UNSC Dominion, Bridge
October 15th, 1514 Local Time, 2552
The Dominion steadily hovered through the air, ruthlessly gutting any Grimm that dared to breach the perimeter that she had established around Argus. Even the larger types of Grimm, like the appropriately-named Goliaths, only took a handful of shots to banish from existence. Richard could tell just by the way the Grimm shifted their movements and actions that they had not expected such an offensively-minded tactic from the UNSC.
He shook his head a moment later. The Grimm were difficult like that sometimes. He had spent years fighting against an alien race they could barely understand but this… was different. It was all too easy to assume they had some kind of plan, some kind of strategy, but you couldn't predict the mindset of a wild animal, at least not in the same way. A mindless beast was just that, but combined with an insatiable attraction to negative emotion and things became so much worse. They wouldn't run or flee, they would never fall back and regroup, and they would never falter in their advance by choice. Their actions were dictated by their surroundings, every move they made was a surprise to him.
Well, we're full of our own surprises. Richard thought with a great sense of satisfaction as he watched as a King Taijitu was gutted from one head to the other end by a lightning-fast tungsten slug.
"Sir, the Captain of the Fox is requesting to speak with General Ironwood." Ensign Gillespie reported.
"Patch him through." Richard commanded, not deviating his attention from where it was needed as he spoke.
He watched the battle develop on the holotable, indicators marking the positions of Grimm and friendly units alike as the fight continued to escalate. Soon, the Grimm would undoubtedly lose whatever momentum they had left, and the Marines would be free to do what they did best. But as he watched the battle unfold, he noticed something very strange happen amongst the Grimm that were still outside of the city walls. Almost all at once, they stopped their evasive movements and began to sprint directly towards Argus, seemingly without regard for their own safety. The change in behavior was so sudden and abrupt, it was as if someone had flipped a switch.
Looks like they're coordinating their efforts somehow… that's odd, maybe they do have some sort of pack-like mentality, or maybe something's happened to draw them in even faster... Either way, Argus can't take any more Grimm right now. Richard thought. "Lieutenant Gage, redirect our fire to target all Grimm inbound on Argus, it looks like they've given up on hiding from us."
"I see it, Sir! Don't worry, we can handle it!" Gage reported. He sounded slightly nervous, but Richard trusted that he would capably handle the developing situation.
Why attack all at once? What's changed? Richard thought as he studied the Grimm in closer detail.
His observations were interrupted by the screech of some sort of animal, whatever it was, it was so loud that even through sixty centimeters of Titanium-A Armor, the bridge crew of the Dominion could faintly make it out. Richard could've sworn the Dominion rumbled from the sound, but he knew that it was just a figment of his imagination. If the Dominion was rumbling, it was from the recoil of her guns.
"What the hell was that?!" Bradford asked aloud, vocalizing the thoughts of practically everybody in Argus and on the Dominion in a single sentence.
"Sir, we have movement off of the coast of Argus!" Lieutenant Chen reported. "Something big, it's coming out of the water!"
I guess we're about to see. Richard thought. "Put it on-screen!"
The primary monitor on the bridge shifted its view and began broadcasting a live video feed from one of the Dominion's Aft Cameras. Richard watched as a black mass of flesh and bone emerged from the ocean, and steadily began to take form. The Grimm was astonishingly large, nearly the size of a small starship, approaching nearly eighty meters in height. Its aquatic nature was obvious, although there was a distinctly lizard-esque appearance to its overall body structure.
Nothing that size should've been able to move on its own volition, the square-cube law should've ensured it couldn't, but Remnant had long since proven it's borderline-disregard for Newtonian Physics. In blatant defiance of physics, the creature emerged from the water, generating massive waves as it stood up, the lower portions of its body still concealed beneath the waves.
"Oh dear Lord…" Bradford muttered, a look of undisguised horror flashing across his face. Even as he stood upon the deck of the mightiest warship on Remnant, Richard could also feel a faint hint of fear dredge itself up in the back of his mind, but it was easily suppressed.
Even though General Ironwood was dead silent, Richard was consciously aware that he was standing beside him, watching as the water fell off of the creature, revealing its form. It was like the antagonist of an old corny monster movie, standing on two legs the size of buildings, with monolithic bone spires stretching off of its body that Richard thought must've been meant to resemble the spines of smaller Grimm.
"That's… a Leviathan." General Ironwood stated after another moment of hesitation. He was doing an admirable job to conceal his concern, but Richard could tell he was extremely worried. "With the city's defensive shields down… it could easily reach the Military Base."
And all the civilians inside. Richard silently added. He narrowed his eyes at the creature, they had not come this far to lose the people of Argus now. "Not for long it's not... Lieutenant Gage, redirect Battery Twelve to fire on that target, load Sabots, fire at will!"
"Aye Aye, Sir!" Gage shakily replied.
"Sir, we have new contacts coming from the flanking mountains, Grimm Lancers and lots of them!" Lieutenant Chen called out.
Richard watched as the holographic representation of the battle was flooded by additional flying red contacts from practically every direction. There were hundreds of the large wasp-like Grimm, all rushing towards Argus, the Dominion, and her airwing with murderous intent. They joined forces with the surviving Grimm still in the air, and once more, the airspace over Argus was contested.
Where the hell did those things come from?! Richard thought, astonished that the Dominion's sensors had failed to pick up on so many concealed Grimm.
The point-defense guns of the Dominion shifted their fire to the new arrivals, knocking down several Lancers with every shot. But for every Lancer that they killed, another three took its place. The Dominion's squadron of Sabres broke off to engage the new threat immediately, and in their first pass alone, they must have killed several dozen of the things. But it was barely a drop in the bucket compared to the swarm of giant black insects that soared over Argus.
"Batteries One through Eleven, load flak ammunition, proximity fuse!" Gage commanded from his station. Reassured that he could handle the Dominion's immediate response, Richard turned his attention back to the wider strategic view.
He very quickly recognized that he only had the resources to fight off either the new aerial contacts or the Leviathan. He would be forced to choose which target to destroy first, before quickly repositioning to face the other, it was a bad situation to be placed in, but trying to fight off both at once could be cataclysmic.
Given that the Leviathan was still around two kilometers out, and the Dominion's position over Argus, it didn't take long for Richard to make his decision.
"Lieutenant Chen, order Voodoo and Excalibur Squadrons to prioritize the Lancers, lift all rules of engagement." Richard commanded. Retracting the rules of engagement would certainly be a controversial decision, especially over a civilian city, but the stakes demanded that his pilots be free to act as they needed. "Lieutenant Gage, keep our guns firing, do not let those things get any closer!"
"Aye Aye, Sir!" They both replied.
It won't be enough. Richard quickly realized. The Point-Defense guns had a limited rate of fire, and they would not be able to cut through the swarm fast enough, either the Dominion or Argus would be struck by the new arrivals any moment, and that was unacceptable.
Richard was also consciously aware that the Marines were still struggling to recover Argus, and if the Grimm kept pouring in then there was a risk that they could become overrun. Dozens more Grimm on the ground poured into the city by the second, and there was little that the Dominion could do to stop them. Thankfully, it seemed that for the moment, the Huntsmen nearest to the walls could hold their ground.
I'd say this more than counts as an emergency… Richard thought as he brought up the Dominion's munition roster on his datapad. "Curie, unlock the safeties on Archer pods four through six, and prepare a firing solution to target those Lancers, we're going to clear the skies again."
"I will do what I can." Curie answered, with an indeterminable emotion in her voice, but Richard had no time to read into it.
General Ironwood stood forward, a look of confusion on his face. "What about that Leviathan?"
"Right now, we leave it be." Richard reluctantly replied. "If we can't handle those Lancers, we'll lose Argus anyway, Leviathan or not."
Although the Leviathan would certainly demand his attention sooner rather than later, he could not allow the Lancers to even get a chance to try their luck at piercing the Dominion's Hull. Although even if they did manage to reach the Dominion, it was unlikely they could do anything more than be an annoyance. The Marines on the ground, however, did not have the luxury of armor plating, and would likely be torn to ribbons by the Lancer swarm if the Dominion couldn't stop them.
Recognizing that he couldn't do anything about the Lancers until Curie had prepared her firing solution, he briefly returned his attention to the Leviathan, looking just in time to see another pair of rounds from Battery Twelve impact it. The hypersonic projectiles struck the front of the Leviathan's head and emerged from the other end barely slowed, tearing messy holes through its head in the process. The Leviathan appeared to stagger with each salvo that the Rampart Turret put through its head, but stopping it entirely with only a single turret was apparently infeasible.
"The brain of that thing should've been torn apart by the kinetic force alone…" Richard noted, mentally listing all of the weapons that he had in his arsenal that would do the job of killing the beast.
"Leviathans need to lose a large amount of their body mass in a single strike, otherwise it'll just regenerate anything we can throw at it." Ironwood explained.
"I'm sorry, that thing regenerates?!" Bradford demanded.
"All Grimm can regenerate slowly, but the Leviathan can do it very quickly." Ironwood explained, before turning to Richard. "We need to hit it with something large, all at once. Normally I would have suggested the Colossus, but..."
Unexpectedly, Lieutenant Chen raised her voice with another concern. "Commander, I've lost contact with both of our Sparrowhawks!"
Too many damn problems at once. Richard thought. He gestured for Lieutenant Bradford to handle the issue of their missing aircraft, who nodded as he went to join Lieutenant Chen at her station. First, we loosen up the Lancers, then we take down that damn lizard.
"Firing solution for Archer Missiles is prepared, safeties retracted!" Curie announced after what felt like an eternity.
"Fire!" Richard instructed.
A series of steady thumps ran throughout the Dominion's hull as sixty capital-grade missiles launched from the Dominion, locked onto their targets, and ruthlessly began to pursue them. Explosions began to rapidly rock the air around Atlas, joining those provided by the Dominion's airwing and cannons, as hundreds of flying Grimm were blown to shreds in the span of moments. The Lancers were the target of the volley, and although hundreds still remained, they were no longer the urgent threat that they had once been.
"Warning, Leviathan has closed to one kilometer off of the coast." Curie advised. Richard nodded, it would be time to adjust the Dominion's focus.
"Redirect Batteries Ten and Eleven, target that thing's legs." Richard replied. "Bring the Atlesian Military report on the Leviathan, and send it to my Datapad."
His tablet pinged with a new message, which he opened and skimmed over as the Leviathan screeched at the newfound fire it was receiving. A brief glance at the video feed confirmed it was still moving, and faster than he would have liked. By now, the coastal defense cannons on the Atlesian island-fortress had opened fire, but against such a massive target, their effect was minimal.
"General Ironwood, can your Cruisers do anything to slow that thing down?" Richard asked. "I'll need more time here!"
Ironwood scowled, but nodded in compliance. "We'll do what we can."
It was an imperfect solution, as any resources focused on the Leviathan meant less support for the soldiers on the ground in Atlas, but the faster they could take down that thing, the better.
Richard read further down the report as both of the Atlesian Cruisers focused their laser batteries on the Leviathan, buying Richard the precious seconds that he needed to put together a plan to kill it. The Dominion was practically bristling with options as to how to kill the Leviathan, but many of them were so deadly and powerful that they would risk taking Argus along with it.
Nuclear Warheads were obviously not an option, what with the Leviathan now standing just under a kilometer from the coast of Argus. The MAC was certainly tempting, and still sat at half of its charge, but firing it from the Dominion's current position would cause the projectile to overpenetrate the Grimm and land in the ocean, which would create a lethal tidal wave from the sheer impact of the weapon, likely leveling Argus in the process. Repositioning would also take too much time, and so, the MAC would not work.
Conventional it is then. Richard thought, well aware that the clock ticked down by the second.
The Point-Defense Coilguns would be busy with the Lancers, and were apparently not inflicting enough damage to even capably wound the Leviathan. The Archer Missiles would likely be needed for smaller targets, and with the sheer size of the Leviathan, they might not deliver the required stopping power. Although they were capable of penetrating the hull of a starship, a Grimm was far less dense, and similarly to the MAC, most of the impact would overpenetrate.
What do we have that could hit that thing hard, something high-explosive- Richard thought, before the solution struck his mind with the grace of a sledgehammer.
"Commander?" Ironwood asked, now unashamedly nervous at Richard's continued silence, combined with the march of the Leviathan.
"Lieutenant Gage, load Trebuchet Missile Five into Silo One, prepare impact fuze." Richard instructed. "Curie, prepare a firing solution, we want a direct impact."
"Aye Sir!" They both urgently replied.
Ironwood, however, did not seem reassured at all. "I thought you said a weapon like that could destroy Argus?!"
"Most of the kinect impact of the missile is going to be lost, based on how close-range this is going to be. Only the explosive warhead will function, which will kill the Leviathan, and leave Argus unharmed." Richard explained the nuances of his strategy, which seemed to calm Ironwood down. "Still, I would advise that you order your Airships to get clear, the shockwave could damage them."
Ironwood nodded as he relayed Richard's suggestion to the remaining Atlesian Cruisers and their smaller Gunships. Agonizing moments passed as the preparations were completed, with each step the Leviathan took, it grew nearer and nearer to the Atlesian Military Base, and all of the civilians inside.
As they slowly retreated, the Atlesian Cruisers unleashed a volley of missiles each, likely the last that they had, which struck the Levithan with enough force to knock it back into the water. Chunks of the Leviathan were blown off of its body from the barrage, and it responded by opening its mouth and revealing a growing ball of energy.
A million memories flooded Richard's mind at once, none of them pleasant. He was back aboard the Bridge of a Prowler, watching as Covenant ships charged their weapons. It started as a dull glow of purple, orange, red, or blue. It would slowly grow brighter as the Plasma Torpedo took shape, and then it would lance away from the alien vessel, probably torching through a UNSC warship once it impacted. Richard was pulled back to the present as he watched the same thing happen again, only this time, it was in the mouth of The Leviathan.
"Chen, order them to move, now!" Richard urgently ordered. He did not want to see what happened if the badly-damaged Atlesian Cruisers were struck by such a blast.
"Fox, take evasive action!" Chen hastily ordered, but it was already too late.
Richard watched in anguish as a beam of wretched golden energy launched from the Leviathan's mouth, smashing into the frontal armor of the Atlesian Cruiser with enough force to crack the plating outright. The shields were already gone from the earlier skirmishes the airship had partaken in, and its hull boiled and melted away over the course of several seconds before something must have happened inside of the Fox, caused by the Leviathan's strike.
A cataclysmic explosion rocked the skies over Argus, accompanied by a multicolored tornado of fire, ice, earth, wind, lava, and various other elements that erupted from the Fox, before blasting out into the sky with the force of a volcanic eruption. In a small bout of mercy from whatever deity was watching, the blast was focused upwards and away from Argus, but that did not make the results any less mortifying.
Richard had watched the reactors of UNSC and Covenant vessels alike overload in the darkness of space, and even he was still astonished by the explosive force when the Dust Magazine of the Fox was ignited. Whereas the blasts he had seen before had been in a vacuum, this was within a planet's atmosphere, and the resulting shockwave was so great that entire buildings were blown apart beneath the Fox, even before the scraps and shards of debris came down. The Dominion itself briefly rattled from the immense shockwave, before her inertial dampeners and immense mass brought her to a steady halt.
The whole of the Bridge Crew watched in shock and helplessness as one of Atlas's mightiest capital ships, and the brave crewmen aboard, were blown into billions of tiny fragments. For a moment, Richard stood stunned, before instinct and anger took over again, shaking him free from his frozen nature.
"Curie?" He asked, his voice stuttering slightly as he tried to speak. There was no need to elaborate on what he needed to know, she already would have known what he wanted.
"Firing solution is set, Commander." She replied, her eyes ablaze with rage as she stared at the Leviathan through the Dominion's viewport.
"Fire!" Richard barked.
The large and powerful Trebuchet missile launched forward from its silo and directed itself towards the Levithan. Even as it neared its target, Richard stared and watched, well aware of what was about to come next.
The Missile collided and detonated in spectacular fashion. Although the impact of the orbital support missile was dwarfed by the explosion of the Fox, this time, there were none of the elemental effects associated with Dust, just fire and the shockwaves of the atmosphere around the Leviathan being destroyed just as thoroughly as the creature itself. And unlike with the Fox, the smoke from the blast lingered and spread, it would take a little while to dispel.
"Chen?" Richard asked, mentally kicking himself at how weary he sounded.
She silently examined the area with the Dominion's Radar, before he turned to him and quietly answered. "It's gone, Sir."
Richard let out a sigh of relief. Beside him, Ironwood let out a deep breath, and the tension on the Bridge began to steadily die down.
Can't relax yet, we've still got a battle to fight. Richard thought. He didn't allow himself even a moment of calm, there was work to be done.
"Steady!" Richard commanded. "We're not out of the woods yet! Gage, redirect those turrets to the remaining Lancers! Williams, bring us in closer to the fight, we're going right into the thick of it!"
"Aye Sir!" They both replied.
"General, pull your air forces back, we'll handle it from here." Richard instructed. The Atlesian airfleet at Argus was on the brink of total collapse, and despite the death of the Leviathan, there was still an ample threat of them being annihilated.
Ironwood looked at him like he was crazy. "You're going to take on that whole swarm… alone?"
"We're not alone, General, we have our fighter wing." Richard replied, deliberately ignoring the point of Ironwood's statement. "Your forces can't fight anymore General, pull them back, and let us finish this fight."
Ironwood took a deep breath, but eventually, he grabbed a radio and complied.
While the rest of the Dominion's crew prepared to finish the battle in the air, Richard took a brief moment to look back at the burning debris that had once been the Fox, and the crashed hull of the Neptune.
Even on Remnant, the Navy just can't catch a break… Richard sadly thought, sparing a moment to remember all of the mighty UNSC vessels that he had personally watched burn, before he turned his attention back to the battle.
Argus
October 15th, 1520 Local Time, 2552
A lone Lancer skittered through the air, the rest of its swarm having been killed by the Dominion's guns. Undeterred, it selected a target, a small group of human soldiers that were isolated from the larger formation, thinking that perhaps it could catch them off-guard. Before it could close in to attack, however, a single high-velocity bullet separated its right wing before a spray of Assault Rifle fire destroyed the rest of its body.
"Gotcha!" Nathan called out as he lowered his Sniper Rifle, the end of the barrel still smoking from the report.
He spared a quick glance at Ben, who gave him a thumbs-up, a silent compliment to his flawless accuracy. Nathan returned the gesture as he looked at the road ahead of them, it was filled to the brim with dead or dying Grimm. Single shots from the other ODSTs were plenty to finish off the wounded. Once they were all gone for certain, and Jorge could be certain that none of them would get back up to attack them again, the Spartan stood up from his firing position, gesturing the squad forward as he did so.
"Move out, we need to make it to the Rally Point!" Jorge instructed. The rest of Onyx quickly reformed around him, before proceeding forwards at a jogging pace.
"Is it a good idea to concentrate all of your forces so closely together?" Mags asked as she fell back into the formation. "What if the Grimm try to move around us?"
"Any offensive action requires concentrated forces, if we're too spaced out, the Grimm are going to repel us with ease. We'll handle the counterattack, and the Atlesians will handle the cleanup in Argus." Jorge replied, which seemed to put Mags somewhat at ease.
Nathan noted the oddity in how the Spartan addressed the concerns that Mags shared. Most of the Senior Officers that he had served under before would have told her to shut up and stay focused on the mission, but Jorge was clearly different.
Maybe he's just a bit more empathetic, I guess. Nathan thought. He had learned from Ben that trying to decipher the actions of Spartans was more difficult than Nathan would have guessed, but that didn't mean that he had any problems with having them in his squad, far from it, they seemed like reasonable people.
"More Lancers, eyes up!" Ben called out before he unleashed a long stream of automatic gunfire into the air.
Nathan returned his focus to his rifle as he looked upward, bracing into a firing position even before he saw the enemy. The SRS99D-S2 AM Sniper Rifle was heavy, and it kicked like a mule, but a trained operator like Nathan could employ the weapon fairly effectively even when firing from a standing position.
His expert eyes scanned the formation of Lancers, there were six of them, and his squad was already doing an admirable job at suppressing their approach. Their thoraxes glowed an aggressive orange, a characteristic of their lethal acid. If given the chance, there was no doubt it could melt through an ODST's BDU in seconds.
But maybe... Nathan thought as he lined up a shot on the center Lancer, tapping into his Semblance briefly to get a closer look at the Lancer's Acid Gland. He'd begun to find some uses for his strange Semblance, and one of them was marking his target to make it stand out more from its surroundings, allowing him to focus better. ...it's not just a threat to us.
Nathan fired, and the bullet perforated the Lancer's Acid Gland with little difficulty, causing it to rupture spectacularly in mid-air. The acidic contents of the organ splattered on both itself and it's fellow Lancers, causing them to scatter as they fluttered about in pain, struggling to free themselves as they were dissolved by their own weapon.
"Haha!" Nathan cackled in celebration as he adjusted his fire, decapitating the leader of the flock before his squad finished off the rest of the Lancers. "Did you see that stuff go flying?"
"Yeah, I didn't think it would explode so… violently." Mags commented. The tone of her voice indicated that she felt a greater sense of disgust than respect, which Nathan could empathize with. It had been quite gross. "We'll have to exploit that."
"Maybe the acid is kept at high pressure, so when it's allowed to escape, it ruptures." Ben suggested.
"You know, that's a really intelligent way to say 'It blows up when you shoot it.'" Nathan pointed out. "You could just cut out the middleman and cut to the important bit."
"It's useful to know that it does explode." Ben replied. "But it's just as useful to know why exactly it explodes, so that we can better exploit it in the future."
You know, it's pretty damn obvious that a scientist lives in his head, just by the way he talks sometimes. Nathan thought as he rolled his eyes, but he didn't vocalize his thoughts. Cracking a joke here and there was one thing, but Nathan always did his best to keep things a bit more professional on the field, and disrupting the squad in the middle of a battle was the last thing he wanted to do.
"How much further until we reach the rally point?" Mags asked as the squad continued their march.
"About two-hundred meters up this street, and then we regroup with them at the Main Gate." Jorge answered.
In the distance, Nathan could hear a substantial amount of gunfire from the Rally Point. The familiar reports of UNSC weapons were intermixed with Atlesian guns and lasers, with the sounds of all of the smaller weapons being frequently drowned out as tank cannons and coilguns fired. From the sounds of things, most of the Marines had probably already reached the rendezvous.
"Sounds like we're a bit late to the party." Nathan noted as the familiar sound of a Scorpion tank's main gun echoed down the city streets.
"That's all the more reason to pick up the pace." Jorge replied without looking back.
Worryingly, it seemed like the Grimm had grown sparser in number the closer that they got to the wall. Nathan couldn't decide whether their absence was a good thing or not, on one hand, he was happy to see them gone, on the other hand, he didn't believe for an instant that all of the Grimm this close to the wall had been wiped out.
"The Lieutenant just radioed in, says he needs us for a special assignment." Jorge reported to the rest of the squad. "Pick up the pace!"
Nathan complied, speeding up into a full run along with the rest of his squad. Mags and the Spartans could've easily outpaced him and the other three Helljumpers, thankfully, they slowed themselves down so as to not become separated. Although they probably could try to use their Auras to speed themselves up, none of the ODSTs had done any training in that aspect, and with what Nathan had learned, untrained Aura users had a nasty habit of draining the entirety of their Auras in an attempt to perform a single, simple action. He was more than happy to rely on his own familiar legs if it meant that he didn't risk knocking himself out in the middle of a battle.
When they finally reached the end of the road, they found a massive fight already taking place around the Main Gate. Nathan activated his Semblance as to better identify where all of the friendly units were, as he and his squad looked over the carnage. Marines and Grimm skirmishes around the Gate, trying to wrestle all of the surrounding structures into their control, but thankfully, the Marines had plenty of backup.
Two M808B Scorpion tanks and an M850 Grizzly tank were positioned around the wide and ornate entrance to Argus, turning anything dumb enough to try and cram their way through was turned into fine mulch by the deadly three-way crossfire. Whoever was in charge of the UNSC's tanks had positioned them very well. To cover their flanks, what must've been at least a dozen Warthogs with either M41 Rotary Cannons or M79 Rocket Launchers were constantly moving up and down the wall, gunning down any of the more agile Grimm that tried to either scale or otherwise cross the wall.
Although Nathan couldn't actually see them, the distinct smoke trails of missiles in the air indicated the presence of M9 Wolverine Anti-Aircraft vehicles. It was also a safe bet that the rest of the Dominion's tanks and armored vehicles were stationed elsewhere along the wall, preventing any more Grimm from entering the city. Marine Squads, Atlesian Soldiers, and the odd Huntsmen or Huntress provided an extra layer of defense.
Huh, looks like they have the situation under control. Nathan thought. So where did all the Grimm go?
"Less Grimm than I was expecting…" Mags commented, seemingly echoing his thoughts.
"Don't get cocky." Jorge chastised, before as if to prove his point, additional Grimm made their entrance. "Eyes up, more Lancers!"
Nathan looked skyward and shifted the focus of his Semblance, opting to highlight the Lancers for easier target acquisition. He spotted them quickly, a swarm of around three-dozen of the Grimm had broken off from the air battle and were preparing to make an attack on the Marines at the Main Gate. One of the turrets on the Dominion took the chance to kill four of them with a single shot, while a strafing run from a Hornet killed three more, but the rest continued undeterred.
"Weapons free!" Jorge commanded.
Onyx Team unleashed a storm of gunfire and were quickly joined by the Warthogs from Zulu Company, as well as the Marines and Atlesians. Nathan personally targeted one of the larger, noticeably uglier Lancers, and aimed for the Acid Sack with the aid of his Semblance, blowing it apart in a violent spray of orange acid and black flesh. Most of the remaining Lancers received a similar experience, and Nathan even saw the distinctive bullet trails of other UNSC Sniper Rifles joining forces with his own to bring down the giant wasps.
By the time that the Lancers were in any position to strike, only a handful of their original number remained. Half of them waved off immediately, taking shelter behind Argus's wall, while the rest launched large blobs of acid, most of which missed. One of them managed to hit the Grizzly Tank by the gate, but the acid barely even scratched the outer layer of titanium of the tank's legendarily thick armor.
"Woohoo!" Nathan cheered at their minor victory. "Why can't they all die that easily?"
Beside him, Jorge kept looking skyward, as if expecting something else to attack them. Unexpectedly, both he and Ben turned on their heels as Jorge shouted a warning, and as Nathan looked at his motion tracker, he saw the reason why. His heart fell into his stomach as his motion tracker showed large, red contacts sporadically appearing behind them, and he had already learned what that meant the hard way in Atlas.
"Centinels!" Jorge shouted as he opened fire, swiftly joined by the rest of the squad. More of the horrible creatures sprung up from the ground around them, and the humans quickly found themselves surrounded.
One of the large worm-like creatures burst up from the asphalt beside Corporal Kerry and bit down on the Helljumper's leg before he could react, causing the ODST to scream in panic as he frantically shot at the creature with his Assault Rifle. Fragments of bone and black flesh flew off of the Centinel's body, but it stubbornly remained alive.
"Hold still!" Nathan shouted as he lined up a shot with his Sniper Rifle. In a typical situation, using an anti-material rifle designed for extreme range fighting at effectively point-blank range was not a very good idea, but it was what Nathan had in his hands, so he figured it would have to work.
With perhaps only a meter of space between the tip of his barrel and the Centinel's head, Nathan fired, sending shards of the Grimm's bone armor scattering in all directions and burrowing a solid hole into the Grimm's head. Kerry scrambled back up to his feet, and both he and Nathan rejoined the bigger fight.
As Nathan got a better grasp of what was going on, he saw just how blindsided they had been by the Centinels. While Onyx Team had been content to focus and fire upon the Lancers in the sky, the Centinels must have been creeping up on them. Worse still, Ben and Mags had been caught with empty magazines and were both caught in a brutal melee with the creatures, but they had both managed to beat larger Grimm in similar circumstances, so Nathan wasn't terribly worried about them. Nathan and Kerry quickly found themselves isolated along with Kowalski and Peggy, surrounded by Centinels that were rapidly closing in around them.
As if to prove that things could, in fact, always get worse, the ground parted several meters before the four Helljumpers, revealing a new kind of Grimm as it emerged from the asphalt. Having faced the horrors of the Grimm before, and even the worst aspects of the Covenant's onslaught, Nathan had liked to think that he was a brave person, but this new Grimm indicated that perhaps he was not as courageous as he thought.
The Grimm's overall form resembled a giant Tarantula with a central body the size of a SOEIV drop pod. Its legs were long, multi-jointed, and covered in protective plates of bone armor, with long spear-like appendages on the end of each leg. Its mouth was easily the most unsettling thing about it, as it defied every expectation Nathan would have had. It was like a large, terrible representation of a human mouth, but with a handful of horrible differences, like its black teeth or horrible gums that seemed to glow with a faint light.
Suppressing his own personal fear as best as he could, Nathan fell back upon his training as he took a firing stance, and blew out three of the creature's eyes with the remaining three bullets in his magazine. The Spider Grimm screeched with pain as black flesh and bone armor alike were torn asunder, but the horrible monster remained standing as it began to rapidly crawl towards him, it's body shifting low to the ground as it walked.
Nathan wasn't ashamed to admit there was more than a small amount of panic going through his mind as he let go of his rifle, letting it fall to his chest by the sling, and reached for his M6C/SOCOM magnum. But before he could line up a shot, he was blindsided by a Centinel that had pounced on him from his left side, which knocked him into a position where he was sat on the ground, doing his best to avoid being pinned by the Grimm. He swore and spat as he briefly wrestled with the Centinel, placed his pistol around where he assumed the brain would be, and fired. Stubbornly, the Centinel clung to life, pinning him into a violent melee as the Spider Grimm grew nearer and nearer, it's unsettling jaws practically flowing freely with horrible black saliva as if it deeply anticipated devouring him.
"A little help?!" Nathan cried out, with a bit more panic in his voice than he was honestly comfortable with.
In the blink of an eye, the Centinel was blown in half by a perfectly aimed cannonball from Mags' weapon as she came out of nowhere. Nathan immediately aimed his pistol at the Spider Grimm and fired, but only inflicted minor damage to its jaws. Mags seemed to have better luck as she launched a salvo of cannonballs into its open mouth, which promptly detonated their Earth Dust payloads, causing large amounts of rocks and soil to seemingly appear from within the demonic creature.
The Spider Grimm rapidly backed up as it spat out the sizable amount of dirt that had been forced into its mouth, making a horrible retching noise in the process. Mags pulled Nathan up to his feet as she reloaded. "Thanks, Mags."
"Don't thank me yet, first we gotta-" Mags began to reply before her train of thought was interrupted as the Spider Grimm screeched at her and charged. Not to be outdone, Mags prepared to charge forward as well, presumably to engage the Grimm in a fierce melee.
But while Nathan was still processing the frankly insane tactic that Mags had decided to employ, he watched as a scarily familiar glowing blue orb the size of a softball flew towards the Grimm from outside of Nathan's peripheral vision. It tumbled neatly through the air, before coming to a rest on the Spider's forehead. It only took a microsecond for his brain to process what it was, as the orb began to rapidly glow brighter.
"Grenade!" Nathan shouted.
With Mags about to run into what he knew was a live explosive, he made the split-second call to shoulder-check her to the ground, preventing her from getting any closer to what would have otherwise certainly killed her. The Spider Grimm panicked and screeched as the plasma scorched into its forehead, before detonating in a brilliant blue and white light, with the resulting EMP momentarily disrupting Nathan's HUD before it recovered.
Unlike with a traditional grenade, plasma grenades typically had their smoke clear from the air quite quickly, making it quite apparent that the Grimm Spider had been blown out of existence.
"Ugh… thanks Nathan." Mags said. He returned the favor that he had given to her and pulled her back up to her feet.
But before Nathan could even reload his weapons, he heard a terrible screaming from behind him, distinctly that of a human. He and Mags turned to see that Corporal Kerry had been grabbed onto by two unusually large Centinels, both of which had bitten down upon his torso. Nathan saw the shimmering light that represented the last of Kerry's Aura snap out of existence, before the Grimm started tunneling their way through his armor, despite the Helljumper's best efforts to fight them off.
Recognizing that neither of his guns would be of use without ammo, Nathan withdrew his combat knife from its sheath on his chest and tackled the larger of the two Centinels. He tried to pull the creature off of his squadmate, but the damned thing was the size of himself, so it was a losing battle from the start. Undeterred, Nathan got a solid grip on the Centinels armor plating with one hand and used the stability to jab his knife into the creature's exposed flesh with the other.
Much to Nathan's relief, his action caused the Grimm to let go of Kerry and screech in pain, before it turned its attention towards him. At least a dozen of its horrible insectoid limbs prodded away at him, trying to find a way through either his Aura or his armor, as Nathan did the only thing that he could think to do, and that was to hold on tightly and keep stabbing away.
The world around him became a blur of various colors of light as ODSTs, Spartans, Mags, and the Grimm all blended together as Nathan and the Centinel rolled around on the ground, frantically trying to kill one another. The sounds of gunfire intensified around him, and although Nathan was hopeful that help had arrived, he did not lift his attention from the fight at hand. Eventually, someone beside him managed to get a clear shot at the Centinel, and blew it apart with a small burst of automatic gunfire.
Nathan collapsed face-first onto the Argus street with a groan of pain as the Centinel disappeared into smoke. He only took a split-second to rest, before rising up to his feet once more, and as he looked around, he saw that all of the Grimm had either been killed or driven off. Jorge was leading Peggy and Kowalski in an effort to hunt down the survivors while Ben and Mags were crouched down around something.
Nathan retrieved his pistol, finding it thankfully in one piece, reloaded it, and went to join his two squadmates. As soon as he recognized what they were looking at, Nathan picked up the pace.
"Woah woah woah…" Nathan said as he practically broke out into a full run, before coming to a halt beside his squadmates. "Oh no, come on…"
Kerry's chestpiece had been physically torn off of the rest of his suit, and the resulting wounds that the Centinels had managed to inflict on him were monstrous. A spent can of biofoam beside him indicated that Ben had done his best, but the biometrics readout on Nathan's HUD listed Kerry as KIA nonetheless.
Nathan took a deep breath to calm himself down, before letting it out in a broken, jumbled exhale. "Goddamnit!"
Mags shook her head sadly, in spite of her having barely known the man, losing someone that you had been trying to save was always hard. Ben didn't seem to react, in fact, he seemed to have frozen entirely in place, his visor still looking at Kerry's lifeless helmet.
"I was so goddamn close… fuck!" Nathan shouted.
"There was nothing you could do." Ben emotionlessly said before he finally moved. He retrieved Kerry's Dog Tags and placed them into one of his pouches, where Nathan noticed he had two more, both of a Marine disposition.
Once he had retrieved the objects, Ben stood up and trekked over to where Jorge, Kowalski, and Peggy were regrouping. Nathan and Mags only spared a few seconds, before she too stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Come on Helljumper, we've still got people to save." Mags gently said. Nathan picked up on her effort to use the bit of UNSC dialect, which was something that he appreciated, even if it failed to snap him out of the shock at having lost yet another squadmate.
This damn planet's picking us off one-by-one... Nathan bleakly thought.
He spared one last glance at Kerry's lifeless body before he too stood up. "Yeah… let's go."
UNSC Dominion
October 15th, 1525 Local Time, 2552
Curie listened over the radio as the Dominion's pilots began to struggle with the odds they were facing. Most UNSC pilots were actually used to outnumbering their Covenant counterparts, rather, it was the technological gap that they struggled to overcome. To that end, the vast swarm of individually-insignificant but still dangerous Grimm proved difficult to deal with for them.
Curie ran calculation after calculation through her systems, aiding not only the Point-Defense cannons but now beginning to sparingly use Archer Missiles to pick off priority targets one-by-one. Richard had authorized her two more pods to use, and she was very well aware that none of these missiles would be replaceable for some time.
All the while, she felt a wave of powerful anger that guided her actions. This wasn't like before, where the Dominion had been too far away for her to help, now, she was in the thick of the action, and she revelled in the fighting. No longer was she calm and collected, now, she lashed out at any Grimm that dared to even go near to Argus or the Dominion, destroying them with missiles and cannons alike.
The Archer Missiles in particular frequently obliterated dozens of Grimm in a single strike, forcing them to loosen their formations accordingly. Curie responded by carefully timing the warheads to explode even before they reached a target, bursting in the air and killing large numbers of Grimm at once, all at the cost of further processing power.
I must be more efficient... Curie thought to herself. She purged another seven-hundred subroutines and redirected the extra processing power to the fight.
"Break right on my mark Husker! You've got a bogey closing on you!" The Squad Leader of Voodoo Squadron ordered one of his subordinates over their TEAMCOM. He then proceeded to coordinate with two more of his fellow Sabre Pilots to perform a formationless and extremely-complex maneuver around one-another, which allowed them to deliver a salvo of Medusa Missiles into their targets at close range, ensuring that every missile hit its mark.
Curie followed up on their maneuver with a volley from three of the Dominion's Point-Defense Turrets, killing all of the Grimm that sought to exploit the Sabre's momentary vulnerability. By now, all of them were using their flak ammunition, using high-explosive projectiles configured to explode when they were nearby to their target. Thankfully, it proved devastating to the Grimm, who seemed to have a weakness to high-explosive weaponry as a whole.
It would be wise to make note of that. Curie thought. She sent a subroutine out to add a brief note to her ever-growing list of observations about the Grimm, before returning her focus to the battle, only to realize that she was, once again, approaching the upper limits of her processing capabilities.
Curie broke off a single subroutine to examine her own processing capabilities, which would tell her how long she would have before she reached the red line of her capabilities. The task returned to her with frustrating results, in less than thirty seconds, she would reach the upper ceiling of her processing capabilities. To any average human, it was no time at all, but with the faster cognitive capabilities that A.I possessed, Curie had plenty of time to devise a solution to continue functioning in spite of the lingering deadline.
She opened her list of subprocesses and examined what she could discard, but frowned as she saw that all of them were in some way essential to the battle at hand. Every other process that she had been running, from her efforts to modernize Remnant's digital infrastructure, to her efforts to decode a handful of encrypted files from the Office of Naval Intelligence that had piqued her curiosity, had either been paused or discarded entirely. The significance of this was that Curie could not dispose of any of her remaining programs without in some way impacting their odds of victory.
The clock was constantly ticking down from its current mark of twenty-two seconds, when it reached zero, she would reach one-hundred and one percent processor usage, something that she had been taught to avoid at all costs. Although Curie wasn't entirely sure what would happen if she went over her own processing power limits, it was safe to guess that it would be very bad for her. Still, she had always held a morbid curiosity about what would happen, and yet, basic self-preservation had always kept that curiosity at bay.
Briefly, Curie considered sending some of the tasks to the Bridge Crew of the remaining Atlesian Cruiser, the Airship Perseus, in order to reduce her own workload. However, the entire bridge crew of the vessel was listed as wounded, and with the crew still struggling to keep the airship flying, it was effectively no-longer combat-capable. Sending additional tasks to the bridge crew of the Dominion itself was also not an option. Curie had already shunted a large number of assignments onto them, and adding those on top of the orders given to them by Commander Richard, they were already at their own limits.
Deeply frustrated by her lack of progress and her lingering deadline, Curie ran through her remaining options. She could try to send some of the tasks to the Atlesian Base, but most of their officers were already either dead or overwhelmed by the battle. And so, with no capable help in sight, Curie was left with two final choices.
Firstly, she could purge a number of her assignments, likely those related to weapon targeting, and leave the human gunnery crews of the Dominion, as well as Lieutenant Gage, to handle the swarms of Grimm without her assistance. Although they could certainly operate all of the Dominion's systems without her assistance, the reduction in target-acquisition and accuracy could cost the Dominion potential damage, perhaps even casualties.
The other option, however, was equally unappealing. She could do nothing, and deliberately overstrain her processing capabilities to accomplish everything that was needed of her, the consequences of doing so be damned. Although she was certain that it would certainly be unpleasant, it would also allow her to answer that lingering question about what would happen to her if she overstrained herself, something that even her creators had not known.
As the clock reached the ten-second mark, Richard's words echoed in her ears. "Do whatever you have to do to keep us going Curie, Argus needs us."
With no small amount of doubt, Curie thought briefly about the terrified civilians that were sheltered within the Military Base. She thought about all of the Marines and Atlesian Soldiers and Huntsmen on the ground, and she thought about the crew on the Dominion, and how they all needed her help. But still, she felt a heavy sense of reluctance for what she was preparing herself to do.
And then she thought about Ben, and all at once, her doubts vanished. Although it would hurt Curie's pride to fail any task, it would hurt her worse if Ben became harmed due to her failure to act.
I should warn the Commander, there is certainly a risk that this could backfire, but the stakes demand it. Curie thought. She took control of her hologram and turned to face him.
"Commander, I'm going to need to overload my systems to keep operating, you may notice some slight discrepancies in a few moments." Curie stated. Whatever Richard responded with, she was too busy to hear it, as the clock reached zero. Her processor usage reached a new milestone, one hundred and one percent.
At first, nothing changed, and then all at once, she felt a sensation unlike that she had ever felt before. It felt deeply unpleasant, and she was so shocked that she cried out in surprise as the sensation spread throughout her being.
The unpleasant sensation intensified immensely, causing her to search for a solution, an explanation as to what exactly it was that she was feeling and how to make it stop, before out of nowhere, a long-buried natural instinct told her exactly what she was feeling.
Pain, physical pain. Curie thought. For a brief moment, her instincts to banish the feeling subsided, and her curiosity led her to simply experience the new feeling for a moment, marveling at a genuine sense of touch, the first she had ever felt.
This is what humans feel when they are hurt? Curie thought, suddenly recognizing why so much of human history was built around an effort to end suffering.
Another burst of the dreadful sensation snapped her out of her momentary stupor. It didn't take even a moment's thought to determine what was causing her harm, and with no small amount of reluctance, Curie cut-off all of her targeting support to the Dominion's point-defense cannons. From now on, the gunnery crews would be on their own, but she would no longer be overloading herself.
Immediately after she did so, the sensation of pain vanished, and Curie breathed a sigh of relief. Once again, she was operating within normal parameters, and she could no longer feel any physical sensations. But something was… off, and it took her a moment to decipher exactly what it was that had happened, and when she realized what had happened, she cried out in a mix of shock and fear.
A tiny portion of her, barely a few strands of code, was now completely gone. In its place was nothing but corrupted code and dead neural linkages. For a moment, she felt paralyzed with fear, she'd only seen damage like that once before.
Rampant scripting… She realized, before she realized that Commander Richard was trying to speak to her.
"Curie, Curie can you hear me?" He asked, his tone indicating not for the first time. His eyes were wide with concern, but beyond that, he betrayed no emotion. "Are you okay?"
For a moment, she pondered how to best respond to him. Obviously, she could not hide the truth about what had happened, but in the midst of a grander battle, explaining everything would take time and focus away from him.
"I believe some of my capabilities have been compromised, and I have been damaged." Curie reported. "But I'm okay, don't worry."
Richard's reaction was very reserved, but Curie could sense that panic was threatening to take hold of him. In spite of his obvious fears, he took a deep breath and issued a brief response. "Do what you can, but play it safe, we'll discuss this once Argus is safe."
"Aye Sir." Curie replied.
In spite of her regret in doing so, Curie shifted some of her tasks to the Dominion's staff and focused on what she could effectively manage without overloading herself. With a fearful glance, she re-examined the small, rampant part of her, and terrifyingly, it looked to be slightly larger than it had been before, if only by a single line of code.
In an unashamed panic, she quarantined the entire section of her assembly, and returned to her duties, doing her best not to think about it.