Chapter 17: The Battle of Sydney
SYDNEY
JUNE 14, 01:20 AEDT
In the most famous of Australia's cities, Booster Gold was leading Omega Squad in defense of Earth against Darkseid's invasion. The report from Batman said that Sydney was the last population center on Darkseid's agenda of conquest, and hopefully it would stay that way. Fortunately, Booster Gold would not be helping in the defense alone, for Batman had called in a favor from Dr. Will Magnus, and so the Metal Men would be joining the only official Justice League member on Omega Squad. They arrived in Sydney just as Darkseid's scout ship came to land in Sydney Harbor.
The Australian Defense Forces had marshaled its full force of more than 59,000 troops to defend Sydney along with several advance companies from Thailand, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua-New Guinea, and the Philippines, and it was hoped that the defense of Earth against Darkseid's invasion would hold here as it was holding elsewhere around the world. Booster Gold and the Metal Men arrived at Sydney Harbor and came to meet with General Malcolm Bennett, who shook hands with Booster Gold and explained how the enhanced defenses had been organized.
"Our main unit is currently spread along the docks to keep those space blighters out of Sydney's center," he explained. "With the advance men from the surrounding islands, we just might hold the line against them."
"We'd better hope it will, 'cause here come those Parademon things now!" Booster Gold said urgently.
It was true, for the Apokoliptan ship was releasing hundreds of millions of Parademons followed by swarms of Doom Hawks and platoons of Hell Hounds and Draco-Tanks. As the Parademons prepared to attack, the Australian soldiers opened fire with plasma impactors, sonic cannons, cryogenic rockets, and many other enhanced armaments the Justice League had provided. Several Parademons on the front lines were vaporized before they had a chance to strike while those that had managed to land were met with fierce resistance. The Parademons still in the air were obliterated by shots from the sonic Trident tanks as well as enhanced laser tanks and alien-tech mortars, and so were several Doom Hawks. As for the Hell Hounds and the Draco-Tanks, they were hit with enhanced armor-piercing missiles and blasted into useless heaps of smoking metal. Then the Royal Australian Air Force counterattacked Darkseid's invasion of Australia from the flanks, and the hordes of Parademons and Doom Hawks were diverted by several squads of Boeing F/A-18s, Boeing F/A-18E/Fs, F-35 As, F-35 Lightnings, and the new F-40 Phoenixes. At the same time, the Royal Australian Navy sent enhanced battleships, destroyers, submarines, and even a few aircraft carriers to target the Apokoliptan ship and cut off the constant advance of Darkseid's Parademons and war machines. Their enhanced armor-piercing torpedoes rocked the Apokoliptan ship with explosions and diverted the rear forces toward them.
While General Bennett and his men held the line against Darkseid's contingency, Booster Gold and his flying robot companion Skeets were at the front, tensely waiting for the Parademons to make landfall. As they waited, Booster said to his friend, "We are going to make it out alive, right, Skeets?"
"While there is the possibility, sir, the odds of Australia's defense holding is less in our favor than the other locations the Justice League is protecting," replied Skeets. "According to my calculations, the Apokoliptan force against Australia currently stands at more than seven to one."
"Then we cut it down to size!" Booster Gold answered with an edge to his voice.
And with that, he and Skeets advanced at the first line of Parademons. The monsters came at him armed with Agony Gauntlets, howling their war cry "For Darkseid!" However, as they fired, Booster Gold's flight ring allowed him to move swiftly to dodge the red-colored energy disks the Parademons fired at him. He blasted at the creatures with his force-beam gauntlets and scored several hits in their weak spots. Though he was hit by at least one Agony Gauntlet's blast, Booster Gold managed to fire on more Parademons and a few Doom Hawks and he blasted them down to the streets. He tried to take down a few of the Hell Hounds in the firstline, but his shots only slowed them down. But when it seemed as though he would be counted among the casualties, Booster Gold and the Australian military saw another large squad of Green Lanterns led by Aresia and Ch'p arrive to take on the invaders with them, along with an equally powerful squad of Star Sapphires. They tore through the ranks of Darkseid's contingency force and significantly eased the difficulty of the battle.
On the north flank, the enhanced-tank platoons led by 2nd Lieutenant Russell Forrester were battling large squads of Darkseid's Parademons and Hell Hounds. They hit the attackers with everything they had, easily holding the line, but the Apokoliptan lines continued their relentless advance on Sydney. As the Parademons charged, the first of the Metal Men to engage were Gold and Iron. Gold elongated his metal arms and began grappling several Parademons at once and whiplashed them away. He also expanded his fists to the size of boulders and pounded more Parademons into the ground as well as a number of Doom Hawks, Hell Hounds, and even Draco-Tanks. Iron knocked several Parademons to the ground and knocked over several Draco-Tanks. He pulled a few dozen Hell Hounds to the ground, swatted more Parademons down like flies, and then he shifted into a large metal ball and crushed many Draco-Tanks in his path.
Sergeant Cody O'Riley and his platoon of gunners were firing alien-tech mortars at the invaders on the south flank and had scored numerous hits. But they had taken some heavy blows and a few of their mortars had been hit by enemy fire. However, as the first platoon of Hell Hounds advanced through the rubble-laden outskirts of Sydney, Platinum, Tin, and the team's newest member Copper prepared to take them down. Platinum morphed her metal body into a long chain while Tin and Copper became the stakes, and together they tripped the technological horrors. Then Copper flung Tin into the air, where he twisted himself into a propeller and cut several Doom Hawks to pieces before coming back down. Then as more Parademons came on the attack, Copper hit them with conductive punches while Platinum and Tin knocked them away like pinballs.
Meanwhile, Mercury and Lead were facing down another squad of Parademons on the east flank. The Apokoliptan monsters tried to attack the Australian forces with their agony-inducing weapons, but Lead grew to a huge size and refracted the beams fired by the oncoming monsters. Then when they came in close, he shrunk back down and then hit them hard, successfully dismantling each Parademon in his way. As for Mercury, he lifted an overturned oil tanker and slammed it on a few hundred Draco-Tanks and Hell Hounds, bathing them in the crude oil. Then moving several yards back, the hot-headed Metal Man released a stream of flame that ignited the oil into a raging conflagration. The Apokoliptan war machines crashed to the ground with howls and groans, followed by a loud snapping of circuits and armor.
The soldiers of Australia cheered as Booster Gold and the Metal Men engaged the attackers from Apokolips and they joined the Justice League's Omega Squad with renewed determination to keep their country and their world free from Darkseid's power-mad conquest. But though Sydney was well-defended as were the rest of Earth's countries, the battle was barely half-finished.
A/N: I hope this chapter was all right for you, my readers. The battle of Sydney is the last location I need to cover to have each continent (minus Antarctica) covered, and when Chapter 18 comes, there'll be more callbacks to Star Wars and better yet, we'll have the first major one-on-one battles between the heroes of the Justice League and Darkseid's cronies.
Feel free to rate and review if you so desire, and feel free to read my fanfictions. Some are not yet complete, but they will be eventually. Enjoy!
