"Insurmountable Challenge"
1124 Hours, 02 February 2546
Weathering Corridor
Miridem, UEG Inner Colonies
There was awe to be felt for colony worlds, glassed or populated regardless. Earthers and the elites of SolCore would disagree of course. There was a favorite saying of theirs: "Every colony is beautiful, but Earth is the most so, for she is Home."
Of course, that was just Homeworlder nonsense. Viktoria encountered many Earth-supremacists in her military service; the ideology was deeply-rooted in UNSC culture. She visited Earth once and she couldn't deny the planet was majestic, but the human homeworld was far from unique. Earth lacked the wholistic rainforest coverage of Arcadian-fame or the unconquered peaks of Reach or Chi Ceti IV. It couldn't compare to the unique view of Sol's own Castellaneta beach habitats, racing at high speed around Saturn.
As far as Viktoria knew, Earth didn't have the miles of weathering-wind tunnels twisting about at the foot of the Novo Campión Mountain Range. Someone smarter than Viktoria referred to the rock formations as grykes and clints, flat limestone formations eroded through freeze-expansion and chemical weathering leaving behind deep fissures and flatly-paved plateaus. Grykes were the fissures, clints were the resilient blocks. Earth had some but Viktoria never encountered any wide enough to swallow a Warthog gun-truck whole. Not like on Miridem anyway.
But someone of lesser creativity than Viktoria went with designating them as the 'Weathering Corridor' on her HUD trail map. Why couldn't they have gone with something in Latin like the mountains here on Miridem? Or even the German word for clints, flachkarren, or anything else?
It was questions like these that dominated Viktoria's mindscape as she lazily ruck-marched alongside her teammates through the tunneled depressions of charred and crystalline limestone. The Covenant ships didn't blast this area with their unrelenting plasma, but the far-flung ashen dust burned hot and stuck to every surface imaginable. The natural corridors presented space for unkindly wind currents, carrying violent shards and obstructive stick-ash.
"Three hundred meters to Checkpoint Charleston, not much farther people." Sergeant Loyne yelled out from somewhere ahead. Viktoria failed to make out his silhouette between the material-thick winds and the hot ash clinging to her visor. She attempted to rub her clothed fist against the choked surface, but the act proved in vain – the ash stuck fast like cement. Sighing in frustration, she reached for the rock wall to her right and paused in her march.
The Army Ranger medic sucked in a breath as she attempted to push down the trivial annoyances and distractions. Imagining her mind supercharged to finish the fast march, she made to take another step but paused at a dark shift in her periphery visible through her visor's unclogged left corner. She blinked twice, attempting to process the brief, uncertainly-witnessed visage.
For just a moment, she imagined the long-cast shadow of a rock in the low light had moved. Maybe she was just seeing things, her helmet was essentially blind already. So, what was that? Her imagination, or something else?
"Viktoria, finish line's just around the corner," Reisinger exclaimed, upon noticing that one of the team's yellow-motion tracking dots had stopped moving with the pack. "You doing okay?"
Keeping her eyes on the spot for a second more, she turned to the silhouette of Reisinger. He appeared like a dark haze over her dust-swamped visor but with the assistance of her VISR passive scan, she could easily make him out as a green-highlighted presence; the rest of the fireteam and Sapien Sunrise highlighted the same way as the terrain was outlined in a pale yellow.
"Uh, nothing. I…I'm seeing shadows, I guess. I think I missed my stim-pack ration."
"Well crap, Viktoria. You're going to be off-cycle with the rest of us," Loyne commented from close by, he glanced at Reisinger and McBride. "What about you two? You up to date?"
"Yea, I'm good," Reisinger confirmed. He looked to McBride.
"I'm good too."
"S-sorry guys," Viktoria mumbled, clapping a hand to the side of her helmet. Now that it was pointed out, Viktoria admitted she was feeling tired. She glanced back at where she saw the shadow and noted it seemed to sway in the windy air around the Ranger team.
Between the monotonous march over forty-six kilometers by Jogger-Frames and the low-visibility conditions, slipping into aimless thoughts had come so easy to her. She should have said something earlier, maybe then she would have remembered to pop a stim.
Reisinger stepped up to Viktoria and tapped her on the helmet as she came barely up to his neck in height. "Look Vick don't worry about it. Just trust your Jogger-Frame to do the work. There's nothing there, if there had been – like a cloaked Elite or something, your VISR would have picked it up."
"Yeah… Yeah, you're right. I'm just being paranoid. Let's get to the Checkpoint," Viktoria responded, leaning off the wall and stepping around Reisinger to show she was ready to go again.
"One second," Loyne said with an open palm directed at the team. "Sergeant, if you're feeling out of it – we'll deal with it. We'll finish our march to Charleston, and we'll let Team 1 or 3 take first watch. We can catch some shut-eye there, and then you can catch a little extra inside Sunny while we move to Checkpoint Delphi. We need everyone to be at least alert, if you need to reset a little bit, we'll make room for it."
"Thanks, Loyne," Viktoria commented as she fell back into step with the team and they continued their trek through the mini-canyons. Sapien Sunrise took the lead with floodlights alit, cutting through the darkness.
Loyne kept point, placing a hand to his arm-mounted TACPAD and connecting the TEAMCOM to SQUADCOM. "Squatter-2 to 1, we're running a little late, one of my teams needed a pause. We're almost there."
"Alright, hurry it up. I wouldn't want to stick your guys with the first watch for missing the par time," Squatter-1, the squad's commanding officer, responded, a little too humorously.
Loyne cut the call. "Well, how's that for motivation…"
"Staff Sergeant Daher is a shaft-beater," McBride grumbled.
"Shut it, Private," Loyne warned.
Viktoria followed along with her team, keeping her eyes on the terrain beneath her feet, avoiding the splotches of red and favoring the steps in green and sometimes yellow as she avoided small boulders that might have tripped her up in the low-visibility.
Even with the new-found motivation, however, she struggled to keep her mind on the task at hand. One moment she's watching her footwork and the next she's considering what Miridem looked like before its glassing. Was it a lush world with tropical forests or maybe fertile farmland? Or was it hardier, one with expansive deserts that extended beyond the horizon?
She knew Miridem was an Inner Colony, one of the first to succumb to the Covenant onslaught but this was the first time she set foot on the planet, much like other contested worlds she fought to defend; however, the first time she really heard of the planet was when word arrived of Covenant arrival. There was, in fact, very little that she knew of this now-inhospitable rock.
Not that it mattered, once a planet was glassed – they looked about the same.
"Par time, nine hours and twenty-eight minutes. You guys made seven hours, forty-eight minutes, twelve seconds. A little slow but well-within the goal time."
Viktoria looked up from her distant thoughts upon hearing Staff Sergeant Daher's cheery greeting. He was a shorter man than Viktoria, but he stood unbothered in the glass storm swarming at the entrance of Checkpoint Charleston.
"Daher," Loyne greeted and slowed his Jogger-Frame's pace to a natural walk so he could fall into step with the retreating NCO-in-charge. Reisinger and McBride slipped by the group and into the deeper alcove of Charleston while Viktoria fell in step with the other two sergeants as Loyne's deputy.
"I take it your march went well," the Staff Sergeant continued. "Uneventful?"
"More like boring, the Covenant seem to not bother with the mountains. Weird for a civilization of lizards and apes," Loyne shrugged his shoulders.
"Could be that they didn't evolve from cave-dwellers as we did?" Viktoria offered.
"We've been fighting this war for 21 years and we still don't know much about them," Daher shrugged as well. "I've never been on a Covenant ship, but I hear they're just as purple inside as they are outside. Also, as cavernous as our own ships – so I honestly couldn't begin to guess their archeological origins. Could be just like us, or not at all."
"Didn't you do archeology in college or something like that?" Loyne asked, glancing at Viktoria.
That was almost a lifetime ago, Viktoria admitted to herself. She responded, "My parents worked xenoarchaeology for a natural history museum on Sigma Octanus IV so I could say I was around that stuff a lot. But no, I didn't attend university. I've got top certifications for military science and combat medicine though."
"Hmm, interesting," Daher commented, failing to add much more to the discussion. "Anyway, everyone's arrived. Squatter-3's on the current watch. Go ahead and get settled in, it will be another three hours before Command's prowler makes another flyby."
"Thanks, Staff," Loyne affirmed and split off towards where McBride and Reisinger were settling in, Viktoria in tow. Viktoria nodded her helmet at Daher as they broke away; the squad leader mimicked her before heading off to his own team.
This was Viktoria's first visit to Checkpoint Charleston, sans Charlie, since the military phonetic alphabet could get boring on repetition. Army Rangers were an adaptive bunch, especially in a liberal fighting environment like Miridem where the chain of command was more obtuse and military practices were less stringent. It was one of those perks she never realized exists until she was among their rank, but retrospectively, she was glad she went with the Rangers rather than pursue a life in the Marines.
Marines were tough S. but years in the Rangers taught her they left little to chance or interpretation. She was a freedom-loving gal, regulations weren't her thing. For example, she wouldn't get to see the masterful artwork spray-painted across the gryke-wall of a UNSC soldier squatting in what appeared to be mid-defecation.
A caption was scrolled under the obscenely-detailed graffiti art, 'To Squatters, with Love!'
"Valor's handiwork I presume," Loyne remarked from behind Viktoria as he helped McBride pitch Squatter-2's bivouac in one corner of the cavernous space that made up Checkpoint Charleston. "I hear one of their numbers is an oddball, they call him 'Sunshine', wonder what he must be like…"
"Valor?" Viktoria asked, walking over to remove the soporific aide machine from the rear of Sapien Sunrise at Reisinger's hand gestures.
"They're the squad ahead of us along this route, they should already be at Checkpoint Delphi by now. Isn't that right, Daher? That's Valor's handiwork?" Loyne called out to the Staff Sergeant and pointed to the defecating Ranger picture.
"That? Uh, yeah. Most likely." Daher called back before returning to a seemingly-deep conversation with his team's radioman.
Viktoria scanned Charleston, examining every inch of the makeshift base camp and what the preceding squad had left for the new, temporary inhabitants. The amount of glass-material blowing through the cavern was significantly reduced compared to outside, a glance skyward confirmed the installation of extreme-weather tarps across the skyward gaps above. It seemed the preceding Ranger units had installed tarps across most of the conceivable holes and then added camouflage netting and loose dirt to hide away the encampment from above. Glassing dust did the rest, bathing any exposed surface in gray goop.
Two electrical generators were installed on either side of the alcove, powering low and floodlights nailed into the overhangs. A firepit was set at the cavernous center and scratch marks along the ground suggesting the digging work of M722 Beetles like Sapien Sunrise. Sapien Sunrise and its two brethren assigned to the Squatter outfit, Spider Chief and Sundowner, stood guard near their assigned teams' bivouacs, scanning the cavern entrances.
"Vick set the sleeper box down, you can go ahead and take a nap. We'll get the rest of the gear from the vehicle," Reisinger said as he cleared through Sapien Sunrise's armored carriage.
Viktoria looked the sharpshooter's way and nodded in appreciation, she shimmied her way over to bivouac and lightly set the soporific aide next to McBride so he could put it inside. "Give me a second, at the very least I need to spray down my helmet. Visibility is getting to be a real bitch with all the dust sticking to it."
"I haven't unplugged Sunny's solvent hose so you're all good to rinse it off really quick," Reisinger responded as he uncoupled himself from his jogger-frame and plugging it into Sunny to recharge. The exoskeleton batteries were designed with a recursive charging capacity, allowing the kinetic motion to be recycled, but it wasn't a perfect recapture and the jogger-frames still needed to be topped off after every use. Viktoria would do the same in a moment.
Walking over to the front of the Beetle, Viktoria took a knee between an arm appendage and the rotary cannon. "Hey, Sunny, can I have the solvent hose?"
The spider tank's dumb AI let loose a short vocal chirp like a bird, signifying some semblance of affirmation or pleasure. The left arm's finger uncoiled to reveal several sockets as it extended a hose line out from one.
"Thank you," Viktoria commented, tapping the domed head of the machine. She uncoupled her CH252 helmet and set it on the ground so she could begin the quick wash. In the cavernous space, the presence of sulfur was comparatively less and made the place smell less like rotten eggs which came as an appreciated plus.
She drew the hose line with a quick yank and directed it towards the helmet's visor where brown mush chalked up the semi-transparent front. "Yuck…"
"Vick, make sure to leave the hose out, I need it next," McBride called from the bivouac.
"Sure thing Dusty," she responded, pressing the valve safety and discharged cleaning solvent over the obscured area. The mix of high-pressure and cleaning nanites acted quickly, clearing out the glassing ash from the visor. Viktoria had to cover her face with her wrist as the solvent was technically an irritant to the body.
Viktoria stood, plucking her partially-washed helmet from the sandy floor and slipped it back on. She left Sapien Sunrise with a light pat, responded to with a long, quiet whistle as Viktoria shifted to the machine's abdomen to plug in her Jogger-Frame.
Sunny left her with a long, quiet whistle as Viktoria started the process of powering down her marching exoskeleton. Reisinger already vacated the area next to the charging station, leaving his Jogger-Frame compactly folded to the ground with its wire coiled up into Sapien Sunrise. Viktoria planted her legs in a horse-stance and deactivated her exoskeleton by engaging the control panel on her right wrist's underside.
She leaned down as if preparing to sit and unfurled the retaining thigh and shin restraints, formerly secured by plastic straps. She did the same with her arms before standing straight and stepping out of the contraption, now a tangle of metal bars and slung bags and equipment. Viktoria's frame had to be lifting an additional two hundred pounds beyond her own body weight and gear. The folded exoskeleton featured additional rifles, explosives, and sidearms along with replacement armor plates, fieldcraft essentials, and her fundamental medical packet that she was never without.
Viktoria dropped her backpack next to the Jogger-Frame and unfurled a saddlebag on the exoskeleton, revealing a therm-optic sheet that doubled as a personal blanket.
"Loyne, I'm clocking out for a couple of hours. Wake me when something important happens." the Ranger medic announced as she crawled past the inviting, open flaps of the now-pitched bivouac. The team lead nodded in affirmation as he took a seat on a fold-out bench and cracked open his overread paperback novel. Reisinger and McBride were out of Viktoria's view, alone to their own devices.
Tugging at the centered sleeper box, Viktoria shifted one of the appendage wires and synced it to the base of her helmet; she slipped the military blanket over herself and curled into a ball on her side. As soon as her head touched upon the discomforting earth, even without the soft helmet lining, she felt her eyes droop and droop fast.
She dreamed of nothing, but just for a moment before passing into the land of rapid-eye movements, she saw a young girl. She appeared to be in her early teens, dark brown hair fell to her shoulders and she stared at Viktoria with piercing blue eyes. The girl called out in restraining uncertainty, "Mom, why didn't you come home?"
Everything disappeared into the inky black and sleep took hold but what was hours passed in sensational seconds. The visage of the girl faded, but those blue eyes remained there, staring in accusation maybe.
Viktoria was in and out of her sleep, jumping up at the sensation of shaking and someone tapping at her boot, invisible behind her closed eyelids.
"Vick get up! We got a problem!"
She could barely make out Sergeant Loyne's voice over the rapid fluttering noises passing overhead. Like rotating air ducts, or distant turboprops, or…
"Buggers?" Viktoria shouted as she shimmed out from beneath the bivouac tent, already reaching for her hip-holstered M6G magnum. Her camo blanket was left unattended in the dirt.
Loyne ducked as black shadows danced overhead and fast-flapping creatures colored by gray ash and shimmering shells descended from the open passage and between the patchwork ceilings tarps above into the Ranger hovel.
"Shoot dammit, engage!" Staff Sergeant shouted out frantically to his unprepared unit.
There were anywhere between ten and forty hostiles in the hole, black masses rapidly sputtering about against the walls, floor, and ceiling. The space was wide but not open enough that the aliens could fly freely, bucking into one another as they buzzed about and attempting to grab at the unprepared humans.
Gunshots reigned out and muzzle flashes trailed skyward, bringing down the insectoids as choked their approach. Viktoria's handgun was easily the size and weight of a textbook to compensate for its massive M225 bullets. Even while momentarily groggy from her slumber, she shot two quick rounds with decent articulation when accounting for the rapidly fluttering targets and her lack of sleep.
Buggers crunched to the floor, lifeless as the very shock of bullet penetration from human firearms seem to cut them down, lifeless. Sparks flew as the bodies crashed to the ground, the gravity-assist generators on their backs damaged by the bullets or crashing to the ground.
Clearing out the ceiling-most aliens did little to improve the situation as the insect soldiers descended closer to the ground and moved faster as their fallen brethren gave them space to move about. There was no presence of plasma fire as they made to engage the troopers – they came in unarmed, resorting to hand-to-hand combat.
"They're weaponless! Don't let them get close—Ahh!"
Viktoria spun to the right while curling to the ground just as an alien drone zipped overhead, failing to swipe at her helmeted head. Reisinger was faring far worse as another Bugger hooked him by his shoulder straps and lifted him into the air as he frantically tried to swipe at its arms. His rifle laid unattended at the floor, midway through a disassembly.
Viktoria planted three shots in the drone hoisting him up, watching as it sputtered and fell away with the designated marksman in tow. The tangle of corpse-and-soldier hit a boulder before rolling to the side in an unpleasant heap. Reisinger unholstered his magnum but clinched it to his chest rather than aim, seemingly stunned by the encounter.
"Bradford, duck!" Loyne called Viktoria's surname from the other side of the alcove as she spun to find the object of his shouted concern. Her focus on Reisinger proved to be a distraction as a Bugger slammed straight into her, knocking aside her magnum and pushing her straight to the floor like a bird-of-prey stunning a fish.
"Ugh, get off!" She shouted as she tried to punch with her right arm as the imposing insectoid pressed down, pinning her left arm. She flailed in frustration, unable to reach for her combat knife through the squeeze.
Someone shouted through her headset as a sizable rock smacked the alien across the head; it briefly stopped squeezing Viktoria with its powerful, clawed legs to glance at McBride drawing a combat machete from his folded Jogger-Frame. He didn't get a chance to charge as another Bugger jumped him from behind and they two descended into a brawl, blade against claws.
"Everyone! Get down!" another Ranger called out through the commotion. With many troopers pinned and many more Buggers descending, it wasn't hard to do so.
Viktoria found out why in a second. The electronic whistle of spinning Gatling guns came to life, followed by a warning klaxon and two AIE-486 machine gun turrets erupting from Sapien Sunrise and Spider Chief.
The infamous BRRRRRT screech of rotary cannon fire filled the space, chewing up the walls and alien-choked surfaces, sending dozens of alien Buggers to the floor.
The gunfire lasted for a total of seven seconds, the echo of gunfire droning for a second more. Through the shooting, Viktoria curled herself as small as she could afford with the Bugger standing atop her. Now it was dark, the floor and the Rangers buried in a sea of alien blood and decimated insectoids.
From afar, Buggers always seemed small, twiggy, mostly harmless. Like a large mosquito. Now dogpiled by their corpses, Viktoria realized that sentient beetles at two meters tall, two hundred pounds, and flying together in the packs of tens to hundreds were absolutely and utterly terrifying.
The noises of battle momentarily calmed as Rangers began to call out to each other.
"Everyone alright?"
"Anyone hurt?"
Viktoria struggled to slip out from under her former pinner as its shattered corpse began to leak and pool green and white goo. Once free of the insectoid but liberally bathed in the alien's blood, she popped her head up from beneath the sea of corpses. More than a few Rangers were still struggling to free themselves from the bodies, appearing as shifting black sections in the metaphorical-insect sea or disembodied heads shifting in the shells and goo. Others were already making to stand up with the pile reach to their thigh height.
"Team leaders, headcount!" Staff Sergeant Daher hollered.
"Squatter-2 is accounted for," Loyne announced to Viktoria's left, now trying to step through the mess to Sapien Sunrise. "could someone find my rifle please?"
"Squatter-3 is alive, no injuries I think."
"I… I lost my rifle too, Sarge…" Reisinger grumbled from his section of the corpses, shifting through the arms, legs, and torsos of Buggers to find his lost M392 rifle.
"Everyone quiet," McBride called out abruptly as he rose atop his gunk-covered machete. "Do you… Does anyone hear that?"
The hesitant chatter and skyward rifles paused as everyone stopped moving to listen for noise. There was indeed a background tone, a slow hum gradually rising in intensity, coming from the West.
Humming, as in Covenant gravitonic platforms. Combat vehicles.
Daher yelled out, "everyone to the west entrance! Get the Beetles in combat positions, prepare to engage!"
Squatter-1's radioman suddenly grabbed the Staff Sergeant's shoulder. "Command's overhead, they want a word."
"Shit, everyone out! Get into fighting positions, I'll wrap this up. Move, hurry!"
The members of Squatter-3 previously on watch were the first to exist the hovel's west entrance, weapons and equipment already at the ready and their M722 Beetle, Sundowner, not yet blooded.
"I need my rifle," Reisinger muttered. "Where is it?"
"Rice, Loyne, forget about it. Take my spares, we don't have time for this." Viktoria ordered, seizing control of the situation for the unprepared Squatter-2.
The men nodded to her and moved over to the motionless Sapien Sunrise, still occupied with battery duty.
Shuffling through the alien corpses, Squatter-2 gathered around the abdomen of Sapien Sunrise who gave a positive tweet and shake at the new-found attention.
Sergeant Loyne grabbed the charging couplets with a twist and dislodged each from the rear, freeing the spider tank from its duties. McBride clambered atop it to clear the Buggers and began guiding the machine towards the western opening, machete folded under his armpit. Viktoria for a moment wished he'd stuck it out in a charging motion as if an ancient general on horseback. It was an absurdist thought, but appropriate timing was never her strong suit.
"Here, MA37 rifle… I want my DMR… Rice, take McBride's DMR over there." Viktoria directed. She slapped a fresh mag into her assault rifle and handed it off to Loyne who slipped by, charging the weapon and heading off to join the combat.
"You think I should also grab my 'ninety-nine'?" Reisinger asked, gesturing to the flat crate containing his SRS99 anti-material rifle.
"Yeah, definitely."
He unlatched the crate, slung McBride's DMR over his shoulder, and grabbed the sniper rifle with both hands. He took point, following after Sapien Sunrise's haphazardly-cleared trail through the Bugger corpses, marked by deep footprints in the insectoid mess.
Reisinger disappeared out of the hovel, cresting the ramp into the dim starlight. Viktoria paused to look back at the crowded space, noting the continued twitching from some dead bugs.
"Sergeant Bradford!" Staff Sergeant Daher called from his crouched position in the alcove, standing next to his radioman and Spider Chief. On her HUD, their four-letter identifiers recognized them as 'DHER', 'LEEF', and 'SPCF' respectively.
"Yeah, Staff?" She called back.
"Give me a peek out, tell me what's coming."
Viktoria turned to look towards the horizon, only having taken a step out of the hovel. The New Salt Burn extended almost to said horizon, only to run up against the neighboring Saxa Particeps Mountain Range across the way.
The flatland's salty stench punched through her air filtration system, momentarily bringing tears to her eyes as she inhaled. The ground-level fog was being kicked up, or rather disturbed as her mind recontextualized the fog as dust trailing behind gravitonic gun carriages.
"Five vehicles on approach. Two Ghosts, a Wraith, and two Shadows!"
"Damn, another convoy… Get going, join your team and dig in. Kill those Covvies."
"Of course," Viktoria responded as she slipped out of Checkpoint Charleston and into the realm of combat.
She jumped and trotted like a mountain goat down the slight incline before hitting the sandy-salty flatlands of the New Salt Burn and among the familiar presence of Squatter-2 to her left and right.
Sergeant Loyne called out marching orders, filling the Staff Sergeant's absence, "Setup!"
The Rangers structured themselves in a single horizontal column facing the open spaces and the oncoming enemy convoy. Sergeant Loyne's order was fulfilled in advance, but the troopers repeated the call down the line, all the same, the hints at a well-oiled fighting machine.
Rangers threw down their packs for modest cover and to support their rifles and squad automatic weaponry, kicking into the malleable but tough glass dust that covered the former salt pan. Once, the basin was filled with water – cool and humid, but with the Covenant invasion, the water boiled away as the planet's temperature rose from repetitive glassing and nuclear fire.
Someone on the line had passed about M41 SPNKR-micro missile launchers. McBride was fancying one next to his M739 squad auto, resting atop his resting bag.
"Here they come, stand your ground. Dig in!"
Viktoria kicked at the salt and ash around her, pushing the topsoil around her into an inch-deep depression. It wasn't game-changing, but it lowered her closer to the ground. A lower target was a harder target to hit.
"Rockets, Ghosts first!"
McBride and another Ranger from Squatter-1 rose to a kneel and shot off two missiles before slapping to the ground with synchronized grunts. With the unit's rifles acting as glorified laser pointers, the rockets sped through the low altitude air and promptly detonated at the front of the Ghosts, sending the gravitonic scout vehicles and their Grunt pilots to an early, air-filled grave.
Viktoria watched as one four-foot-tall alien was thrown from his seat, sent flying minus his methane-spouting breathing pack and crashed face-first into the salt flat, unmoving. Gunfire crackled in the open, popping and clacking against the armored shells of the enemy armored vehicles fast approaching.
Two plasma turrets sputtered wildly, spraying across a wide swath as the enemy force struggled to get a proper pin on the Ranger position.
Viktoria fired away with her own DMR, landing the first shot on the Wraith's turret gunner. Another Grunt. His mask popped off with one shot, stunning the midget, wide-armed monster. Another promptly exploded its skull; the corpse slumped down lifeless in its rotary chair.
Then the Wraith's mortar cannon engaged. A unique sound born possibly of combining an angry washing machine and a waterfall into one menacing second. She felt her perceptions slow and her breath grew heavy as that brilliant-blue column of concentrated plasma ascended into the sky, peaking, before coming back down.
Towards her unit. She thought only for a moment more, she asked for a challenge. But not quite this.
A/N: Hey guys, I hope this chapter proves enjoyable even if it slips a little in moving the plot forward. I think I got a little too ambitious with this chapter but I digress and move forward with it anyway. The plot will seriously begin moving in the next post. Promise. In the meantime, let me know what you think about the manner of writing, constructive criticism, about the world-building and additions to lore. I enjoy feedback, I hope everyone's March is going relatively well, regardless of the COVID-19 at work worldwide. Stay safe everyone and make the best of it all.