"New Cadiz? There's an old one?"
- Spartan Luke Grey, upon receipt of the briefing file.
The campaign began in earnest on a Tuesday morning, April 3rd, 2557. Conditions were bright and clear; the mood of the men optimistic.
Governmental forces set down at 09:00 Zulu Time, ostensibly to 'restore civic order, protect UEG interests and maintain the rule of law'. The designated military target was Orbital Two, the towering mass transit elevator which dominated the New Cadiz skyline. As one of the largest pieces of infrastructure on Granica V, it represented a key strategic asset, not to mention a significant material investment on the part of the UEG. Orbital Two was one of two orbital transit points on the planet. In terms of global infrastructure, crucial; for a fledgling colony, essential. Restoring it to UEG control was vital.
Three armoured columns deployed from Camp Issus, a temporary deployment zone erected in the Southern Badlands. Regimental Combat Teams Alpha, Bravo and Charlie; each R.C.T. comprised some two thousand service personnel, a rumbling line of M12LRV's, trundling M63 "Armadillo" Pattern Armoured Personnel Carriers and towering M312 Recovery Vehicles, dubbed "The Elephant" for the dirge-drone of its horn and its trunk-like lift crane.
The M312's would be responsible for repairing essential parts of the city: clearing rubble, repairing or indeed replacing collapsed bridges. The city was divided into three major islands, split by the Hydaspes River; the single largest water supply within the dirt-choked region. Their inclusion, and the efforts of the combat engineers manning them, would prove invaluable in the days ahead.
The bulk of the R.C.T.'s soldiery were comprised of locally sourced UEG Loyalist militia; colonial reservists that had since been activated with the outbreak of fighting on Granica V. Reinforcing them (and providing badly needed field experience) were specialist UNSC Army Rangers and selected elements from 3rd Battalion 4th Marines, the infamous "Thundering Third". True to their word, the Rangers led the way as part of R.C.T. Alpha, with the Marine elements forming the bulk of R.C.T. Charlie, who were on an approach to the city from the eastern border.
The convoys threw up great plumes of dust, visible from miles around. This gave the defending insurgency ample notice. Roads were blocked, packed with torn mattresses, smashed furniture; upturned cars and heaps of burning tires. The smoke rose into the air: oily, black and malevolent.
New Cadiz. Five million citizens, almost a third of which were actively participating in open rebellion. The rest had wisely fled. A sprawling city of white-brushed stone, sandcrete domes and skeletal mining derricks. Much of the city was still under construction, a sign of its rapid expansion in the post-war settlement drive. A jungle of half-finished construction; of rickety scaffolding, timber duckboards and fenced off quarries. Spindly steel joists glinted in the morning sun, exposed. They pointed up at the sky above, accusing it with skeletal fingers. A city frozen in time, any hope of future development stopped in its tracks by the outbreak of war.
New Cadiz, a city of narrow windows, tight streets and meandering rows of a thousand tiny houses. An infantry man's worst nightmare.
And to those invading: a bear trap, waiting to close.
Small arms fire dented plated bodywork and skipped off hard asphalt. Tufts of sandy grit stitched across the crude dirt paths bracketing either side of the street, funnelling against the walls of the street in deadly arcs. First Sergeant Frank Merrill scrambled to his feet, snatching up his helmet groggily. Sand poured out of it as he clamped it back on, jaw flexing as he hastily tugged at the chin straps. His vision swam, his skull pounded. The com feed was panicked noise. Collected contact reports had given way to shouted commands, startled cries. Alpha's command vehicle had been scorched. The motion indicator in the eye-lens of Merrill's helmet was cracked, inoperable; but sheer weight of enemy fire arcing down from the adjoining rooftops told him enough. They needed to get off this street.
Merrill had been in a Transport 'Hog that had once been dressed in the proud tan livery of the Granican Civil Defence Force, the planet's locally sourced militia. No longer. Now it was a smouldering ruin, courtesy of an IED that had flipped the vehicle and pitched its human cargo sprawling to the deck like discarded rag dolls. Most of those same Rangers were now KIA; their bodies littered the street. The convoy behind them had screeched to a halt, hemmed in by the burning wreckage. Merrill had been in formation immediately behind Colonel Williams' command vehicle, a compact and muscular Armadillo assault vehicle. That too was a blackened wreck. Its armoured skin was breached in three places, as it vented fiery smoke.
Three Rangers darted forward, flinching as hard rounds pinged off the metal around them. Levine, Binkowski, Riley. Levine and Binkowski were veterans both, solid fighters in any pinch. Riley was newer, unproven, but Airborne nonetheless. All three of them looked at him expectantly, staying collected where other men would break altogether.
"Levine, sit-rep!" Merrill shouted over the din, "Where's Weinberg?!"
Levine shook his head vehemently.
"LT's down, Sarge!"
"Wounded?"
Levine shook his gravely. That told Frank Merrill all he needed to know.
He was now in the unenviable position of being in direct command.
Well fuck me sideways, the bull-necked veteran thought grimly.
The remnants of the 325th, some sixty Rangers all told, hunkered down amidst the burning motorcade, beset on all sides by ambushing insurgents. Mortar fire phunked in, wild and inaccurate, but adjusting incrementally; creeping ever closer. The Rangers were throwing down an impressive amount of suppressive fire, but the Innies had elevation, solid cover and, above all, superior numbers.
Denial-by-fire was costly from an ammunition standpoint, and although that concerned Merrill, in the scheme of things it was decidedly irrelevant. If they stayed here they were dead anyway.
Merrill glanced over at the building on his left; a squat three storey structure, with stucco covered walls becoming increasingly pockmarked with bullet holes. The building stood out in that it was stocky but sturdy; one of the few standalone structures on the street: a landmark for the local community, and right now the only possible sanctuary available.
South Municipal Elementary, the faded sign above the door read. Public schooling, state funded for the benefit of front-line mining families. The same kind of downtrodden community centre Merrill himself had grown up in.
Stranded out in the open with little more than hissing tracer fire for company, it looked as welcoming as a 5-star hotel.
He opened the com channel, waving his troopers down from their stricken vehicles.
"Rangers, with me! Clear the street!"
There came another high pitched hiss-sneeze of an RPG. Another Warthog was lifted into the air behind Merrill; a volcanic eruption of burning wheels and tumbling debris. Screams too. Merrill didn't need any further motivation. He got up and ran; a full bodied sprint. His MA5 banged mercilessly against his hip as it fell loose on the strap. Small arms fire ripped up the pavement around him. He felt the searing hiss of hard rounds arc in toward him; literally missing by inches.
The door ahead was wooden, an aesthetic touch and an extravagant one given the low-rent nature of the area. There wasn't any time to breach it properly. There wasn't even enough time to even open it. Merrill simply dropped his shoulder and hit it at speed. Two hundred pounds of body armour, equipment and solid Army muscle; hastily encouraged by snapping bullets that pinged at his feet. Dry timber exploded inward in a cloudburst of splinters. He collapsed forward into the room.
Three Insurrectionists stared down at him dumbly. One was prepping a bi-pod mounted machine gun, the barrel pointed toward the ceiling. Ammo panniers had been heaped hastily on a teacher's desk. The other two were mid-loading another rocket tube, a shocked expression on their faces. Merrill lay on the floor, in a pile of sawdust. In his shock, time slowed to a crawl. His brain processed the oddest things. It was a classroom. Crayons littered the floor like spent shell casings. The Innies did nothing, frozen in place. They were as surprised as Merrill was.
The other Rangers powered in behind him, weapons blazing as they stormed the threshold. Storm-clearance was their specialty. MA5 fire crackled and muzzle flashes strobed in the murky din. The insurgents were smashed backward, bodies jerking as they crashed down out of sight. The tiled wall behind them became a ruin of broken panes, shredded plaster and spattered blood. Dust filled the air. Laminated multiplication tables and crudely crayoned artwork had been shredded by gunfire. Now the floor really was littered in shell casings.
"Clear!" Binkowski barked, stepping over Merrill and surging forward to the next doorway. Levine and Riley followed him, roving forward, weapons primed. A half-dozen Rangers poured into the building after them.
And so it went. Room by room, corridor by bloody corridor. Flashbangs and furious exchanges of muffled gunfire sounded the way ahead. Clearance reports, calmly sounded over the tinny com-line, stood in sharp contrast to the scorched walls and broken bodies that followed in their wake.
Down on the ground floor, Merrill organised his men as best he could. One of the dead Innies was unceremoniously hauled off the teacher's desk, tossed aside like a sack of flour. A heavy coms unit was dumped in his place. Miraculously, the caster-pod hadn't been holed by incoming fire.
With orbital coms re-established,, Merrill's tactical training took over.
SAW gunners to the upper windows overlooking the devastated convoy. Marksmen to the rooftop. Each Ranger took a corner, watching their assigned sectors and calling their targets as they engaged. The severely wounded were stored at the base of the stairs, the structurally strongest part of the building. Bio-foam was administered where it was needed most, with gauzing and bandages used to seal in the gel-fused injuries. Many of the Rangers chose to do without, too focused on the task at hand. The majority of them were walking wounded. Orders were given to conserve ammunition at all costs.
The rebels showed no such restraint. They flooded in from a dozen side streets, converging on the Ranger's consolidated position. The crowd's blood was up, and the smoky fire in the air only stoked their thirst for violence. Emboldened by overwhelming numbers, they charged forward, hoping to swarm the schoolhouse. They paid for their eagerness dearly. Dozens were chopped from their feet by disciplined, superior marksmanship. The remaining crowd shrank back, like a wild animal flinching from the scalding touch of a fiery torch. The fallen were left out in the empty street, left to rot. Their bodies would remain there for a full week after the conflict; bloating and stinking in the rising heat.
The rest of the convoy, comprising mechanised infantry from the 12th Armoured Division, and relatively inexperienced reservists drawn up from the Colonial Reserve continued to idle on the choked roadway. They were soon cut-off by the ravenous mob. They reversed up the highway, driven back by woefully inaccurate RPG fire and thrown stones.
This left the Rangers effectively stranded in a sea of hostiles.
The more organised elements of the insurgency soon made themselves apparent. Positions were taken on adjoining sections of the surrounding neighbourhood, many of which overlooked the diminutive schoolhouse. The rebels brought up heavy weapons; mounted machine guns, sacks of clinking RPGs and heavier storm grenades. They occupied scaffolding overlooking the open roadway, prepping their weapon systems and dragging up rattling belts of ammunition. The sleet of incoming fire thickened, a blizzard of lead that snapped and bit at the exposed openings and kept the Rangers pinned, prone on the floor. The floor crunched with pebbles of broken glass. Plaster smoked from the walls in churning palls of dust that stung the eyes and tickled the back of the throat.
Stick grenades, crude homemade explosives poorly thrown, bounced off window ledges and tumbled back to the street below. Cloudbursts of shrapnel rang out against the stonework. One grenade actually sailed clean through the window, falling neatly between Binkowski's legs. He yelped, snatching it up and dropped it back out the window. He snatched his hand back as it exploded. Molotovs crashed against the walls, the flames licking up against the walls in blackened tongues of whooshing fire. The Rangers doggedly returned fire, snatching shots over the lips of the windows, but the crowds crept ever closer, slinking up to nearby street corners and spraying up at the besieged schoolhouse indiscriminately. Too many, there were simply too many.
Little by little, the Ranger's defence began to falter.
Levine was the first to go down. A ricocheting round spanked off the ceiling, slicing deep across his cheek. He tumbled back from his window perch with a curse, one hand pressed against his face to stymie the bleeding. Higgins, one of the SAW gunners from third platoon, abruptly slumped forward, his neck punctured.
One by one, the Rangers fell back from the upper windows altogether. The sills deteriorated into stone chippings, as though the edges of the building were being worn away by a thousand nipping chisels. Uncontested, the crowds grew bolder. They surged in around the entry points of the ground floor, only held back by hastily thrown grenades and frantic bursts of discouraging fire. One ambitious rebel tried to leap through the threshold Merrill had originally entered, and was promptly shredded for his troubles.
The Rangers fell back upstairs, surrendering the ground floor. They dragged their groaning wounded with them. Trails of slick blood matted the timber steps, even as enemy fire chased them deeper and higher into the structure. The ground floor was entirely lost.
"Where's our goddamn support!" Merrill shouted over his shoulder, priming a grenade and dropping it over the edge of the stairway. It tumbled down, skipping off the steps and rolling into the ground floor. A muffled burst of shrapnel killed a score of Innies below.
"Inbound Sir!" Riley stammered, eyes wide as saucers. He'd taken over tech duties. Specialist Sekovanic was unconscious, an arcing piece of shrapnel having embedded itself in his temple.
"Inbound won't do us much good if we're all dead by the time it arrives." Merrill snarled, as he snatched the com paddle from Riley's hands. "This is Bravo Actual to Control! We are being overrun! Requesting immediate assistance on this position - situation critical!"
"Standby Bravo Actual, specialist support is inbound." a woman's coolly modulated voice soothed. "ETA Three minutes."
Something hit the roof. The entire foundations of the building trembled. Slivers of broken glass rattled in the window frames. Dust sifted down from the ceiling. Mortar fire. The rebels had their position zeroed, friendly fire be damned.
"Make it fast, Control! We don't have three minutes!"
Sixty seconds to insertion.
Insertion, a wicked voice at the back of Damien's thought, his every fibre shaking, what a delicate way to put it.
The drop pod rocketed downward, shaking free of the atmo-burn, its metal edges tinged red from the roasting heat. The pod vibrated crazily, threatening to shake itself apart at any moment. Beside and above him, thirty drop pods glowed amber in the mid-morning sky. Straight edged vapour trails marked their plunging descent toward the sprawling earth below. The city of New Cadiz swelled up in the view port below him. Swallowing them.
Thirty seconds.
Damien tapped a series of commands into the nav computer.
Twenty five of the pods were heading for the intended drop zone, at the rear of convoy. There were certain guidelines to hard-contact drops; certain protocols to observe. Damien ignored them all, tapping in the final sequence of his command stream.
Five pods broke free of the shoal.
Their target: a hapless schoolhouse encroached on all sides by a thousand swarming red contacts. A waypoint blossomed over it, cheerful and green, pin-pointing the objective to the members of Chimera.
Ten seconds.
Re-entry vents hissed, counter impulse drives flared and the arresting sail popped out as the pod screeched downward. The building he was aiming for was opposite the school house. Two storeys. A tannery, or a baker's hall perhaps. There was no time to -
Five.
A bone jolting impact. The pod went clean through the roof. Through bitumen and insulation padding, through wire circuitry and polymetal sheeting. Through screaming flesh and splintering bone. Slamming down like the fist of an angry god, a Sword of Damocles. Bringing with it its own god of war.
The explosive bolts in the pod blasted open with a declaratory, almost triumphant ping.
Damien leapt out, MA5 thundering.
After ten years of constant training, Chimera was finally unleashed.
The sheeting waves of incoming fire stopped. Instantly.
It was like somebody had turned off a tap. One moment, the schoolhouse was being bombarded from a hundred different directions, the next it was left entirely alone; ignored to the point of absurdity. And yet the streets outside were alive with shrieks of terror from the crowd. And constant rattling gunfire.
Something else had monopolised the rebels' attention.
Merrill looked over at Binkowski. Binkowski shrugged and looked over at Levine. Levine listened to the roars of terror outside, the clattering of machine guns. An explosion rang out.
"What the hell is that?!" Levine hissed.
Viktorya raced toward the building ahead, feet barely slapping the ground beneath her. Two storey structure ahead, multiple radar contacts. All hostile.
The ground floor was heavily crowded. Gun crews and wounded insurgents, hunkering down as they put down fire on the beleaguered schoolhouse. An AT crew were hunkered down on the rooftop. Time was short. Tactical instinct suggested increased elevation.
Viktorya didn't hesitate. As she sprinted, a knife appeared in her hand. She leapt, one foot bracing off the wall, her hand thumping the knife into the smooth stone with all the penetrating force of a jackhammer. Cat-like agility and brute strength, working in equal measure. She hauled herself up into the upper window, propelling herself into the room in a single flowing roll.
They didn't even here her coming, the fools. Three males with their backs turned, lacking IFF ident-chips and toting surplus UNSC gear; likely stolen. Not that it mattered. Viktorya killed them all, never even bothering to draw her gun. A slashed throat here, an arm-twist there, followed by a throat-crushing open palm strike. She simply plucked the RPG from the last gibbering insurgent's hands and casually hurled him out the window. She emptied the RPG into the baying crowd for a good measure, before tossing it aside.
VISR scans indicated a weakened portion in the creaking floorboards beneath her feet. Beyond that, heat signatures, looking upward, panicked. She jumped on to the crack in the floor, planting both feet squarely. A thundering detonation of cascading wood and swirling sawdust brought her down to ground floor level. Fifteen shell-shocked Innies gaped at her in horror. Now there were two knives in her hands.
Viktorya smiled.
This was combat. This was real, proper combat.
The thoughts raced through Chidinma's head as she sighted the anti-material rifle and fired once more. She felt that meaty smack of the stock against her shoulder. The gun was made for stopping vehicles; piercing armoured plating and shambling Hunters. Unsupported, the mule kick of the recoil alone would have broken any normal human's collarbone. The rifle's effect on soft targets was somewhat overstated.
A mist of blood painted a wall across the street, as though somebody had up-ended a bucket of dyed water. Another machine gun post fell silent.
Chidinma was perched high on the lip of a water-tower. It gave her an excellent view, which she put to good use. She re-sighted and fired again, calling targets over the inter-squad channel.
All the while, she felt at peace. Every shot rang true. She racked the bolt as she slapped a new magazine home.
Her hands were rock steady.
The convoy further down the street were being mobbed.
The hordes swarmed over the lead Armadillo's windshield. Beating at it with rocks, smashing at the plated glass with the butts of their rifles. Spider webbing cracks blossomed across it, threatening to give way any moment. Somebody was banging on the access hatch overhead. The Civil Defence troopers within the APC cowered, knuckles white on the dash. Suddenly there was a juddering blitz of machine gun fire. Blood spattered the view, obscuring everything.
The banging on the hatch ceased.
An armoured figure strode by, boldly walking out into the middle of the rapidly emptying street. A chattering SAW juddered in the giant's hands, as he casually unloaded from the hip. Fleeing bodies jinked and danced as they were caught in the storm of fire.
Ensconced behind his steel plating of his welder's helmet, Luke hummed to himself merrily.
Rashid appeared at his side, DMR spitting in angry barks. Kneeling down, he sighted carefully. Snipers tumbled from their perches, smashing down onto the broken roadway.
Together as one, the two Spartans advanced, driving the mob before them.
One by one, Innie machine gun nests fell abruptly silent. The interior of the buildings around them rang out with muffled gunfire. The fleeing crowds on the street looked back over their shoulders in panic. They heard bullets thumping into flesh, ripping clean through. The flash of something inside the windows of one of the adjoining buildings threw up brief glimpses of the terror that lurked within. A silhouette of a human, only the scale was all wrong.
Merrill rose to a half crouch, darting over the window and poking his head up over the frayed ledge. He saw for himself.
The rooftops around them were clear. There were no signs of what had come down almost literally upon their heads. Fallen rebels littered the adjoining rooftops; bodies maimed, severed, broken. A mist of gunfire clung to the air. Small fires crackled here and there. A hushed quiet draped the air. The stillness of it all only served to unnerve Merrill even more.
Merrill saw the gaping hole in the roof of the building opposite them; where something had hammered down with all the destructive subtlety of a meteor, smearing what had once been an Insurrectionist gun crew across the broken roof slats. There was the orange flash of heated gunfire exchanges from the ground floor of the structure. Point blank, without quarter or hesitation. Then the windows darkened. Silence returned once more.
The crowds had fled, leaving discarded weapons scattered in their wake. Abject terror has that effect on people. All the Rangers could hear were the panicked cries of the rebels lurking on the ground floor beneath their feet. Isolated, surrounded. The Rangers could smell their terror. Snatches of gunfire popped off as the Innies searched for the target stalking them.
"That's a drop strike." Merrill said at last.
Levine appeared at his side.
"Who the hell drops into a shit-fest like this?"
"ODST?" Riley asked.
"No way man," Binkowski shook his head, his jaw working frantically at a stick of Chum©, "That DZ's way too hot, even for them."
"There's limits to where they can drop." Levine agreed, his cheek still bleeding profusely, "Protocols."
They had their answer when they heard an explosion from downstairs. A breaching grenade; then gunfire, then hand to hand combat. Bones breaking, shrieks cut brutally short. The merciless hush resumed.
An ominous thumping footfall fell upon the bottom of the stairs. Floorboards groaned in protest.
The Rangers snatched up their weapons, taking firing positions, eyes wide.
The footsteps thumped louder, ascending.
A tank appeared at the top of the stairs. An honest to god human tank. Its armour was a deep blue, adorned with white vertical racing stripes. Wreathing gun smoke curled up from its armour plating. Its shields sizzled as they restored to full potency. Its opal visor regarded them calmly.
"Chimera One to Chimera Actual." the giant said, as it held one hand to the side of its helmet, "Convoy secure."