Chapter 4

Location: Planet Dyonisis, Delta Xi System

Date: January 24, 2524

Time: 0945 Zulu

The operation to take this island had been going on for three days and things had definitely slowed down. Much of the island was under UNSC control and the remnants of the Insurrectionists knew it and were getting desperate. The island's last Innie stronghold, the largest settlement named New Messina, was now home to a force estimated to be at least twelve hundred strong. Most of them being from the local Colonial Guard battalion that had avoided engaging the Marine forces on the ground, until now.

The full force of the Marine regiment was now being focused on this coastal city of more than ten thousand. This included the fifty-eight M808B "Scorpions" of the 12th Marine Tank Battalion. These armored behemoths had been fully landed two days ago, and were finally operating in full force rather than piecemeal as they had earlier in the operation.

In reality each platoon of five tanks was split off to an individual Marine infantry company to support their drive to the city. At the moment 2nd Platoon of Company C was operating in the southern front of the advance toward New Messina with Company F of the 4th Marine Battalion. The terrain facing them was predominantly hilly and sparsely wooded with rocky outcroppings and a few villages along the road into town. Around them was the full force of the Marine company with thirty-eight Warthogs of all kinds arrayed around them in platoon groupings. To the left and right of this central company were two other infantry companies with the rest of Company C in support. To their left was the Marine battalion's weapons company with fifteen M841 Cougar AFV's on line ready to advance with the five Scorpions of first platoon to provide covering fire from the high ground on the left flank of the advance. Behind them was another infantry company with another mass of Warthogs and a reserve EOD team. Altogether, seventeen Scorpions, nineteen Cougars, and a hundred-fourteen Warthogs were ready to advance. Behind them was the Fourth Battalion CP in the form of an Elephant with the armored company's two HQ Scorpions in place ready to support their advance if they ran into trouble.

The five tanks of second platoon were forward, on the edge of the small village the Marines had halted at to allow a resupply to get to them along with an EOD team with a pair of M841 Cougars outfitted with the necessary gear to clear landmines and IED's. The tanks were well-hidden within a layer of forest, with the tall evergreens giving them cover from the snow and the eyes of the enemy force.

They were overlooking a pair of small towns/villages closely spaced with several fields and meadows around them, cleared for the visibly grazing cattle and sheep that were milling around in the deep snow that had covered the ground. A series of low rocky mountains off to the left were well covered in boreal forest and was crawling with Innie fighters. Occasionally a loud boom signaled an airstrike in the thick woods and was then followed by a plume of ugly gray smoke, mushrooming into the sky only to be blown away in the high winds now plaguing the island as snow came down in thick blankets that made it increasingly difficult to see more than a five hundred meters.

In fact the tanks could only see, with the naked eye at least, to the first group of buildings of the town Troina with the town of Catania invisible behind a layer of white falling snow another kilometer down the road. The terrain here was rugged as is, but now, with a blanket of snow covering much of the area, things were going to be quite difficult.

This little length of settlement rested in one of the few valleys in the area that was large enough to sustain the livestock that grazed in the meadows. Much of the town's farms were actually below ground, fed and warmed by geothermal energy which kept crops growing all year round. These large, but shallow, subterranean caverns allowed the predominantly Italian population to grow everything that their culture was known for in abundance and be self-sufficient for the most part. However these underground farms had posed a problem. They had been connected by the Innies to form a vast and unobservable line of communication, movement, supply, and housing for their defenders and their weapons and ammunition. The Marines would have to clear these out one by one.

In this platoon was Fullback, a Scorpion commanded by Staff Sergeant Seth Friis who'd named his tank after the position he played on the battalion football team. He was the tank commander, and was last in line for command of the platoon. In his tank he had his driver, Corporal Castore Buccho, an Italian newbie with a bad habit of using their tank as a giant hammer in past operations. His gunner was Sergeant Archer Smithies, an Australian who many of the platoon called a Cliffjumper after their tank had been hit on their first mission together and he'd jumped from his seat and landed on a deep and steep ditch and tumbled into a brace of thorn bushes. This crew of three had been on three different operations together on three different planets. And Fullback itself, or himself, as Friis said, had nearly had its turret blown off on two of those operations.

Staff Sergeant Friis wasn't with his crew at the moment, instead he was behind King, his platoon leader's tank. Next to him were the other tank commanders, who were all kneeling around a blue hologram of their area of operations. On it they saw the numerous markers of friendly units and the red markers of enemy forces that were believed to be in the area. They also had a full view of the underground complex that was on record thanks to careful building inspections that allowed the UNSC to know precisely where the Innies were likely to be hiding. This however wasn't their problem, the presence of Insurrectionist armor on the other hand was the entire reason they were here.

"Marines," their platoon leader, First Lieutenant Kyle Angelo, said calmly, "The regiment's pushing forward on New Messina but we've got to get through this valley and capture these towns and the high ground along the coast road."

"We can tell eltee," the platoon sergeant chuckled, "That's why we're here isn't it?"

"Nothing gets past you First Sergeant. But the Innies have been expecting us and are prepared. Force Recon has already probed this area and took a beating from MG's, mortars, rockets, and armored vehicles," the man said calmly, pointing at the positions marked on the edge of the first town.

"Armored vehicles huh?" Friis asked, "Did they know what kind?"

"They were saying that they got hit with direct fire from one-oh-fives from two angles. So there's at least two hostile Scorpions out there, probably hidden in an underground garage or barn. They've also got AT and a ton of IED's and mines scattered along the road and in the fields and buildings."

"That'll be tough on our infantry," one of the other tank commanders noted.

"Thankfully our EOD guys have pinpointed where most of the ones along the road and fields are located and are ready to pick them off with guns and det-cords. We're to cover their vehicles and knock out the tanks that the Innies have got waiting there and destroy any strongpoints our infantry comes across."

"So a basic support mission sir?"

"Pretty much, we've all done this before so let's get it done. Keep your front glacis facing forward, I don't want to lose any tanks. We've also been dropping leaflets on the town, warning civilians to evacuate. Thankfully most of them have the common sense to leave or take shelter."

"So only a few civilians," Friis grumbled, "How do we know which buildings still have people?"

"The leaflets advised the civilians to surrender immediately upon our infantry entering their homes. From there a troop hog will take them out of the combat area. We also need to cover those evac hogs."

"Who's leading?" one of the other tank commanders asked.

"We're going to have three tanks on the road, two leading, one in the rear and the other two on the flanks. I'll be second in line in the middle. Bloody Mary," he continued, using the names of the tanks, "Want lead?"

"Sure," came the enthusiastic reply from Staff Sergeant Petra Edwena, commander of an all-female tank crew.

"Okay, Raider, you're third in the center," he then said, signaled Staff Sergeant Christopherson, "Longhorn, you're on the left and Fullback you're on the right."

"Copy that," Friis responded with a nod, just as a familiar noise started screaming in.

"Incoming!"

Every one of the tankers dove to the ground and slipped their helmets on and hoped that the mortar rounds coming in at them would miss. The whistling sound was shortly followed by a low crack as a spout of snow and smoke went out from behind them right in front of the leading Warthog of the column of UNSC vehicles. It was shortly followed by another that landed right in front of the tank they were taking shelter behind. Then a third immediately pummeled an empty wooden barn that hid the tank immediately to their left. Pieces of wood and hay rained down upon the multispectral camo-covered tank which had its two other crewmen shut up tight in the safety of their vehicle. And then to the far right where Friis's tank was parked, one last round struck in between Fullback and Raider.

"Mount up while they're reloading," Lieutenant Angelo called out after there was a pause between the mortar rounds.

Without much word being spoken beyond that the five individuals sprinted to their vehicles. The snow was beaten down and they were within the cover of the treeline and thanks to the plentiful trees their travel was made easy. This small expanse of trees was outside the village where their battalion CP was located and there was plenty of cover if the Innies fired off more mortars, which they did. As the stocky tanker got to his vehicle another volley of mortar fire started coming down.

He reached his Scorpion right as the first shell smacked into a tree, shattering the wood in all directions with needles and branches falling onto the forest floor along with a raining shower of snow as the shockwave blew all of the snow off nearby trees. Grabbing his HMG on its mount he opened his hatch which slid forward and jumped down and flopped into his seat as the second and third mortar rounds struck the forest floor somewhere out to his right. The fourth round seemed to be coming right at them and he yanked his hatch down and felt his vehicle shake and heard the pings of the shrapnel smacking against the armor.

"That one was close," he heard his driver call out from behind him on the tank's radio.

"No shit," Friis responded, "Gunner can you get eyes on those mortars?"

"That's a negative sarge. No eyes," Archer responded.

"Alright, that's what I figured," Friis grumbled as he linked his helmet to the tank's systems and grabbed onto his joysticks next to his seat and got a view from the independently mounted camera on the top of turret, "Driver start us up and run a systems check."

"Roger," his driver responded quickly and then felt the tank shake as the big diesel engines started up with a roar.

Friis swiveled his camera back and forth as his gunner did likewise, scanning for targets. He didn't even bother with normal vision and switched to thermal. Everything seemed to be a shade of black or gray with potential targets and the discharge of weapons showing up as a bright white. His complex optics systems provided him with a full outline of the entire terrain in front of him with red dots on his HUD all over the place that signaled the pinpointed locations of IED's and mines. He was grateful for the complex bomb sniffing drones that the EOD teams had used to explore the area, sweeping the road and fields for explosive booby traps that the Insurrection had put out for them.

He winced at the more than thirty IED's and mines that had been placed in the way of their advance. The UNSC had been dealing with IED's for many decades, and the Scorpion had been designed with this threat in mind. With four independent tracked nacelles the vehicle could potentially be tracked in one of them and have the ability to fall back or even continue forward with limited mobility. The numerous reactive armor blocks were each able to block out a rocket launcher strike and prevent a tank round from being lethal to the vehicle much less themselves. The turret itself was also designed for crew survivability, with a system designed to funnel the explosive force of a catastrophic blow up through the turret and away from the crew.

"Warrior Two-Six, all Warriors we're going forward with phase one. EOD's moving up and infantry is moving next to us to establish a base of fire on town," Lieutenant Angelo ordered Friis and the other tanks.

"Roger," he responded, "Gunner orient front, driver forward, slow."

The tank lurched forward as the turret oriented dead front with Friis watching carefully as the tank rolled to the edge of the woods to the point where the gun could be swiveled freely to engage targets. Soon a lot of Marines started moving up to their sides and took cover and prepared to fire into the town as the EOD Cougars moved up in column with a pair of Warthogs guarding their advance to provide cover fire.

"Halt, gunner search for targets."

The Insurrectionists quickly opened fire from the mountainside to their west, firing machine guns and rifles down at the UNSC forces with red tracers coming down like a rainbow originating from flashes amongst the trees to their right. These rounds were accurate, falling into the ranks of the Marines who took cover behind trees and their vehicles which had driven up next to them after getting a soft dismount from them. Twelve gun hogs had interspersed themselves amongst the Scorpions of 2nd Platoon along with six triple-barrel rocket hogs while three anti-air hogs were in the forest behind them, waiting for the possibility of an air attack. The right flank force of the weapons company with their much heavier armor and weapons instantly took to the offensive to cover the central force. Their heavy autocannons and machine guns lit up the hillside with white and red tracers impacting the area, explosions from the cannon rounds tearing apart the forest.

Immediately a pair of rockets were launched at the company on the left flank which impacted short in a flash of yellow light and gray and white smoke on the open ground. This really got their attention, as a single Scorpion let everyone know it was on the field as it loosed a one hundred five millimeter round with a loud crack that blew apart the spot where the rocket exhaust had started from. But another Scorpion round followed right behind it and struck below that round with another boom and a puff of smoke started wafting from the impact zone.

Then something Staff Sergeant Friis's eye in the middle of the town popping out into the alley of a pair of buildings and fired left of their tank. It was a white painted flatbed truck with a dual mount autocannon turret on the bed. Around it he saw several Innies jumping out from cover behind the truck and firing randomly. Just from this he could tell these were no turncoat Colonial Guards. Just more URF militia wannabes.

"Gunner traverse right, target technical, load HE," he quickly ordered.

"On!" Archer yelled out as he got on target.

"Hold!" Friis snapped right as he saw the truck shudder as it pulled forward to return to cover, "Wait till he pops out again."

"Roger."

The tank crew was able to hear their infantry firing their rifles, SAW's, and DMR's into town at a variety of targets that were firing back at them from windows, around the corners of buildings and hidden pillboxes buried beneath wrecked vehicles and felled trees. However there only seemed to be one heavy weapon firing at the UNSC force, and when it popped out from cover one too many times Friis had his gunner already lined up on it. He saw the truck back out into the alley once more, autocannons blazing heavy fire and knew he needed to knock this thing out.

"Fire!" he ordered quickly, squeezing the trigger on his remotely operated M247H Heavy Machine Gun.

"On the way!"

With a loud crack the one-oh-five loosed an HE round which struck right at the base of the turret. The entire alley was sheathed in gray smoke as orange flame rose into the sky in a geyser with yellow flashes from the twenty-five millimeter rounds going off. The turret was utterly wrecked, and the back of the vehicle was a tangle of metal with thick black smoke rising into the sky. Both tankers were sure that most of the infantry around the truck was dead or wounded, but no bodies were seen so it was hard to tell.

"Target destroyed," Friis grinned, "Load Canister and traverse right, target machine gun. Range…two-four-zero."

He now saw the flashing of an Innie firing from a dug in position beneath a log that acted like a makeshift pillbox. He saw the tracers flying close to he and his tank and fired his fifty cal at the weapon emplacement. As he did this he saw the gunner's turret crosshair move over the pillbox.

"On!"

"Fire!"

"On the way!"

Like a great big shotgun dozens of projectiles slammed into the position, shattering the log and hit the machine gunner. Immediately after this round struck a pair of white clothed Innies jumped out from their foxhole and started sprinting back. In the zoomed in camera feed Friis fumed.

These men were actually Colonial Guard traitors. He could see the top of the line armor and helmets had been painted white with their uniforms a light gray digital pattern. Archer saw it too, and both tankers let loose with their machine guns, lighting up the two traitors, one of which was holding his arm limply at his side. Neither one of them made it to cover. Friis's M247H fired and he hit the wounded one with several rounds which struck center mass, and the man dropped into the snow and rolled down the slope a few times before limply stopping. The second one halted a moment, looking to help his partner, but that gave the gunner enough of a shot. With a long burst both commander and gunner struck their target, which kneeled down as a co-axial round hit his leg and he was then struck by one of their rounds when a puff of red went out from behind his head as a round went through his face. From that momentum he lurched back, his legs curled up underneath his body.

"Not today mate!" Archer yelled triumphantly.

After he said that a loud whoosh and then a screech let them know that there was incoming. Then the tank shook violently and was buffeted after a sharp crashing noise. It was no mortar round, and they knew it. A thick cloud of dust and smoke from the 155mm round that had struck were in front of them in front of a low stone wall with black pieces of soil and rock raining down, kicking up the snow.

"Shit!" Friis screamed, "That was artillery!"

Another screech and a large explosion hit the ground behind the lines as the UNSC Marines took heavy fire from beyond their line of sight. Whatever it was had to be big, and from the sound it was no tank gun.

"All tanks forward, we need to get out of this artillery," the radio called out.

"Roger," Friis responded quickly laying out a waypoint for his driver, "Driver forward fast, aim us towards that house on the edge of town."

"Copy, rolling forward!"

The tank lurched forward, crushing a pair of saplings in front of it. The infantry beside it jumped in surprise as they ducked into the ground, desperate to stay in cover. The tank easily plowed through the stone wall, and the right track nacelles dipped slightly as they went into the field and plowed through the knee-deep snow. Behind them, the Warthogs near them jumped the stone wall with infantry running forward at a full sprint to get into the cover and proximity of town.

"Gunner scan for targets," Friis ordered, panning back and forth slowly with his fifty caliber's remote control.

Friis felt the rumbling of the tank stop before he saw any targets and continued scanning. He saw a house with a few Innies firing rifles from the windows across the street, and turned his machine gun on it, ripping into the brick building, silencing the Innies inside. His tank was in between a pair of complexes after running over a row of hedges and a white picket fence and sat in the front yard of a good-sized house. They were well covered with a barn behind them, a garage to their left, and the house to their right with the road into town from the east right in front of them. But as he fired a second burst a loud pinging noise caught his attention and made their tank rock violently.

"We're hit!" Buccho screamed out.

"Smoke!" Friis called out, hitting the commander's override that deployed a trio of smoke cannisters that quickly created a white and gray screen of protective cover.

"That was a fucking tank round!"

"No fuck! Reverse! Get us behind that garage!" Friis yelled to his driver, "Gunner find that sumbitch!"

Before the gunner could traverse the turret to find the source of the round that had hit them another one slashed through the metal garage. The armor piercing round hit a tractor immediately parked against the garage and exploded, showering the Scorpion in debris and making the Warthogs and Marines that had accompanied the tank back away to cover. Once in solid cover Friis hit the button and poked his head through the hatch and looked for where his tank had gotten hit.

"Do a systems check," the staff sergeant ordered, looking first at the nose of the tank, seeing no mutilated pieces of multi-spectral camouflage, reactive armor plates, or hull.

Then he saw a gash above the corner of his right front track nacelle that signified a ricochet from a lucky shot for he and his crew. They'd just gotten out of a lost nacelle. Their reactive plates had blunted the force of the blow, and the angle of the shot had made certain the round went straight up.

"Fullback, we saw you take a hit, what's your status?" Lieutenant Angelo called out, concerned about his men.

"We're okay," Friis said as he leaned over the edge of his hatch, looking for any other sign of damage, only seeing the wisps of smoke from the reactive armor blocks that had gone off, "Just a ricochet from the look of it."

"Are you operational?"

"Wait one sir, we're running a check now," Friis responded, switching to his vehicle net, "Buccho how's the damage?"

"We're okay sarge. Systems green," his driver replied as Marines swarmed past their tank and breached into the house, sweeping it, but careful to stay away from the enemy tank's line of sight.

"Fullback's operational Lieutenant," Friis gladly reported, just as a round hit the house, blowing open a hole in the front entry as they tried to force them to make a run for it and finish the UNSC tank for good, "Dammit!"

Dust and smoke poured from the house as the squad of Marines scrambled to get out. They didn't want anything to do with that house while that Insurrectionist tank was still active.

"Corpsman!" a yell from inside the house reached his ears as two Marines came out of the building holding a screaming man with blood staining his legs as they dragged limply on the ground.

Immediately two more men went right back inside. One dragged out another Marine who was limp, covered in dust with his helmet mangled with a dent in the forward overhanging lip as another limp infantryman was grasping at his neck with blood leaking between his fingers as the second Marine dragged him out of the building.

Seeing these casualties let Friis know he had to get that tank before it wounded or killed more UNSC personnel. He jumped back into his seat, shut the hatch and then got onto the tactical feed this force had going now to share information. Searching quickly, the tanker found what the vehicle shooting at them in a barn that was marked as an access point to an underground farm chamber, perfect cover. Marking this as a target he called to his gunner.

"Gunner I've got him, barn at two-nine-five, orient there and load HEAT, range eight-fifty. Driver forward on my mark, ready report," he called out, calling out the plan for his tank, making certain he had his crew ready.

"Ready," Sergeant Archer reported.

"Ready," Corporal Buccho echoed, "Archer you'd better kill that fucker!"

"Count on it!"

"Gunner, the moment you have eyes you fire and driver you be ready to get us to cover," Friis said calmly, and then heard a banging noise on his hatch and saw that a Marine officer was laying on his vehicle, one hand holding his rifle and the other on his hatch. So he opened it up and before he was able to get up the man was yelling.

"There's a fucking tank in that barn at eight hundred meters!" he yelled, "I can't move my medical hogs up here to evacuate our wounded until it's gone!"

"We're taking it out now sir," Friis called out, "Suggest you back your infantry away from the garage. We're going right through it to get a shot."

The lieutenant nodded in understanding and climbed up and across the tank, jumping to the ground and waved for a squad of Marines taking cover behind a pile of snow-covered sandbags to move back. With the Marines out of the way Friis ordered his driver to orient facing the garage. Spinning in place the Scorpion aimed right at the garage, seeing the burning tractor in their way but knowing that it might be useful to smash into it and use it as an extra piece of cover.

"Driver, forward fast. Gunner prepare to fire."

Friis buttoned up, dropping down into the seat again, looking through his cupola camera mounted beneath his machine gun. The tank went clean through the sheet metal siding, the left track nacelle shoving the tractor clean through as well. Both vehicles entered the building, seeing nothing inside aside from the shining lights of bullet holes letting in shafts of light from the outside blizzard. The tank then sped forward, crashing through the garage's front corner facing the barn where their foe was waiting, but not expecting them.

Friis heard the light sounds of pieces of metal falling onto their tank's hull and didn't feel them crash through the building, collapsing the front corner entirely behind them. His gunner was already looking towards his target, a barn on the outskirts of the next town on high ground overlooking the battlefield. Sure enough the doors to the metal building were open, and the turret of a Scorpion tank was visible, aiming just right of their tank. But Archer was right on target and fired immediately. The yellow tracer round went up and just began its descent when it impact on the left-hand side of the opposing tank's lower turret section.

A tremendous explosion ripped through the entire building, sending out a bright yellow flash that was quickly consumed by a cloud of dust as the concussion shook the building.

"Halt," Friis ordered, sighing in relief.

But a second shot was required, as a one hundred five millimeter round from the tank hit right in front of them and Archer didn't even wait for the command. Loosing another HEAT round that went slightly right of its original trajectory the warhead struck right at the unseen base of the Innie tank's turret, slicing clean through with another flash, smoke cloud, and this time, a fireball within the metal barn. The building collapsed in on itself dramatically, one side of the barn caving in on top of the Insurrectionists' burning hulk as several tried stumbling away. Now a towering black smoke column began rising diagonally as the high winds made it disperse to the east, this let everyone know that something big had gotten knocked out, and Fullback had been the one to draw first blood.

"Good hit Archer!" Friis cheered as he heard Archer whooping in victory, "Target destroyed. Driver, orient two-seven-five."

"Good job Fullback, catastrophic kill," the platoon sergeant piped up on the radio, "Scan for that second tank."

Friis now noticed he was the farthest forward of the UNSC tanks, and the Marine Warthogs next to him had formed a hook with him at the point. The Cougar IFV's from the weapons company were moving forward on the far right flank with the five tanks of the first platoon moving forward in the lead of the formation.

He scanned with his machine gun, and noticed the snow-covered earth bank that was put in the middle of the road in the town. A pillbox was there, covered with sandbags and spewing machine gun fire with several Innies firing at them from over the lip. There was a burning flatbed truck with several bodies on the ground around it, with the twin barrels of the autocannons resting on the ground. This was the truck they'd already destroyed, and he also saw the Marines were pinned down behind it.

"Gunner, orient two seven-zero, range one-two-zero, target pillbox."

As the turret turned he saw Innies clearing out, knowing that a tank round was about to strike.

"On!"

"Fire."

"On the way!"

With a crack the high explosive shell smacked into the bottom of the pillbox and exploded, leaving a smoking hole and a cloud of smoke as sandbags and wooden planks rained down. With this obstacle gone Friis saw two squads of Marines moving forward, one of them dashing across the street and began clearing the buildings on the northern end of the street as four Warthogs followed them forward, providing cover and covering fire for their infantry.

He saw one Marine fireteam toss a grenade into a window, taking cover as a puff of dust came out of the window and then kicked in the door and stormed in. They heard the popping of their rifles and SAW firing out of sight as the Marines cleared the building with the other fireteam bounding forward and past them, weapons aimed and ready. When they went forward to an alley one of them aimed his MA5B around the corner and had to duck back as the corner was shot to pieces by a large caliber machine gun. The lead Warthog rushed forward, and fired rapidly into the alley right as the weapon it was engaging fired again at them. The rounds hit the armored sides but were silenced after a single burst, and were completely destroyed after an anti-armor hog switched places with it, fired a rocket into the alley, and destroyed the emplacement once and for all.

With this gone the Marines moved forward, and continued clearing buildings. They had everything under control, but the incoming fire from mortars and artillery was continuing. A shriek made the Marines duck in place as a 155mm round hit a building on the right-hand side of the road and blew apart the roof. Then a mortar round struck the opposite side of the earth bank followed by another further into the town square.

"Fucking artillery," Friis growled right as a pair of small explosions rocked their tank.

"We're hit again!" Buccho called out, "Just rockets, we're fine."

"Gunner find them! Any damage?"

"None that I'm getting. They hit the main hull, our RAB's blunted the rounds."

"Orient towards those rockets and back up to hull-down," Friis ordered, feeling the tank turn and back away.

He saw the contrails from the rockets had emanated from a barn to the right where a pair of Cougars was firing their cannons rapidly and a tank was advancing with infantry behind their armored vehicles.

"Hold fire on the cannon gunner, friendlies are closing on them."

"Am I cleared coax?"

"If you see your target light 'em up," Friis said, and then noticed his own gun was low on ammunition, "I'm going up to reload."

Hitting the button next to him he stood up and started the process of reloading his fifty caliber. But right then a single figure in UNSC armor, but painted white, turned around the corner of the butcher shop to his left and aimed a rifle and under-barrel grenade launcher right at him. With a thump the man fired and Friis ducked down on instinct. The Innie was excited, and had aimed right at him, but a forty millimeter was different than a 5.56, and the round struck the nose the Scorpion, hitting the tanker with the concussion and little else.

Acting purely on his survival instinct Friis grabbed for his M7 SMG which was bolted next to his extra boxes of ammunition for the fifty and began firing full auto at his attacker. The small caliber rounds did little to the Colonial Guard armor but several round made it through, wounding the man as he tried reloading and went down. But three more rushed around the corner, firing their own MA5B's and a single SAW right towards him and grabbed for their comrade and began dragging him back into cover. Friis ducked behind the armored turret and snatched a grenade from his left where he had a small box of them, ready for just such a situation and tapped the button and tossed it at the feet of the Innies who turned and ran back into cover as the grenade exploded.

It did no damage, as they'd just been fast enough. However Friis wanted them dead, so with one eye on that corner he rushed to reload his fifty and then ducked back down and buttoned up securely.

"The fuck was that?!" Archer yelled.

"Innie fireteam, danger close. Driver forward, get us around that building. Gunner orient two-seven-zero."

The tank rushed forward, coming around the corner just in time to see a pickup truck pulling away over the curb into the field down into the valley towards a bridge. This bridge was the only one that spanned a small creek covered in woods that cut through the valley that split the two towns from one another. Wasting no time he fired, catching one of the men in the rear of the truck with his first burst, causing him to tumble out and roll onto the ground as the truck pulled away. Another forty millimeter round from the same Insurrectionist fired at the tank but missed left. But the truck got down into defilade as it went down the steep hill.

"Forward, get him!" Friis excitedly ordered as a friendly Warthog drove up next to them, seeing the tank taking off like a bat out of hell after some Insurrectionists.

The tank jumped the curb and the truck was right in front of them, desperate to escape. But the tank's two machine guns lit them up immediately, tracer rounds impacting the truck, ripping apart both vehicle and flesh. After driving forward for a few seconds the truck suddenly lost control as a fifty caliber round went through the back the driver's head and swerved to a stop with black smoke rising from the bullet riddled vehicle. Right then an Insurrectionist flatbed pulled away with a handful of troops in the back, firing wildly towards the UNSC Marines pursuing them. Before Friis could order his tank to engage a swarm of tracers began impacting the vehicle, ripping up the back of the military truck and destroying the rear tires, causing the truck to skid to a stop. More tracers joined in on the slaughter as more Marines reached the opposite side of town and fired at the vehicle as the infantry jumped out and made a run for it. The whole thing was ended instantly when a tank from 2nd Platoon loosed an HE round that blew the truck onto its side and killed anyone near it. Friis was thankful there was a cloud of smoke and dust after the initial fireball to cover the mutilated bodies who were scattered around that truck.

"All tanks hold position, Marines are clearing the underground structures," Lieutenant Angelo ordered the tank platoon.

Friis hit the button to acknowledge the order and turned his attention back to the task of finding the last known tank in the area which could have been anywhere. As he did this another artillery round struck the pavement of the parking lot behind them and he knew his tank was being directly targeted. The Warthog behind them was close enough to that round that there were pieces of shrapnel embedded into its tires and floored it back around the butcher shop into defilade.

"Driver reverse, get us out of sight of that town, that artillery is aiming at us."

"Don't have to tell me twice."

The tank began to back away, going back the way it had come. As it did that there was a sharp crack of a tank gun going off in the distance and Friis saw the tracer go across his screen from left to right. He panned his camera to the right to see the result and saw one of the Marine Cougars that had driven up towards the barn with fire coming from the turret as smoke from the impact began dissipating. Before he could tank his eyes off of the scene the second Cougar took a less destructive shot to the rear portion of the vehicle, blowing off its right rear wheels and effectively disabling it. The Marine crewmen began bailing out of their IFV immediately, and the lone tank with them rushed forward to put its more powerful armor in between the source of the fire and the vulnerable infantry fighting vehicles. With a spout of white the entire area, save for the glow of the fires, was hidden by a smokescreen from both infantry and the Marine Scorpion.

"Shit! Weapons just lost two victors!" Friis called out on the radio to his platoon leader.

"We saw it, we saw it, that fucker's in hull down. He popped off a couple rounds and he's moving behind that ridge at three-three-zero. Air support's oscar mike, they'll take care of it. All Warriors to cover."

Friis saw the IFF signal coming from two Sparrowhawks flying towards the battlefield. He also noted that the town was fully under their control, at least above ground. Below ground was not his problem, the Marine infantry were already clearing it and the blue marks on the highlighted chambers were already showing them that they had secured much of it. As he looked at the map his tank came to a stop back at the butcher shop where there were several other Warthogs with one medical variant loading up a pair of wounded Marines. Past the earthen barrier behind them he saw three other tanks in cover behind buildings and decided to take a moment to assess the damage to their Scorpion.

"I'm heading topside to check damage," he informed his crew as he pulled himself up and got out of the vehicle and looked down to his right and saw two bare spots in his multispectral camouflage.

They'd been blown off, and were now hanging in threads next to he and his crew's stations. The reactive armor blocks were triggered, and were black and damaged, but the hull plating was untouched. He stood up and got on the ground carefully looking to make sure he didn't step on anything dangerous stand up in the way of enemy fire. The first place he checked was his front right nacelle, where his tank had taken a glancing blow from another Scorpion. He saw that his headlight mount was pretty much gone, thanks to the reactive armor explosion from the shot that had come from left to right. The one-oh-five round had hit the armor at a very oblique angle, causing it, in conjunction with the reactive armor, to ricochet up and away, off to be someone else's problem when it landed. But as a seasoned tanker he didn't take this at face value. So he reached under the nacelle and started feeling for any damage that may have gotten through the plates

However a ripping sound like a low octive fabric being torn sounded out, and then an explosion above him caught his attention. Friis ducked down and looked up. Through the swirling snow he saw one of the Sparrowhawks take a direct hit in its port engine and was spiraling downwards out of control. The second aircraft was off to his right, much lower and was turning back to get out of the line of fire before it too was lit up. The first aircraft was a bit higher, but not for long, as it careened in a spiraling descent right for the town.

"Oh shit…" he groaned, knowing that with something like that air support was off the table until they knocked out that AA weapon. He was of course worried for the pilots, but he had seen Sparrowhawks go down before, and rarely were the pilots killed when in a flat spin. But he'd never seen one hit a building before.

"Clear out it's coming down!" a Marine NCO ordered loudly and the Marines and their vehicles bean rushing away from the area where the Sparrowhawk seemed to be aiming.

Its tail hit first as it spun into the town hall on the southern end of the main square. This instant stop pivoted the gunship so that it smacked right into the building, bouncing off as its turning rotor chewed itself and the building to pieces as fire and smoke erupted from the site. The aircraft then flopped to the ground without much dignity and fire began licking out from the vehicle as Marines ran to help the pilot and gunner whose canopy was open before their bird was still. Both made it out at a full sprint, urging the other Marines to get back. They hadn't loosed any of their ordnance, and it was about to blow and it did. A series of cracks and several fireballs from the rocket motors completely destroyed the Sparrowhawk and obliterated the front façade of the once graceful town hall and courthouse.

"All tanks, Warrior-Six," it was their company commander, "Day One primary objectives secured. Supply and refuel by platoon. Regiment wants to push into Catania tomorrow night so settle in and be ready to repel a counter-attack. Good job Marines, no tanks lost."

Although the UNSC was going to be declaring this battle a victory it sure didn't feel like one, and they had yet to hit the main line of defense for this Insurrectionist stronghold.

Well that's all I feel like writing right now. I'll move on to the second of this multi-chapter arc in the next update. Hope you guys enjoyed this long chapter, I enjoyed writing every bit of it. I remember someone noting how the UNSC seemed to be curbstomping the Innies in the previous chapters and decided to prove that this is no cakewalk for the Marines. And there's more to come.

Speaking of more, I've finally finished the first chapter of my first original story which I will be posting on this site's sister version: Fiction Press. I'm planning on doing so soon, just as soon as I can update A Brutal Reality to help spread the news. I'm kind of on the fence as to what to name it but I have two names I really like; Strykers of the Arctic, and Arctic Warriors. Either way, I'm excited for that, and if you have a moment to check it out when it's posted I'd really appreciate it.

Next Chapter Preview: The weather gets worse, and so does the fighting.