Sergeant Stevenson rolled behind a parked hover car and emptied the clip of his assault rifle in the direction of a platoon of Brotherhood soldiers as the rest of the Cornerian marines charged into the street and found cover. The lieutenant fired a burst from his sub machine gun and began bellowing orders.
"Damn it marines set up a base of fire, and somebody get suppressing fire on that goddamn tripod gun up there!"
As a trio minigun-wielding Cornerian support gunners unleashed a hail of covering fire the unit broke into two groups and moved to outflank the Brotherhood infantry.
Stevenson kept his head down as he moved from cover to cover working his way towards the enemy soldiers. Over the sound of the weapons fire he heard the lieutenant bellow another order.
"Fix bayonets!"
Stevenson pulled his combat knife from its sheath and slid it onto the muzzle of his rifle.
"Attack!"
In unison the swarm of Cornerian marines stood up and opened fire, catching the Brotherhood soldiers in a withering crossfire. As the enemy tried to retroup the Cornerians fell on them from both sides, firing into the faces of their enemies at point blank and howling with bloodlust and hatred for the ones who were burning their home world to the ground. As Stevenson blew a Brotherhood soldier's face in the fighting went hand to hand as the two groups got to close to fire without hitting their comrades. He ducked roundhouse blow from a Brotherhood soldier and drove his bayonet into the soldier's chest. Nearby the Cornerian lieutenant drew a ceremonial saber while the marine in front of him took a Brotherhood combat knife in the face. A voice with a Cornerian accent shouted.
"Down in front!"
As Stevenson dropped and landed on his face a roiling column of flaming liquid filled the space he'd just vacated and incinerated the group of Brotherhood soldiers who'd been standing there. The moment the flame trooper stopped firing Stevenson was on his feet again and charged right into the midst of the Brotherhood survivors. Here were the bastards who'd killed so many of his friends and comrades and were burning his home to the ground; it was their day of reckoning. For a moment years seemed to fall away and he was fighting the Venomians again, it wasn't a happy reunion.
"Look out, more hostiles coming in from the east!"
Stevenson drove his bayonet through another enemy soldier's face and turned. Another swarm of Brotherhood soldiers were charging down a side road towards them with weapons blazing and bayonets fixed. Stevenson slammed a fresh clip into his weapon and opened fire.
Krystal stepped out of the room she and Fox had been given by the Cornerian military feeling a lot better than she had when she had entered it. The rigors of the fierce dogfight having been washed away along with the sweat by a warm shower. As she entered the main square of the base where a statue of a trio of stone Cornerian marines stood frozen in a silent salute as they stood triumphantly around a marble flag. The main square of the Cornerian Defense Base was even more crowded than usual and was bustling with civilian refugees. She spotted Fox, Falco, and Katt working their way among the gathering crowd and glaring venomously at a speaker who stood on the raised base of the statue.
"The Cornerian military is sending your sons and daughters into battles they cannot win. They have ignored offers by the Brotherhood to negotiate peace, and even now are belligerently seeking out the Brotherhood forces on this planet in their mindless warmongering. I represent the Sons of Liberty, and have come to call for your support in this time of strife."
The speaker gestured to a small group of Cornerian marines who were filling purposely into the square.
"Even now these traitors to peace come to silence my plea for help and keep you from knowing the truth. Join us and bring an end to this destructive war and restore peace. Bring our children, friends and family home so that we may oomph."
Bill rubbed his fist as the enraged speaker staggered to his feet and the enraged canine pilot glared down on him. The leader of the small, uniformed group that held the crowd back at the base of the statue turned towards the confrontation. To Krystal they might as well have been wearing flashing neon signs declaring them to be the speaker's followers. The leader of the group raised a hand but Fox materialized from the crowd and placed a hand on his shoulder. As the speaker struggled to regain his composure Bill spat at his feet with uncharacteristic belligerence.
"You are at best a traitor and at worse a Brotherhood spy, either one is punishable with death. I doubt you've even seen the indiscriminate devastation the Brotherhood has sent raining down on our city, they don't care about collateral damage at all and even seem to welcome it. They're out there killing anyone in their path, military and civilian alike, and when they do take prisoners they have to beat them a few times. Do you honestly think they will ever settle for anything less than complete conquest? It's like they're on a goddamned holocaust. Though I have to give you credit, we do have to band together, but only so we can fight not just them, but bastards like you."
The speaker bellowed and raised his fist in some kind of hand signal, at that moment his followers at the base of the statue charged at Bill, the supporter that Fox had restrained spun tried to land a right hook on Fox's jaw. His fist struck empty air as the vulpine mercenary dodged behind him and hit him in the back of the head with a left roundhouse. As the crowd scattered Krystal, Falco, and Katt charged into the fray. Krystal dodged a shoulder bash from another one of the grunts and sent him to the floor with a devastating elbow jab-snap kick combo. Falco grabbed another supporter and wrestled him to the ground before bring down another one that had caught Katt in a bear hug. Fox effortlessly dodged a flurry of jabs from another inexperienced supporter and caught him in the stomach with a devastating roundhouse kick before slashing another supporter across the shoulder, claws raking deep furrows. The group of marines suddenly waded into the fight and began very forcefully restraining the handful of the SOFL followers still standing. Bill punched the speaker one last time before the marines dragged him off.
"That's our answer to your traitorous call."
General Osborn stepped off the shuttle as the battalion of mortar tanks moved into position on top of the hill outside of Cornerian City. His commanders had reported that the battalion of enemy tanks had finally been stopped, though it had taken a sizable air strike and another battalion of tanks to stop them, and the breached area would soon be secure again. Right now though Osborn was more worried about snipers, but he was wearing the uniform of a common soldier and his troops were following the traditional protocol of not saluting officers in the field so even if there were any he should be safe. The last of the tanks moved into position and in unison the massive artillery cannon mounted on top of each began to slowly elevate and one by one stopped and locked into position. An officer who was defying the field regulations by wearing his full command uniform strode along the row of mortar tanks and shouted an order into the microphone mounted on his shirt collar.
"Prepare to fire a three hundred shell barrage on your assigned targets, ready!"
Osborn slipped a pair of sonic dampeners over his ears holes.
"Fire!"
Even with the sound-dampening device the roar of the twelve artillery cannons was deafening as the mortar tanks fired, paused, then fired again, sending a hail of one hundred forty millimeter high-explosive shells soaring out over the hills and city trailing long streams of smoke and steam behind them and slamming into distant targets. At this range they probably wouldn't hit anything unless they got lucky but they didn't need to, they just needed to be hitting something in the part of the city still under Cornerian control. Osborn smiled, the siege had begun.