After an excruciating hour, Gedrus stepped out of the Warthog to the laughter of the Marines, looked at the situation of the rally point.
The Turian Engineering Corps had already turned the rally points into a forward firebase fitting of turian standards. The medical prefabs had been put up, command posts, ammunition dumps, and vehicle pools. Everything was being brought out for this battle. He could see whole flocks of combat drones prepared for deployments, and fabricators churning more out. Vehicles were getting some much-needed maintenance and repairs done, while gunships landed on makeshift pads to receive maintenance and have their internal fabricators restocked.
The soldiers were making full use of the facilities. Topping off omni-gel supplies, performing field repairs, refilling their armor's medical supplies, and cramming as much food into them as they could before the fight started. He smiled at the sight of a few humans and turians comfortably interacting. A turian was teaching a squad of humans how to activate an omni-blade.
He looked up. It was the middle of the day now. Normally they would attack at night, but they were on a schedule. No night cover. This would be a daytime assault. A lot of people would die, and they knew it. The alarm went off. The attack was going to begin. Everyone got to their stations. humans ran to their vehicles, or drove past. Soldiers piled into shuttles or APC's, while gunships took off or flew overhead at high speed. High speed mass-effect accelerated missiles shot out from fighters far beyond the horizon and crossed the sky as white streaks that almost seemed to appear instantaneously.
He found Nialla and the new squad sitting near a shuttle that was having a new plate of armor installed across the door. The battlenet indicated that it was his squad's. Gedrus grit his teeth at the sight. A shuttle assault meant heavy losses most of the times, or a quick death due to bad luck. He didn't complain however, and climbed inside.
"You ready Sergeant?" He asked Nialla, who was using omni-gel to repair her armor.
"Always." She said, smiling and climbing into the shuttle, the rest of the squad following her. Taking up seats, or holding onto overhead rails.
Then the missiless started flying. Hundreds. No. Thousands of missiles were flying overhead and towards the Covenant Lines. Tyruss', Jirris fighting vehicles, Turians Gunships, Fighters, and even a few surviving human artillery batteries joined in.
They remained there for half an hour, waiting for the order to move. And the barrage of missiles still continues, only briefly broken up every few minutes as their launchers were reloaded. The sound was like a primordial god had declared war, and thrown his might at the Covenant.
They sat in silence for five minutes as they waited for their orders to move out, just watching all the missiles passing overhead.
Nialla suddenly spoke up. "We're taking off. We're airborne reinforcements. Let's go. We've got Covenant to kill."
The shuttle's doors closed, and they took off. Compared to the Warthog, the ride was smooth. He didn't get thrown back and forth for one. He turned on the view screens, cameras on the outside broadcasting a view to the screens on the inside of the sliding doors.
There was a hellish battle happening around them. A massive Hierarchy/UNSC force advancing on the the Covenant lines. The advance was spread across a wide front, with more than a hundred meters between each turian vehicle, whereas the humans advanced much closer together.
Turian drone swarms flew overhead, their ECM and Jamming systems providing cover for the Turian fighters who flew in their wake. Missiles and mass-accelerator rounds flew out in their hundreds, impacting on the Covenant bases in the distance, or on the forward lines, taking out what combat emplacements they could.
Following the long-range fighters, came the gunships, firing missile swarms whose warheads broke apart and split into even more missiles, slamming onto the Covenant lines in a combined explosion that covered the whole extent of the line.
But the Covenant structures and weapons systems were tough, and the defenders opened fire out of their prefab structures alongside the defensive emplacements. Turian gunships and fighters began going down.
The turian tanks were staying at extreme range, moving as fast as they could while their targeting VI's compensated to keep their aim on target. They fired precision rounds at the remaining Covenant defences that hadn't been obliterated by the missile barrage. The Covenant was lacking in the kind of extreme long range weaponry to counter these attacks, which suited the Turians just fine.
The same was not so for the turian air-forces. Spears of blue energy shot through fighter after fighter, propelled by the massive Covenant plasma cannons in the Covenant bases around the gravity lift.
Just as the turians had seemingly won control of the airspace and could begin raining down death with impunity, treams of massive pink projectiles were launched from all throughout the Covenant lines, hunting down and homing in on turian gunships that tried to provide fire support, while fighters that passed over were shot down.
The sky was raining turian fighters. The remaining turian fighters broke off and flew back to base for damage repair. Dozens of wrecks littered the battlefield as far as he could see.
Telnis fighters modified for gunship duty were hit the hardest, lacking the speed to break off. Within seconds, the Turian forces on the ground had lost their air support.
The Covenant now launched their own remaining fighters at the same time, strafing the turian armor and taking out dozens of tanks each in their passes, before sustained missile-fire from Tyruss-mounted launchers drove them off, taking down a few of them.
The Covenant fighters broke off, either flying back to the hangars of the cruisers, or out of range of the missiles to allow their shields to recover.
A shuttle next to theirs took a stream of purple bolts and exploded, the blast knocking their shuttle to the side. The pilot moved with the knockback, expertly dancing the shuttle around into a spin, before activating the engines again and resuming their flight. The soldiers inside the shuttle got thrown back and forth before the shuttle got back on a stable trajectory.
Gedrus grit his teeth. This was always the scariest part of the advance. The Pilot was using every ECM trick in the Turian handbook, but shuttles around them kept being knocked out of the sky one by one. "four-million credit coffins" as some privates called them.
Nialla yelled, holding up her omni-tool. "Prepare for drop! Equip for close-quarters battle drop." She said, switching to her shotgun, quickly followed by half the Turians in the shuttle following her example. "We're diverting to help the humans take out a Covenant prefab equipped with anti-air weaponry! Keep an eye on your motion trackers!"
Gedrus looked at the viewscreen again.
The Human tanks were approaching at the head of their unified army, heading directly for one of the Covenant bases in the forward line. The Jirris-fighting vehicles assigned to the UNSC had focused all their fire on levelling the first base, with the tanks just rolling across. Gedrus didn't need access to the strategy that Nialla was privy to, to see what the human plan was. Roll across the first base, send shuttles to take out the two bases they'd pass between after hitting them with missiles as well, then roll across the third base like the first. Then head through the gap and surround the other bases, and defeat them in detail.
Missiles were still raining down all across the Covenant line, with the majority aimed at the location the UNSC had chosen to punch through.
Gedrus could finally get a good look at the Covenant bases. Each consisted of a series of small prefab structures, with two or three automated plasma turrets each, as well as a single turret firing those murderous pink shards. Around each base was a simple trench system for the Grunts manning the base, and to his dismay, he could see grunts popping out of holes in the ground to fire heavy weapons at advancing tanks. Human tanks could take a few of the green blasts, whereas a turian tank was lucky to survive one of them.
Each base was roughly separated by three to four-hundred meters from each other base in their line, with the next line being a kilometer from the last.
Their shuttle swerved to avoid plasma bolts and dived at one of the bases in the second line, left of where the UNSC tanks would advance. It had been devastated by missile strikes, but the prefabs still had plasma bolts flying out of them. The shuttle's doors opened wide, and the Turians immediately began leaping out mid-pass. By the time they'd all hit the dirt, the shuttle was already flying away at high speed.
Gedrus took a look around. They'd landed "behind" the Covenant base.
He took the lead intuitively, advancing quickly across the hill and leaping down into the makeshift trenches the grunts were using as cover. He landed on top of one of them, which screamed as Gedrus put a bullet in its skull. He aimed down the length of the trench and fired a stream of armor-piercing rounds that ripped through the grunts. The other Turians joined, shotguns and omni-blades at the ready. The first trench was cleared quickly.
A large burgundy colored turret that looked as if it had been completely slagged, suddenly turned to aim at their squad, looking like a wheel with a spike on each side. It fired a stream of purple plasma bolts that shot through two Turians before they could all take cover. Then a missile shot out from the other side of the base, destroying the turret.
Gedrus peeked over the trench, seeing a squad of humans advancing through the covenant base. Their gunpowder weapons were primitive, but their rate of fire was impressive. An advantage of not needing to regulate heat so carefully, he assumed.
The human squad took cover behind a wrecked turret, exchanging fire with Covenant forces inside a prefab.
"Our air support is occupied, and the Covenant are distracted! We're taking that building by storm!" Nialla commanded, activating her omni-blade again and sprinting towards the building, with the rest of her squad hot on her trail. Before the Covenant had even noticed them, the Turians burst through the entrance, the frightened grunts inside too surprised by their sudden entrance through the back-door to respond.
Gedrus opened fire with his Shotgun, blasting one apart and igniting its methane-tank in a fiery blast, switching fire, he shot another one. A low-powered green bolt grazed his kinetic barriers, the plasma blocked, but the heat radiating through. He charged forward, igniting his omni-blade and jamming it into the head of another grunt.
The main entrance of the prefab opened, a squad of UNSC marines advancing inside. They exchanged nods with the Turians.
The prefab looked off to Gedrus. It was far too beautiful, almost like art. A deep purple interior, holographic devices, and ornate staircases that led up to the second floor. This looked far too fancy and expensive for a prefabricated structure. He made some pictures with his omni-tool on a whim.
Nialla immediately spoke up. "Humans, take the rest of this floor. We'll be taking the second floor." She pointed at a closed door.
One of the UNSC marines picked up one of the Grunt pistols and tossed it at Gedrus. "We saw a an elite. Keep the button pressed and hit him. It will instantly drop his shield." The marine then nodded and went with the rest of his squad to the rest of the base. He saw a few other Marines picking up Covenant pistols.
But just as the turians had been about to go up the stairs, they heard a scream. An elite in white armor had leapt through a door a marine had opened, an energy sword in each hand. The elite went through the humans and turians like a leaf mower, killing half a dozen humans before the first shot had been fired.
"Engaging!" Nialla yelled, firing at the elite, whose shields merely absorbed the blows.
Another three humans and a turian died by the time Gedrus got off his first shot.
Something hit his kinetic barrier from behind. He whirled around.
Another round hit. His kinetic barriers went down.
He saw a jackal standing there, taking aim.
Gedrus took aim at the Jackal and fired.
Another shot ripped fire, ripping through his chest and shooting out his back. His health-monitor warned him of radiation poisoning.
The jackal screamed as the shotgun blast threw him back.
An energy sword stabbed through his chest. He was slowly lifted into the air.
The blade was ripped out, shooting up through his right shoulder in an explosion of blood.
Gedrus hit the ground, gasping as blood filled one of his lungs. He saw the elite step over his body and charge up the stairs. It was holding a Turian arm, omni-tool active. Gedrus's eyes widened as he realized it was Nialla's omni-tool by its dashboard.
He was turned onto his back, looking at two humans and a turian. One of the humans was shaking a can of something. He could see their mouths moving, but heard nothing.
Everything went black.