sighed. The situation was making him a bit more irritable than usual, but he had never dreamed he'd find a UFO when joining GDI. But the pieces were falling into place now. While McNeil was nowhere as much an analyst as his friend Langley, even he could figure out that the attack on Phoenix was supposed to keep GDI from discovering the ship. It might have worked too, had McNeil failed to retake the base and route Nod forces in the area. But Vega's men were nowhere up to GDI's standards and his regular forces rarely dug in to fight. His elite forces on the other hand were considerably more determined and it had taken nearly two days to overrun the ones protecting the ship. Now more were on the way to destroy the ship rather than let GDI examine it.
Explosions interrupted McNeil's musings and he accessed the feed from one of the turrets. The storm was wrecking havoc with the transmission, but he could still make out three tick tanks slowly advancing and firing. Fortunately the RPG towers slightly outranged the tanks and one scored a direct hit on the lead's turret. The other tanks swerved around their wounded comrade, trying to get close enough to get into effective range. Their next shots landed around the defenses but even a hit wouldn't have penetrated from so far.
"Grenadiers, take positions and unload the moment you can!" McNeil ordered.
A squad of disk throwers quickly complied, but fortunately their services were not needed. The RPG tower continued firing rapidly, first crippling the advancing tanks before blowing apart the disabled vehicles. The first attack repulsed, McNeil rotated through streams from the other defenses to see if the Brotherhood had another force moving in. His diligence was quickly awarded as he caught sight of Nod forces advancing from the north. Two cyborgs were in the lead, but fortunately even those walking monstrosities were no match for the Vulcan cannons watching his rear. Still, dealing with them might let the other soldiers slip through.
"Squad three, four, and five, follow me."
The riflemen and disk throwers quickly obeyed and took up positions along the sandbag wall. The Vulcan cannons roared as they rained lead on the cyborgs. As expected the monstrosities came to a halt under the withering fire while dozens of other footmen rushed past. McNeil's men greeted them with bullets and disks and without the advantage of cover the Nod advance was decimated. A few tried to crawl away but no mercy was shown. GDI may have had strict rules on treatment of prisoners of war, but these men weren't prisoners yet and never would be.
"Diggers!"
The cry over the radio elicited a string of curses from McNeil as he rushed back towards the ship. Two devil tongues were unleashing hell, incinerating a squad that had taken up positions next to the ship. However, that left them completely open to the disk throwers waiting further away and a hail of explosives tore apart the lightly armored burrowers. But the devil tongues were merely the vanguard as three APCs surfaced seconds later. Out spilled Nod soldiers, sowing chaos in the middle of the camp as they opened fire. GDI defenders pulled back from the sandbag perimeter to help contain this new threat, even as their absence risked more Nod troops swarming through.
Taking aim, McNeil dropped two of the Nod infantry before he was forced to dive for cover. However, it wasn't the Nod soldiers shooting at him that were the biggest problem. Others were turning their attention on the strange ship and appeared to be setting more charges. What they expected to accomplish McNeil didn't know, since the last booby trap hadn't even scratched the thing. But as several Nod soldiers started heading inside the ship, McNeil's worries grew. If blowing up the ship from outside wasn't working, then doing it from the inside might.
"Take them down! Take them down!" McNeil shouted.
Spurred on by his voice, GDI soldiers charged forward and ran the gauntlet of bullets. Even as they fell, the Nod soldiers seemed taken aback by the surge and their firing became confused. The survivors did not last much longer and the last hostile outside the ship fell not long later. Inside was another matter and McNeil immediately charged through the door the Nod soldiers had been kind enough to open. Assuming the ship survived, that was at least one less mystery to solve.
An eerie blue light filled the ship corridors but was far too dim for human eyesight. Flashlights quickly made up the difference and the team moved in. Despite the risk, McNeil hurried and rushed through the corridors. However, it wasn't long before he came to a screeching halt.
"What the hell?"
"What is it sir?" Chandra asked over the comm.
"Look."
Leaning over, McNeil made sure his camera caught the corpses of the Nod soldiers. The cracked visor on one of them was blotted in blood and gore while a clean hole in the other's breast marked the cause of death.
"Damn good shots," McNeil said, admiring the work even as his anxiety grew. Whatever killed these men likely wouldn't have any qualms about killing him.
"As much as I'm glad to have someone else do our work for us sir, I suggest you keep moving," Chandra said. "We saw five soldiers enter here and there's only two bodies so far."
"Right."
Before they could take another step the ship shuddered, forcing the men to grab hold of the walls.
"This is McNeil, what the hell was that?"
"Sorry sir, one of the tanks managed to charge through. We got it though and the storm seems to be clearing up. Dropships are already en route with reinforcements."
"About time for some good news," McNeil muttered. "Keep sharp, sergeant. I don't need this thing coming down on top of me."
"Yes sir."
As the exchange concluded, McNeil found himself walking into a much larger chamber.
"Stay alert people, just because the lights are off doesn't mean nobody's home," McNeil warned, though they already knew something was here thanks to the corpses.
The other soldiers peeled off to cover more ground as McNeil looked about.
"This is some crazy technology. You getting all this Chandra?"
"Recording the whole thing sir," the lieutenant replied. "Looks like Vega's boys cleaned it out."
Another step and a thud hit him from behind. Instinct more than reflexes reacted and his rifle snapped up only to be quickly brushed aside. Another swing was met by McNeil's arm and the deadlock slowed his attacker enough for him to finally see his guess was correct, or close enough.
"Not bad for a blunt," the woman complimented.
"Mutant Shiner," McNeil said, looking over his assailant.
"My name's Umagon and you'd better use it," the woman snapped. "Unless you want your head cut off?"
"I don't," McNeil said, lowering his rifle.
It seemed there would be an opportunity to do so in the future as Umagon released McNeil's rifle and pulled back her knife.
"I can help you," Umagon suddenly said. "I can help you find Vega."
The name broke through McNeil's surprise. "Vega?"
Removing her veil, Umagon revealed a hard visage. "The Brotherhood holds our leader Tratos in a highly secured medical colony south of here. We don't have the resources to break him out. Without you. But, you can't find Vega without us."
McNeil stared at the woman for a few seconds, unsure what to make of her. After all, her idea of a greeting was trying to stick a knife in his back.
"Why should I trust you?"
Umagon scoffed. "Unlike you blunts, the Forgotten are a people of honor."
An interesting claim, but honor was a double edged blade. There was no telling in what ways he could trip over that blade. But if the mutant really could lead him to Vega, he was prepared to at least try wielding that blade.
"I'll contact my superiors," McNeil said. "See if we can work something out."
"Pray that you do," Umagon said.
McNeil frowned, wondering how much of that was a threat and how much of it was desperation on the mutant's part. "I assume those bodies were your handiwork?"
"Of course. They thought they were alone and moved sloppily. I taught them to not take their lives for granted."
"By taking them?"
"Would you prefer they succeeded in destroying this ship?"
"Well, no."
"Then refrain from making useless complaints."
McNeil was used to dealing with strong and confident women. One of his immediate subordinates was one, after all. But there was an added edge to the one before him now. Deciding discretion was preferable to the reaming the mutant seemed prepared to hand him, McNeil refrained from any further snarky comments. Plenty of real business needed handling anyway.
"How'd you get in here?" he asked. "We couldn't even figure out where the stupid door was."
"Not here," Umagon said. "I'll tell you more later, but we should get out of here. The scorpions stripped the place bare and I'm not sure they were too careful while doing it."
"Sounds like a good idea," McNeil agreed. "Chandra, did the others find anything else?"
"No sir," the radio cracked. "Nothing living at least. The rest of the Nod soldiers were already dead."
"Yeah well, I've found the one responsible. A Shi-woman named Umagon. We need to get out of here and debrief her. Maybe figure out what the hell is going on."
"Understood sir. And sir, dropships have arrived with our reinforcements and satellite recon is reporting that Nod units are withdrawing."
"Let's not get too comfortable, lieutenant. I'll see you outside."
"Sir."
Looking over at the mutant, McNeil waved for her to go. "Ladies first."
"What, don't trust me to walk behind you?"
"Well, you made quite an impression with that body trail. So if it's all the same to you, I'd like to have my eyes on those blades at all times."
Chuckling, Umagon walked off. McNeil was right behind and the more he looked at her, the more he knew she was going to be trouble. Hopefully he'd live long enough to be the old fart telling youngsters how things were in his day.
Langley wasn't the last senior officer to log into the conference, but already there was an impressive assemblage present. Generals Khalid and Cortez were exchanging pleasantries and Admiral Kato Hiraga appeared moments later. General Solomon was silent throughout but Langley could tell something was bothering the elderly general. Within the next minute the other theatre commanders appeared and Langley was staring at a total of five faces on his display.
"Gentlemen," Solomon said once they were all connected. "I've called this meeting to inform you of a very disturbing discovery Field Commander McNeil made in North America."
An image popped up on the display, sliding in next to the other open channels. The moment Langley's eyes fell on it, they froze.
"McNeil was working to push back Nod soldiers from our Phoenix Forward Base when he came across a craft unlike anything we've seen before. The thing had crashed and Vega's men had stripped it of most of its technology, but the physical craft was still there. And to be perfectly honest, it's starting to look like the ship might be extraterrestrial."
For what seemed like an eternity, all of the officers present simply stared at Solomon as if they couldn't believe what he had just said. Quite a few were simply staring at the image like Langley and some weren't even aware just how low their jaws had dropped. Finally General Cortez cleared his throat and spoke what was on all their minds.
"Excuse me sir, but are you saying McNeil found an alien ship?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying, Paul. And no, we haven't found any actual aliens on the ship, but quite frankly Nod had control of the crash site long enough to remove anything they truly wanted. Our scientists are still doing a preliminary analysis and we won't know more until they figure out more of its systems, but it's obvious this thing is incredibly advanced. Hell, it survived a blast strong enough to level a city block!"
"Do we know if there are more of these ships?" Langley asked.
Solomon shook his head. "The analysts are leaning towards no, simply because of how frantic the Brotherhood was to recover this one, but they have nothing to back that hunch. Still, at least now their recent movements in the southwest sector make sense. Most of it was to cover their retrieval operation."
"Fat lot of good it did them," said Cortez. "It led us right to the thing."
"But not soon enough," Hiraga pointed out. "As General Solomon has said, the Brotherhood had already succeeded in stripping this ship of most of its technology. Perhaps a delay was all Nod sought."
"This might also explain those blasted new fighters Nod deployed," General Khukov said. The Russian theatre commander had plenty of experience being ambushed by the things and was painfully aware of just how badly they outclassed his own birds. "Their weaponry and flight performance are considerably superior to anything we have deployed."
Langley nodded. "Though that does suggest Nod has had access to this ship or at least its technology for much longer. Something must have gone wrong for it to crash like that."
"Whatever did happen, at least we have it now," said Cortez. "But this probably means Nod has a few other surprises they're waiting to spring on us."
"Which makes it all the more urgent we seize the initiative," said Langley, "and don't give them any time to deploy any more new toys."
Solomon shook his head. "I wish we could, Will, but we're scrapping the barrel just to maintain our current operations."
"Reserve forces will be ready to deploy within the week," said Cortez. "That's at least eight infantry divisions and four armored."
"Most of which have already been assigned to their respective theatres," Khukov reminded his counterpart. "And I'm going to need those reinforcements just to make up the thrashing O'Connor's been handing our forces here."
While the Russian general was receiving a substantial percentage of the upcoming reserves, not all of them were being assigned there. Langley himself was supposed to receive one infantry division to deploy in Poland and McNeil was being reinforced heavily with an armored and two infantry divisions.
"Another ten divisions are supposed to be ready by the end of the month," said Langley. "If we're serious about a major push against the Brotherhood, we'll need to concentrate them as a single force instead of splitting them all over the world."
Solomon nodded. "I intend to order McNeil to continue his advance. Perhaps he'll be able to flush out the rest of Vega's men. What about you, Kato? Has there been any increased Nod activity in your command?"
"Nothing too out of the ordinary," Hiraga replied. "GDI control of China has always been tenuous outside of a few coastal provinces, but the inland warlords haven't made any moves recently to try seizing our territory."
Langley frowned. "What about the recent provocations between the Indians and Pakistanis?"
"Or the Tibetans and the Chinese," Cortez added. "It's not like that area of the world doesn't have its share of grievances."
Kato nodded in acknowledgment of their points. "Indeed. However, there have not been any overt moves by any of the factions. Our intelligence network has also not detected anything to indicate any imminent disturbances. And unfortunately, unlike North America or Europe, GDI cannot interfere directly with these local issues. While the Indian and Pakistani governments are GDI states, a great deal of power is in the hands of local leaders. Moving against one might trigger a revolt by the rest."
"Which effectively rules out any kind of preemptive strike against known Nod sympathizers or cells," Solomon said, "or at least open ones. For the time being we'll continue committing forces to McNeil's sweep through Mexico, Langley's operations in Europe, and Khukov's defense of Russia. Reinforcements will be deployed as they become available, but don't waste what you've currently got. We're spread too thinly right now and the damn politicians have been just a bit too successful in their efforts to downsize the military."
Annoyance was the most civil expression on the faces of the various officers. It was a delicate balance of power between the officer corps and the civilian administrators within the GDI government. The military had effectively set the agenda when it came to things like foreign policy, but the bureaucrats and politicians were eager to wrest more control away from them. Their excuse was of course the necessity of civilian oversight to ensure the military would not turn on the people it was meant to protect, but many in the military felt the politicians were less suited to protecting against abuses and were simply seeking more power themselves. The last round of this particular battle had seen the politicians succeed in cutting funding for several frontline divisions, resulting in GDI's current strategic handicap. And while Langley himself understood the need for outside oversight, he felt little hesitation in using the current situation to shift the advantage back to the military. As important as that oversight was, the entire argument would be moot if GDI proved unable to defend its citizens because the bureaucrats were too successful in politically castrating the military in its bid for more control.
"General Solomon, if that is the case, perhaps we should transfer divisions from my command to McNeil and divert the reserves to Europe."
Langley glanced over at the screen displaying General Ulysses Ashford. This was the first time the North America theatre commander had spoken during the meeting.
"Can you spare that many troops?" Solomon asked.
Ashford nodded. "I already had forces moving south to support Commander McNeil's operation around Phoenix, but he's moved even faster than I expected. Them joining his current forces would be far faster than handing McNeil a bunch of reservists that still aren't fully up to task. At least in Europe, General Langley will likely have time to squeeze in more drilling before running them through the grinder."
"General Ashford has a point," Langley said. "McNeil's operational tempo would suffer badly if he has to deal with green soldiers, which the reservists are even if they have training. At least over here I have rear guard positions I can slot them into while they finish working up."
"Alright, I'll issue the necessary orders to change the deployment plan," said Solomon. "There is one other development in association with the ship. It seems the Shiners wish to establish a more formal alliance with us."
This time instead of shocked looks, blank stares answered Solomon.
"Excuse me sir," said Langley. "But what does that have to do with the ship?"
"The Shiners apparently were aware of its existence," Solomon said, "or so they claim. One of them was even inside the ship before we were able to find out how to open it and helped dispatch several Nod soldiers sent to destroy it. And it looks like there really is an umbrella organization of mutants worldwide."
Langley nodded slightly. He and several others had suspected that mutants were banding together into a large confederation of sorts. In fact, his informal arrangement with the mutants had proved invaluable in ferreting out Nod sleeper cells in France. If they could tap into this network on a global scale, then it might soon be the Brotherhood's turn to deal with the unpredictability of guerilla warfare.
"If they knew about the ship, why didn't they tell us?" Cortez asked.
"Would we have believed them sir?" Langley pointed out. "I mean, I'm having trouble believing the ship exists even though it's in our hands now."
The general grunted an acknowledgment of the point and several others nodded in agreement.
"Still, the fact that they did know of it speaks highly of their intelligence gathering," said Ashford. "There's much we could learn from them."
"They've already hinted at one thing they know that we want," said Solomon. "Vega's headquarters. They're willing to give us the location for our help breaking out one of their leaders from a cyborg production facility."
"Seems a fair trade," said Langley. "And destroying one of those factories would be a nice bonus."
"Indeed," said Solomon. "Hopefully by the time McNeil gets their leader out, your reinforcements will have arrived, Ulysses. As for you, Will, I know you've been establishing contacts with various mutant groups in Europe. I want you to start working on a formal pipeline into them, either with a permanent liaison or some outpost that can serve as a meeting ground. Someone other officers can tap into."
"Yes sir." How fortunate Langley already had a candidate in mind.
"Now, I want all of you to stay sharp," said Solomon. "It seems the Brotherhood has more secrets than we ever imagined and those secrets might be the key to their victory. They've sprung enough surprises as it is, let's make sure they don't get another chance."
His instructions given, Solomon dismissed the meeting and each of the officers disconnected. As Langley's screens went dark, he considered the general's words. Easier said than done, but GDI badly needed to find some way to overcome the Brotherhood's recent advantages. Still, there were a few new developments in the pipeline that might help offset Nod's new weapons and the situation in Europe was nowhere as bad as it was even a week ago. But the advances were all precarious and it wouldn't take much for the Brotherhood to set him back. The reinforcements would increase his safety margin but if Russia fell and O'Connor actually made a play for Eastern Europe, things could easily degenerate.
Accessing his console, a map of Europe appeared on the main screen. A mixture of gold and red washed over the terrain, indicating areas of control. So far Langley had kept Nod from making any major pushes by constantly hounding them and not allowing them to concentrate. Mitchell's little jaunt through the Ardennes was preventing the Brotherhood from getting a sufficiently powerful force into France to threaten Paris, though Brussels remained uncomfortably exposed. Langley knew there was a major force in that region, but despite Mitchell's best efforts they still didn't know where it was hiding. Until the threat was neutralized he couldn't lessen the pressure. Forting up around Paris and Brussels while superficially appealing would also be conceding the initiative to the Brotherhood, a mistake that GDI would pay long and hard for. But this still left him with the problem of how to plug the hole.
The Ardennes region was one of the few areas where Nod's blasted subterranean network did not extend through, likely because GDI had committed considerable effort to scan for any hint of one there. Consequently, supplies had to be brought over land or air or take a roundabout route through southern France. The first option was feasible for small arms and munitions, but supplies for a mechanized force were too bulky to sneak through in sufficient quantity. Air transport might be possible with helicopters, though again the volume of traffic would have to be very high. So far Langley's forces had seen nothing to indicate Nod had an air convoy set up, though they couldn't rule out the remote possibility of cloaked transports. That left supplies being funneled from southern France and there lay the solution to the problem.
Even with the Brotherhood's impressive stealth capabilities, its forces still had to move about to avoid getting caught by Mitchell's patrols. The foot soldiers would likely have little difficulty, but tanks and other vehicles at least needed fuel. If something broke down, spares would also be needed. And as effective as Nod soldiers were at guerilla warfare, insurgents were not going to seriously damage GDI's military capacity without proper supplies. His arrangement with the Forgotten was already helping cut off the flow of weapons, but most of those successes were from taking out above ground traffickers and agents. That meant fuel was getting through, though Langley still didn't know how.
"Duty officer," Langley said into his comm.
"Yes sir?"
The frown on Langley's face was not one of irritation but surprise as Major Jackson's voice answered.
"Aren't you supposed to be off duty, Major?"
"I was notified of the emergency conference sir," Jackson said.
"I see. Well, as you've rightly surmised, we have more work to do. We'll be receiving three additional divisions for reinforcements. I want to rotate them into rear guard in southern France and transfer IV Corps east."
"Yes sir."
"Also, next time you speak with Rachel, ask her if she might have any suggestions on how to move large amounts of fuel."
"Fuel, sir?"
Langley nodded, though it was more to himself as there was no visual. "They might have some experience with it, and their methods might be similar to how Nod is getting fuel to their Ardennes units. The sooner we can cut that off, the sooner Mitchell can finish his sweep up there."
"Understood sir."
McNeil was not one known for caution, but this mission required a certain amount of finesse. A smash and grab job would likely have gotten the target killed, which explained the previous diversion to destroy the radar grid covering the valley. Unfortunately now all he could do was wait as the mutant infiltrators attempted to extract their leader. A strike force was ready to move in and level the facility, but they could only do so after Tratos was safely evacuated. After that, Vega would finally be made to pay for his crimes.
A beep interrupted McNeil's musing and Chandra opened the channel.
"Package has been recovered, I repeat, package has been recovered," the voice said.
"Alright, that's our cue boys and girls," McNeil said. "6th Company, move in and secure a foothold. MCV will follow."
Acknowledgments rolled across McNeil's console even as he punched in more commands. For this battle he would be stuck on the Kodiak, but at least he had a good vantage point of the battlefield. Minus some inconvenient cloud cover, he even had a decent outline of the Nod bases, though that outline did not include details of the defenses.
"Sir, MCV is unpacked and refinery will be up within the hour. Barracks are already deploying."
McNeil nodded. "ETA to war factory unpacking?"
"Two hours, sir."
A remarkable piece of technology, the war factory was essentially a completely automated final assembly plant. Components for the various vehicles were all prepackaged and each war factory came with enough parts to put together a mechanized company before needing resupply. Of course, all this automation required significant amounts of power, which required setting up several power plants before a war factory could be deployed.
Despite the strategic flexibility offered by the MCV and the war factory, there were several tactical shortcomings. The biggest was until that mechanized company was fully deployed, the base was very vulnerable. It was for this and several other reasons that McNeil never relied purely on the force a MCV could unpack and the eight Titans lumbering into the base would hopefully be enough to repel any attacks in the short term. That hope was soon put to the test as red dots appeared on the Kodiak's main display.
The Nod assault cycle was a surprisingly effective raider for what started as an improvised missile launching platform. Its speed and maneuverability allowed it to move faster than the upper bodies of a Titan could traverse and used well its missiles could topple the bulky walkers. The typical response of GDI commanders tended to be throwing even more Titans at the speedy bikes, but McNeil was anything but typical. And while the top speed of a Wolverine was nowhere what an assault cycle could achieve, its arms were still fast enough to track the incoming bikes.
The red dots dropped off one by one even as damage reports flooded in from the Wolverines. Zooming in, McNeil watched white streaks erupt from the assault cycles while bright yellow flashes blinked from every chaingun burst. The visual wasn't perfect but it didn't need to be for McNeil to watch all the Nod bikes spiraling out of control with every hit. The Wolverines were not coming out unscathed as several missiles hit, but none of the life monitors were reporting a fatality just yet. Still, he wasted little time recalling those units that registered heavy damage. Until the war factory was up, they would be out of the fight.
"Defense turrets are deploying, sir," Chandra reported.
McNeil nodded. He would need all of his mobile units for the push against the Nod base, so the less they got mauled in repelling Nod attacks, the better.
"Sir, it looks like Nod forces are withdrawing from their southern base," Brink said. "I'm seeing a steady flow of personnel and vehicles leaving."
"Shift to main display."
Brink obeyed and punched up the image. As she had reported, Nod units were hastily making a retreat from the cyborg production facility the mutants had just rescued Tratos from. Even before the last soldier was outside the perimeter, explosions began blossoming amongst the buildings and ripped them apart. In less than a minute the entire base was in tatters and a few unlucky stragglers found themselves engulfed in the flames. Twisted wrecks teetered before collapsing under their own weight, leaving blasted ruins and burning skeletons of steal.
From his vantage point the explosion was barely visible, but the force of it had toppled the few trees still standing in the area and blasted a small crater into the earth. Most of the Nod soldiers had managed to pull out in time so they still had a major battle ahead, but now the Brotherhood was concentrated in one location instead of two.
"Well, at least that's one less base to worry about," McNeil muttered. "Status on unpacking?"
"War factory is almost up," Chandra reported. "That last attack provided some extra, motivation for the engineers."
"Looks like the Brotherhood's good for something after all."
"Sir, the rest of 6th Company has arrived."
"Excellent. Form up and start moving west."
Thirty Titans would have been more than enough to flatten the cyborg production facility, but McNeil knew nothing about the composition of the northern base's defenses. Walking in blind wasn't something he liked, but he needed more intel. To that end, the three Wolverines that had protected the extraction point were also advancing northwest and hopefully would see something useful while the Titans distracted Nod forces.
Video and sensor data was streamed continuously to the Kodiak by the various units and EVA continued collating them. The theater map expanded with every new data point and McNeil soon had a fairly clear picture of the surrounding terrain.
"Stragglers sighted, sir," one of the Wolverine pilots reported. "Shall we take them?"
"Negative," McNeil ordered. "Hang back but continue following them. I want to see if there's a back door to this Nod base."
"Yes sir."
As the Wolverines continued their reconnaissance the Titan company also had their own encounters. Another Nod force had been advancing east and suddenly found themselves under heavy fire by the walkers. The skirmish lasted less than a minute as the Titans tore through the buggies and bikes, wiping out the Nod patrol. Once atop the hill, it became apparent what the patrol had been protecting.
"We've got three harvesters here sir," the company commander reported. "They're pulling back, but they seem to have a full load with how slowly they're moving."
"Take them out," McNeil ordered.
"With pleasure, sir."
With their height advantage, the Titans were well within range to hit the fleeing harvesters. And heavily armored as they were, these massive trucks were not designed to withstand hits by dozens of anti-armor shells. Add a full load of Tiberium to the mix and the end result was a trio of massive fireballs rising into the sky and green crystals smashing into the ground. The loss of the harvesters while not immediately crippling would at least limit the munitions and equipment the Nod base could manufacture itself. And due to Nod power plants relying on Tiberium as a fuel source, it might even force some of the defenses offline. Anything that helped shorten this battle McNeil would gladly welcome.
"Sir, our southern scouts have found the Nod base," Brink said.
Switching his view, McNeil studied the images being transmitted. Surprisingly, the Nod base was protected by a perimeter of laser fences that were further protected by concrete walls. Laser turrets dotted the perimeter but the real threat was the Obelisk of Light at the eastern most point.
"War factory status?"
"Unpacked and already assembling the first couple units," Chandra replied. "We can get another company ready in two hours."
"Have our engineers repair that bridge leading south," McNeil ordered. "No good knowing about a backdoor if we can't even reach it."
"Yes sir."
Sitting back, McNeil now had to wait as his men went to work. A single company of Titans might just be able to breach the Nod base, but at a very heavy cost. The feed from the scouts showed plenty of tanks, so it wasn't just the static base defenses McNeil needed to worry about. But if he could get another company to hit Nod forces from the south, where their defenses were considerably weaker, he might be able to do enough damage to take that Obelisk offline. Once that happened, 6th Company could move in for a pincer maneuver and the two companies could crush the Nod forces between them. Of course, that assumed everything worked as planned, and Murphy was as present on the battlefield as it was in every other aspect of life.
"Sir, we're under attack!"
"Pull back now," McNeil ordered, watching as Nod buggies and even a few bikes slash towards his Wolverine scouts. "Get your men back to base!"
The three beleaguered walkers tried to obey, firing wildly even as they tried to flee. The first few buggies to reach them did little damage and more often than not ended as burning wrecks. The cycles were another matter and this time outnumbered the Wolverines. They zigzagged about, forcing the Wolverines to split their attention. The distraction proved to be fatal as missiles poured into the ranks and blasted the Wolverines to pieces. The feed cut out and three gold dots disappeared from the map. The red dots that surrounded them continued pushing east, likely seeking to press their advantage and make another run at McNeil's base.
"Status on the second company," McNeil.
"Twelve titans are online now," Brink reported. "Base defenses have been extended to cover the southwest bridge."
"Get the titans moving now," McNeil ordered. "We don't have time to wait anymore. Deploy the remaining wolverines with them as escorts."
"Yes sir."
Within minutes a force of twenty walkers lumbered across the bridge, a mix of tall and short machines of war. The Nod force of buggies and bikes met them not long after, but this time it was they that were outnumbered. The GDI units focused their efforts, picking off only a single unit at a time. Needing only a single round to permanently remove the Nod units, the skirmish barely slowed the GDI advance.
"Sir, 9th Company reports that they are in position."
"Titans advance, wolverines, watch their flanks."
Obeying, the titan walkers stepped forth and opened fire well outside the range of the laser turrets and blew them to pieces. The lone tick tank burrowed into the ground was another matter, but when outnumbered so badly all it managed was a single stray shot before suffering the same fate. Next to come crashing down was the perimeter wall as fires blossomed from the titans' turret. Chunks of concrete crumbled or sizzled as they fell into the path of the laser fences. But the titans did not need to breech the walls to start shelling the base, as the Brotherhood had yet to erect walls taller than the gun mounted on the walkers. A surprising oversight and one they were now paying heavily for. The titans rained death and destruction on the structures along the base perimeter, wrecking the poorly placed power plants. The consequences went from bad to worse as the obelisk darkened and the laser fences cut out, the signal for 6th Company to begin its assault.
Nod forces were already reacting but the units that first reached 9th Company also were the most lightly armored. The wolverines chewed through them with little effort and suffered only minor fire in return. That situation soon changed as tick tanks finally reached the southern perimeter and began deploying. However, in attempting to increase their own survivability, the tank commanders had exposed their units to a window of vulnerability. The titans took note of the incoming tanks and quickly shifted focus. Taking aim, they placed their shots at the weak neck connecting the turrets to the body of the tank, momentarily exposed as the tanks dug in. More than a handful of tanks met their ends before they could fully deploy, though those that did were now much tougher targets to remove and soon began exchanging fire with the walkers.
Even as Nod forces moved to stem the GDI incursion along their southern perimeter, 6th Company was busy blowing a path along the eastern gates. While the laser turrets were still online, none survived to open fire as the first volley removed them from consideration. The gates, lowered to let Nod forces out to counter the attack, were now letting the titans into the base after the walkers had literally stomped over the Nod response. Like their southern counterparts, 6th Company immediately set to work dismantling the power plants closest to them to ensure the obelisk stayed offline. However, a significant portion of the Nod garrison was still near the eastern entrance and resisting fiercely against the GDI attack. Missiles and rounds slammed into the lead titans, crippling one while blowing apart another. Then to the surprise of the walkers a familiar hum began sounding before a beam of red light struck another of their comrades. The laser melted clean through the titan's armor and sent the walker toppling. Another hum produced a similar though more spectacular result as the second walker's ammo and fuel ignited from the heat.
Thoroughly engaged against the base's defenses and defenders, the titans could not withdraw without taking severe casualties in the process and continued fighting on. However, the distraction offered by the obelisk had allowed the surviving tick tanks to finish digging in and they formed a solid wall against further advances into the Nod base.
Before a forth hum could finish, the obelisk sputtered and suddenly went dark again. Rounds suddenly smashed into the tick tanks from behind as 9th Company made its entrance, having overcome all resistance south. Trapped between two forces of titans, the tick tanks fought to the last unit but were grossly outnumbered now. The few infantry and light units amongst the defenders were quickly cut down by the surviving wolverines or a well placed tank round if a titan deigned to pay it any attention. With their defenses broken, Nod soldiers began throwing down their arms and raising hands and a quiet settled onto the battlefield. By the time the Kodiak landed to transfer Tratos over to its medical bay, the base was firmly in GDI hands. McNeil didn't know what they would dig up once the analysts had a crack at the computers and files, but considering this was a cyborg production facility, it wasn't likely to be pleasant. Still, a victory was a victory, and they were one step closer to taking down the bastard Vega.
End of Chapter 10
You know, this chapter's been done for about a year now. I just never posted it because of a really stupid reason. The scene with Umagon required I review the conversation that took place in the mission briefing but I never got around to it. Anyway, that's dealt with now and here you go. One will notice that most of this chapter covers missions that the player has played before, so there's not that much new per se. I've also been selectively dropping missions since rehashing the entire GDI campaign would get rather boring. We'll see how the rest develops.
My hiatus was mostly due to schoolwork, but I was for a time dealing with massive writer's block on how to proceed with the rest of the story. C&C4 did squat to lift that block cause quite frankly, the main canon is just bloody mangled at this point and I'm not really going to adhere to it very well, at least for anything post Tiberian Sun. If I do a continuation of Point of a Spear, it'll draw inspiration from C&C3 and 4, but the truth behind Kane will be one of my devising, not that completely random, thing, that happened in C&C4. By the way, Point of a Spear is intended to finish at the end of Firestorm. I think I can get that far. I owe it to my readers to at least try.
I go through moods wherein I feel more inclined to write a specific genre, such as fantasy, scifi, or military fiction. I was mostly in a fantasy/scifi mood for the past year and have been putting together a Diablo and Starcraft fic. We'll see if those ever see the light of day, though the Diablo fic is developed enough that I think I can reasonably finish it. Unfortunately it's veering to the long side with about 40,000 words and counting. Most tradeback novels tend to be around 80,000, and I am most definitely not halfway through the story in my Diablo work. But we'll see.
Z98
