Tykis Frontline Sector, Thargora Thoraga, August 17 2192.
"Artillery incoming!" a sentry shouted.
In a span of a few seconds, all those Turians who were on relaxed positions sprung into action as they ran for cover. Shells whistled through the sky as they arced. Slamming onto the ground, equipment and Turians alike are thrown from the ground as shells exploded. Limbs smeared in blue blood hit the ground separated from their respective bodies. Screams of agony and pain was heard throughout the bases and trenches. The barrage continued even as Turian counter artillery swung into action. The artillery battle lasted for hours, though for the soldiers on the ground it felt as though it would never end. By the time it was over, it became chaotic race to regroup and counter-attack. The Council forces, by virtue of starting the battle in the first place, struck first. Tomkahs modified with heavy armor and tracks moved across the shelled ground that is No Man's Land, shrugging off MG fire and other small arms as Krogan troopers and Asari commandos followed close by, shadowing the armored vehicles.
Being more… liberal than other Turians, Victus used the chaos and carnage of the battle to lead a hastily assembled group of soldiers straight into No Man's Land to ambush their foes. In the remains of a bombed out house, Victus and Kuril's soldiers prepared their trap.
"Set up those launchers over there, we want their backs to us when we start shooting." Victus ordered his men.
Beside him, Kuril was busy assigning different posts for the MG operators as well as Pioneer squads. Bags of grenades were laid out in an orderly fashion around the ruined house, and other munitions were kept away from each other as to avoid a catastrophic explosion in the event of one igniting.
Barely hidden, they waited as the Tomkahs rumbled forward. The armored vehicles drew the fire of more and more machine guns as they passed the charred ruin, some of which ricocheted off the shields and armor onto the house. One such ricochet grazed Kuril's helmet.
"Spirits, you'd think the boys back in the trenches would quit firing by now." He said.
"Let them keep shooting, it'll pay as a good distraction." Victus replied. "Pioneers! What are your statuses?" the Colonel then barked into his radio.
"Chairi squad here, manually detonated mines are ready, hold on while we get clear, sir." One of them said.
"Jorahm squad, same here." Another squad answered too.
More squads ran in their confirmations and Victus ran them through a mental checklist. When the last Pioneer squad sent their confirmation, the Colonel pulled out the detonator and waited for the Tomkahs to roll over the mines. When the first few of them are over the mines, he pulled the trigger.
The explosion wasn't as spectacular or flashy as Victus expected it to be, but even then it had done it's job. Four of the twelve armored vehicles were destroyed, turned into wrecks of metal scrap. The Asari and Krogans using the Tomkahs as cover panicked, as did the other vehicles. They stopped their crawl towards the Turian lines, giving Victus and his soldiers ample time to line up their rocket launchers and fire. The armor piercing projectile bypassed the shields and slammed into the weaker armor in its rear. The hollow charge within the rocket blasted through the thick sheets of steel and rained fire and molten metal into the vehicle's cabin and onto the crew. Burning alive, the crew panicked as they struggled to get out of the metal death traps that their vehicles had become.
With most of the Tomkahs out of the way, the infantry now stranded in No Man's Land became easy prey for the machine guns that Victus had with him. Gunning down the enemy by the dozens, the red and purple blood spilled on the shelled mud as the surviving attackers found themselves to be the ones being pressed. Seeing the enemy pinned down, Victus ordered his men to lob the grenades into the trapped Commandos and Troopers. The grenades tore apart what little survivors there was. One heroic Asari tried to save her comrades by picking up a grenade and trying to throw it away, only to have it detonate in her hands, reducing her into a purple mess, as well as catching several of her comrades too.
As planned, Victus and his men began packing what equipment and munitions they didn't use as they expected the Council's artillery to be brought upon their position quickly. Rocket launchers were removed from their tripods, and said tripods were folded quickly. Those that were too heavy or cumbersome to be carried down stairs was promptly thrown out the windows where they fell into the shelled mud, followed by their operators who jumped off too.
"I want a head count! Who's not here yet?" Kuril barked.
Victus tried to count out his men quickly. He counted 9… 12… 15. He stopped himself there. They came here 18 Turians strong, so who were the last three?
"Wait, Gaz and Kadrali are still in the basement!" a Turian running out of the house said. "We need more hands to pick up the MG and Gaz is wounded."
Victus panicked inside of himself, and hesitated in making his decision. Should they leave them, probably to the two Turian's death, or try to help them at the risk of everyone dying?
Before he could decide, Kuril went up and decided for him.
"Dammit! Junio help me get a rope!" The lieutenant said.
The group then tried to rush and aid their two trapped comrades, but was halted when they all heard the soft thudding of artillery in the distance.
One shot, two shots, four, eight. An entire barrage was coming for them and there was no time to save the two.
"Kuril, stop!" Victus shouted as he tried to pull the lieutenant back. Before he could get to his fellow Turian, the enemy artillery struck the house.
The bombed out house was shelled even further and what little of it was left was pummeled. Shrapnel and debris flew everywhere. A shell landed dangerously close to Kuril and blasted him away and into the Colonel, who fell from the force of colliding with another Turian.
Through the blurry haze that had fallen upon him, he saw that Kuril's armor had cracks on multiple points as well as large bits of shrapnel sticking out of them.
"Soldier down! Medic!" The Colonel shouted out. He could barely hear himself do so as everything was still ringing from the explosion.
He felt a pair of hands pick him up and drag him away from the house. Another Turian picked Kuril up and carried him even as shells began to rain down upon their position. As they hurriedly fled for their trenches, Victus looked at Kuril once more. His brother-in-arms was terribly injured, blue blood had begun to leak from where the shrapnel had struck him. A worryingly large bit of metal had lodged itself on his helmet, and smudges of blue was visible on the lieutenant's visor. Looking at his unconscious friend's body, an uneasy realization dawned upon the Colonel that all this happened, and it was his fault.
-000-
City of Falaena, Sona Frontline Sector, Thargora Thoraga, several hours earlier.
Where Tykis was a stagnant battlefield, with sporadic action in between gruelingly long stretches of quiet, Falaena was in many ways, the exact opposite. Fighting here was almost constant and seemingly never ending. Where lines were distinct and visually discernible in Tykis, it couldn't be further from the truth in Falaena. A major city before the war, fighting here done in bitter close quarters combat. Both sides enter a slugfest against each other, constantly moving to outmaneuver their foes. They fight street to street, building to building, and when a city has been faced with constant fighting for the past 5 weeks, every bit of bombed out corners start looking the same.
That is the situation that Asari commando Tristana T'Maris finds herself in. She leapt over a chest high wall as she fled her pursuers, namely a dozen Turian soldiers trying to gun her down. She rounded down the corner and slid through a hole in a wall to try and shake the enemy off her tail. As the Asari kept running away, she heard a large explosion and the sound of concrete crumbling behind her. A small glance to the rear confirmed her theory that the Turians simply blew up the wall and continued the chase.
A hail of gunfire struck her kinetic shield and drained it, leaving her without ballistic protection. Cursing at herself, she made a mental note to upgrade her shields as soon as she could. She motioned her arms and threw a biotic warp down the street, where it collided with a Turian and killed him.
The birds still haven't made counter-biotic armor. That's a relief.
Tristana swung around a corner where she immediately then ducked into a ditch on the side of the road. As her pursuers rounded the corners too, they became confused as to the disappearance of their target. Just as they try to spread out and find her, Krogans and Asari alike sprang out of their cover and ambushed the Turians. Being out of cover, they fell quickly to their enemies. When the fighting had finally died down, Tristana finally emerged from her hiding place and looked around. The enemy had been gunned down in the middle of the street where there was no cover at all. The corpses laid in the ground in formation, a valiant effort to survive she thought to herself. Walking over to the fallen aliens, she noticed one of the writhing on the ground. He didn't look like he was going to make it. As she stood above him, he spoke something in his language, so she couldn't understand. The commando simply pulled out her pistol and shot the dying soldier in the face, killing him.
"That was a bit brutal, wasn't it?" a Krogan trooper beside her asked.
"He was already dead, he just didn't realize it yet." Tristana replied.
The Krogan trooper merely grunted in acknowledgement as he left to secure the rest of the Turian corpses.
As soon as they had finished disposing the Turian corpses, they made their way back to their FOB, cleverly hidden in the city's sprawling underground train system. In there, dozens of injured Asari and Krogan laid in stretchers on the floor while doctors tended to them. Salarian tech operators and other individuals hurried through the narrow corridors. As chaotic the fight above was, it was just so away from combat.
Looking away from all the death and suffering, Tristana entered the makeshift washroom where she used the opportunity to clean herself from all the blood and grime that had begun to form on her body and suit.
Afterwards, some rest might be overdue.
-000-
Archive Update: Conversation between Field Major Jack Harper and Convict 6621-A Zaeed Massani.
:Start Playback:
[Harper enters the room and sits on a chair.]
Harper: Mr. Massani, in the flesh.
Zaeed: What d'you want spook?
H: What makes you think I'm a 'spook'?
Z: You're too well dressed to be with the Civil Protection Service, but your uniform doesn't stand out enough to be Federal Security. That leaves the military and the ACI. Spooks
H: A keen observation on your end, Mr. Massani. I'm here on a… recruitment drive, if you will.
Z: What for?
H: I'm sure you're well aware of the war's progress these days.
Z: Get to the point.
H: To the point it is. Basically put, we need more boots on the ground, and the volunteers joining in aren't fulfilling the yearly quota.
Z: Is that it? You're dragging me into some kind of penal battalion?
H: Not exactly. This is entirely voluntary. If you don't want to, you don't have to. If you do however, we're willing to cut your prison sentence.
Z: By how much?
H: Well, we can't guarantee how much we'll be cutting off your time… but we have other guarantees.
Z: Like what, strapping a bomb collar on me?
H: Please, nothing so crude. You have a family, am I correct Mr. Massani?
Z: I'm not even going to ask how you know.
H: If you accept the offer, they will be taken care of. Housing, food, education, you name it.
Z: And if I don't?
H: Well, there are plenty others we could offer this to. You declining the offer is no loss on our end.
Z: So I lose either way?
H: You could see it that way, or you could see it as a way to get involved in your son's life, even if your wife disapproves.
[Several seconds of silence]
Z: Fucking hell, when do I start?
:End Playback:
-000-
A/N:
I feel like there's a significant drop in writing quality. It might be myself slipping, or the fact that I've had to write these few chapters on a hand phone that's got to be 6 years old by now.
So, Turians duking it out with the Council, as promised. I think I might dive into Turian politics in the next chapter but I'm not sure. Vasir and Wrex are gonna be pretty important for the overarching plot, and hopefully I'll be able to expand Tela and Aethyta's relationship further in the future.
Honestly, trying to come up with new characters that readers might get invested in is quite a challenge on my end, especially considering that when it comes to writing, I have the same level of finess and subtlety that a man running around on fire while screaming incomprehensibly at the top of his lungs does.
Well either ways, here is the 20th chapter of the story. Remember to point out my mistakes (kindly pls) so that I could improve from them. Put them on a review or message it to me or something.
As always, thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day.