Hammerfest, 2 kilometres off Shield Perimeter
The 12 metre giants marched powerfully in formation, their golden armoured feet slamming into the hard ice like it was nothing, across from the giant drops and climbs of ice they waited, the red swarm was about to hit.
Colonel Winter stood ahead of the group of Titans and old mammoth tanks, his IMPACT utilizing superior armour, and even a firestorm shield, it could hold itself together much more effectively. He looked at his radar screen, dozens of red flashing symbols were fast on approach, and the only problem was the giant cliff face that prevented both sides from firing at each other.
"Remember people, they did come from underground, so don't be ignore the fast moving targets 50 metres below you as computer error." The colonel checked over with the defense force.
"All forces, this is O'Neill." The radio cracked to life, "Seems the Ion Cannons are offline, probably sabotage by our cult like friends, forces are inbound but we need to hold out for now."
"Any chance we can get the Kodiak online soon?"
"Soon, its anti-grav engines are playing up, McNeil and his crew are doing all they can, but like before hold on, The Philadelphia's dropping some support in soon, hold this base soldiers, O'Neill out."
"Alright boys and girls you heard him, open fire at anything that pops out of the ground, no hesitations." Winter ordered, while the waiting game continued.
GDI First Fleet, Hyperspace on route to Sol System
Going over the urgent reports of what just happened on earth, Rear Admiral Pendergast, sitting in the big chair of the most famous vessel of earths fleet, the Prometheus, began throwing orders around what used to be known as 'Battle Group Prometheus'.
"Admiral, the Daedalus is reporting in, you have Captain Harper on the line." Ops officer, Lieutenant Roberts reported
"On screen."
The main viewer jumped to life, the captain of the Prometheus's sister ship filing the screen. Pendergast nodded curtly "Captain."
Harper returned the nod "Admiral, General O'Neill has reported that contact with all local Ion Cannons have been lost, either Nod have extremely good saboteurs, or they've developed an effective EMP to our new systems."
Pendergast agreed, "That's why we've been ordered to keep clear of the area, were exiting hyperspace in Luna orbit, were letting the fighters handle this one."
The captain gave a questioning look, "is that all?" shaking his head "We should at least try to break through to the base, maybe only a single ship."
"I don't like this anymore then you do captain, but we've got our orders, and frankly I tend to agree with them."
Harper gave a quick sigh, "Aye sir, I'm ordering the Daedalus fighter group to prepare for atmosphere combat, you get the new jackhammers as well?"
The admiral grinned, "Nod won't know what hit them."
Hammerfest
"They're right below us sir, makes you want one of those new shields for this old thing aye?" Sergeant Williams said to his CO, Major Foley, in their old mammoth tank.
"It will hold, I just hope the barrels do, its not often you get to fire rounds at hypersonic speeds." The major said with a smirk.
"They're rising, 50 metres in front of us, 3….2…..1."
"OPEN FIRE!"
The slightest hint of a 'tick tank' turret popped out of the icy terrain, before being obliterated by the dozens of railgun rounds awaiting it. Soon more popped up from nearby locations, the giant barrels of both Titans and mammoth tanks swerved on their axis, lowered ever so slightly, and let another swarm of rounds off. It continued like this for near 5 minutes, but they came up too quickly! Nod were getting a last shot, as GDI took steady losses.
"All units, pull back, theirs too many of them here, we'll wait for reinforcements to arrive, to the shields!" Colonel Winter ordered, the Titans and mammoths reversed towards the flashing shield of the base, nod had made land fall.
Kodiak
Commander McNeil, another of Firestorms field commanders, was working himself and his man as fast as he could, they needed this thing airborne, and fast.
"Chandra get ready at the helm, the drives should be coming online in a few seconds." An engineer from Hammerfest said. Sure enough, on the pilot's console, the drives were activated, 94 capability.
"Okay everyone lets get this thing in the air, chances are Nods got some of those Banshees, and we need to take them out!" McNeil ordered
"Weapons armed and ready sir," Lieutenant Commander Jackson indicated from her station.
"Shields are ready for activation on your mark sir, should give us a bit of cover."
"Were ready sir, on your command." Jackson reported
McNeil looked at each of them, this being their first actual battle, not just a command run, he was confident in their victory "Lets kick some arse."
Hammerfest Command Centre
O'Neill watched as the Kodiak, and its twin Orca escorts rose into the skies, the small capital ship off to give cover for the forces soon to come, the General just hoped it was enough.
Shield Perimeter
Nod were starting to gather in force, while the Titans were within range the mammoths weren't used to huge distance combat, forced to fire blindly at the growing nod force. Suddenly, the shields of Hammerfest flickered, if just for a second, the Kodiak was here. The ships engines powered up, unleashing a golden nova of energy, it flew directly over the nod force, unleashing a swarm of railgun rounds and missiles on its flight path, before making a quick turn skywards.
Nod Attack Force, 641 metres underneath shield Perimeter
Behind the flame tongues and tick tanks burrowing away, the bulk of nods forces followed, despite GDI's original estimations, Nod was not a rag tag group of terrorists, it was an alliance of nations, of peoples, that had existed for centuries, constantly changing its face to keep its enemies off guard. Today they were a force that nearly matched GDI in size, almost equal in technology, but far superior in cunning.
From inside their subterranean APC's, many of Nods troops prepared, with the limited amount of GDI forces defending the main gates, they would not expect an attack from directly underneath their base. "Captain, we are in position for vertical digging, we should penetrate the surface directly next to their command tower." The driver informed the squad commander, the captain merely nodded in acknowledgement, the infantry body armour was a freighting sight for the enemy, almost robotic, no expression was shown on the masked face, bar an unrelenting killing machine.
"Beginning climb, forward diggers are reporting some heavy material, its getting harder to cut though, we might be here a while."
Kodiak
10 kilometres above the surface, the corvette class continued climbing, their objective was to clear the path for orbital reinforcements, its Orca escorts started detecting the same strange signals that the Thor's escorts detected, nod was here.
"Activate shields as soon as they decloak, we want to make ourselves a target but not a vulnerable one." McNeil ordered.
"Aye sir, weapons are powering down as well."
"Sir we got 4 banshees uncloaking off port"
"Shields up, all railguns activate."
The 4 Nod fighters zoomed towards the currently unprotected corvette, the twin plasma cannons on each banshee fired, screaming bolts of plasma designed to cut through armour with ease impacted on the unexpected layer of shielding. They desperately tried to cloak, but the 6 railgun turrets of the Kodiak put an end to that plan. Blue bolts of metal cut into the weak shields, slicing through the armour with equal ease, those that didn't explode in the assault, lost control and began a fast uncontrolled decent to the ground. Soon dozens more of banshees uncloaked, it was going to be a long battle.
"Sir the first fleets arrived, their sending fighters down." Jackson reported
"Tell them to join with us, we need to clear this path, or at least distract Nod!"
The shields of the Kodiak were being overwhelmed by the attack from all sides, more and more banshees were uncloaking, how the hell could Nod get this many fighters in the first place, was what the crew of the Kodiak were thinking. Shields at 12 and plasma blasts slicing into unprotected armour, it was going to be over, the escorts eliminated ages ago, and only two railguns remaining.
If the banshee pilots could hear what was going on outside their fighters, they would have whimpered, the screaming sound of hundreds of missiles was growing louder. Help had arrived. The new standard issue air to air/space to space anti fighter missile, the Jackhammer were been used to full advantage, as the hundreds of fighters of the first fleet moved in on the banshee swarm. The missiles impacted, explosions across the board happened, the remaining fighters of nod swiftly turned to engage the new opponent.
"Kodiak this is Ronan wing leader, were moving into reinforce the position, get yourself out of there!" the distinctive Japanese voice of the Yamato's main fighter wing reported.
"Roger that Ronan, were heading to orbit, let those reinforcements get through."
"Will do, Kodiak, more fighters uncloaking, we'll hold them off."
Nod Attack Force, 378 metres underneath Hammerfest
Flame Tongues continued the useless attempt to cut through the reinforced material, grinding away to no effect. One of the officers immediately ordered a halt, the Major walked outside of the APC. He walked up to the front of the attack force, noticing the ruined grinders on the flame tanks, he rubbed the dirt and rock away from the surface with his gloved hand, the brown and sandstone colored material slowly revealed a dull blue colour, without texture. He continued to wipe away at it, until a reasonably sized portion was clear. Slowly he moved to touch it, but a strong jolt surged at him, even with the leather gloves on his hands. "It's a shield…" he said quietly, with no small amount of fury.
Hammerfest Command Tower
O'Neill grinned, the scanners had picked up the underground force quite a while ago, they just needed to know where too look, spreading the shield into a full sphere did weaken it by quite a margin, but it kept the base safe from all angles.
"General, Philadelphia is reporting the launch is in 1 minute."
O'Neill left the shields station, "Right then, with the fighters still occupied, tell General Peterson that they're going to take losses while dropping, get our remaining fighters to draw as many of the Nod off as they can."
"Aye sir, they're launching now, expected time to planet fall, 1 minute 43 seconds."
"Tell Winter that he has that long to hold out, anymore would be asking too much."
Shield Perimeter
It was a slaughter, with barely a third of an already weakened force, it was remarkable that the defense held up for this long already.
Major Foley emerged out of the wreckage of what was once a super-heavy battle tank. Grabbing his standard issue berretta, he hid behind the wreckage of his former tank, any one of those nod bastards stupid enough to come near him would find his brains splattered.
Kodiak
Rising into earths orbit, the small ship had to dodge the fast approaching troop pods headed towards the Norwegian coast line, McNeil only hoped they got through the banshees.
GDI First Fleet, ESS Daedalus
Captain Harper watched as many of the fighters came back to their ships, preparing for restock on munitions, or just come back from being overwhelmed, either way, it left the people on the ground defenseless, and as much as he wanted to prevent that, they had no idea what was shutting down the ships and satellites in the area, there was no bigger screw up then disabling a Battlecruiser.
Hammerfest Shield Perimeter
The once brilliant blue shield of Hammerfest was now a dying pale colour, the continuous bombard by nods ground forces was taxing the already stretched limits of the energy field .Colonel Winter, in one of the few remaining Titan walkers, let alone the IMPACT's, held the line as best he could, the small remaining force would soon be overwhelmed, but they held none the less.
"You got friends coming Winter!" O'Neill yelled into the radio, "Look up!" the raged and tired face of the colonel, faced skywards, to see dozens if not hundreds of drop pods rain across the sky, he grinned, shit just hit the fan for nod.