Part 14
The Praetorians did not land in the precise, Valkyrie-borne strikes of the Skitarii advance. They were crude weapons, a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel, and their deployment suited that fact. Four huge bulk landers descended through the wispy clouds, haloed by the flames of their atmospheric entry. Each was nearly eight hundred metres long, packed full of Praetorians and tanks.
The rumbling roar of their approach filled the air, a sound that only stopped when they met the ground outside the pacified town with a dull thud. Their flanks dropped open, and a flood of burnished metal strode out and into position.
The Praetorians were not soldiers, not in the traditional sense. They had started out as humans, most of them, purpose-grown in the Mechanicus' gene-vats. They had been extensively augmented, their skin replaced with thick plates of armour, and their muscles boosted with bonded bundles of servo-fibres and actuators, giving each one the strength of an Astartes and the durability of a light tank. Some had their legs replaced with tracked propulsion units, while others were triple-legged or spiderlike, heavy, bladed legs grinding into the ground.
They were equipped with a variety of weapon implants, ranging from huge, axe-like blades up to advanced plasma cannons, grafted on to the Praetorians in the place of limbs. They had been mind-scrubbed, rendering them incapable of independent thought, slaved to the control of the Techpriests in orbit. They were used when tactics and initiative were not needed, where brute force was all that mattered; manning trenchworks, boarding actions, spearheading ground assaults.
Within minutes of disembarking, they had flooded into the town. They infested the buildings, using their weaponry to systematically demolish and reposition stonework into more defensible positions.
Behind them came the tanks of the 83rd Karvandon Armoured Company. Nearly a hundred vehicles rumbled from the bulk landers, their tracks churning the earth beneath them. Basilisks took up positions in the centre of the town, where their long-range artillery could strike in any direction. Hellhounds waited at the entrances to the town, their inferno cannons ready to incinerate any enemy troops that dared enter. Leman Russes of all patterns moved in to support the Praetorians, covering streets and buildings with their weaponry.
Victor let a smile touch his lips. There wasn't a square foot of the town that wasn't covered by at least half a dozen weapons.
Then the first lander exploded.
"Target destroyed."
Wufei smiled grimly. The enemy craft, as huge as they were, had little armour, and the Mobile Suits' guns had made short work of the first. They had travelled the last three kilometres under their own power, mere metres from the ground in order to avoid detection.
"Good," he said. "Tauruses, move up on the one to the east. Everyone else, with me. The quickest way to kill an enemy is to take out the head!"
He shoved the thruster lever forwards, and Altron blasted ahead of the Virgos and Tauruses that made up 'his' force. The town that the enemy had occupied was close enough now that he could see the destruction in more detail than he wanted to. Gritting his teeth, he promised himself that he would make the enemy pay for each and every life they had ended there. How could they be so dishonourable as to slaughter defenceless civilians?
"Lead," called the man Wufei had appointed his second in command, an OZ Lieutenant named Delorn. "I'm reading multiple enemy positions ahead. Vehicles and infantry."
"Got it," Wufei cut him off. It didn't matter how many there were. Battle was about to be joined. He switched his radio over to the group channel. "Down to the ground," he ordered. "We'll move in on foot, give ourselves greater accuracy."
He didn't take his own orders, but kept Altron in the air. He had no ranged weaponry to speak of, so there was no sense in limiting his manoeuvrability by travelling on foot. Once he was in the thick of it, maybe, but not on the approach.
So when the artillery fire began to scream out from the town, he was able to easily dodge the shells. The others, however, were not so fortunate. Caught in the middle of setting down, the barrage caught them unprepared. From his sensors, Wufei thought that at least a dozen Mobile Suits were destroyed in that first bombardment.
"Move!" he shouted, his anger pouring through his voice. "Scatter, everyone!"
The Mobile Suits belatedly followed his order, pushing themselves into action. The hail of artillery proved to be untargeted, and most of the shots missed, save for a few unlucky Mobile Suits caught out by the shells.
Altron blasted over the small outer wall of the town in a cloud of dust and stone fragments, and was immediately engulfed in flame. Wufei cursed loudly, checking his sensors to see what was attacking him. A pair of tanks were stationed beneath the wall, their turrets spewing fire at him.
He rounded on them. "Fire?" he said angrily. "Well, I'll fight fire, with fire!" Altron's twin claws whipped out from its body and punched deep into the tanks' hulls with a crunch. Seconds later, the flamethrowers mounted on each claw fired, immolating whatever crew was inside the tanks, and setting off the large fuel canisters on their hulls. The tanks detonated with an explosion that shook Altron, and Wufei laughed harshly as he threw them to either side.
Tanks? How did they expect tanks to defend against Mobile Suits?
"Commander, enemy contact approaching fast!"
Tank Commander Zeriel Holdar turned a vicious look on his crew. "Are the weapons ready?"
"Yes sir," replied his loader.
"Enemy contact is within six hundred metres!"
Zeriel checked the vid-feed from outside. The dozen Praetorians around the tank were moving forwards, weapons raised in the direction of the approaching enemy. "ETA?"
"Less than three- frak that, it's here now!"
Zeriel bared his teeth. "Bring the demolisher cannon to bear on the target, ready the sponsons. Comms, get the Praetorians to move forwards; give us a screen."
The enemy blasted over the top of the buildings on powerful thrusters, roaring to a halt scant metres from the Bastion Imperialis. It was reminiscent of a Titan, only slighter and smaller, armoured with extravagantly-worked blue plates.
"All guns, fire!"
The demolisher cannon barked loudly, the recoil pushing the tank back on its suspension. The shell, designed to smash through rockcrete fortifications and breach walls, thundered out towards the enemy with a tearing thump.
The craft moved faster than Zeriel would have though possible, blasting directly downwards underneath the shell's path. It's feet came down atop two Praetorians, crushing them to the ground. The demolisher shell hit the building behind the enemy, detonating on impact in a furious firestorm that blew out the top three floors in a storm of flying stonework.
"Frak," cursed Zeriel. "Sponsons, target! Seth, get that cannon reloaded!"
The enemy craft flung one of its arms out, and the limb extended out to smash into a tracked Praetorian, metre-high claws tearing through the battle servitor like it wasn't even there. It repeated the move with its other arm, and another Praetorian died.
It was then, with the enemy craft static between the two dying Praetorians, that the Bastion Imperialis' sponsons opened up. The multimeltas were microwave weapons, each one capable of burning through a tank's hull in an instant, and their hisss bathed the Praetorians in white-red light. They struck the enemy in the left leg, both shots focussing together, and there came an almighty crack! as the armour there superheated.
Vapour clouds exploded from the enemy's shin, and it fell to the ground, unbalanced. When the clouds cleared, the leg below the shin had been melted nearly off. The foot was a mangled mess, shreds of armour dripping from the bubbling remains of the shin.
"Bring the demolisher cannon back around!" ordered Zeriel, a vicious snarl on his face. "Finish it off!"
Its thrusters flared back to life before the turret could traverse towards it, though, and the craft boosted up from the ground in a whirlwind of metal, stone and fire. The Praetorians opened fire with their weapons, autocannons and multilasers filling the air with streaking death, but somehow, the nimble enemy craft managed to avoid them all. Its claws retracted, and it drew a long pole from its back. The pole ignited, trident-like blades of energy emerging from each end.
It dropped abrubtly to street level, the polearm scything left and right, bisecting Praetorians where they stood. The thrusters on its back flared, and it darted straight for the Bastion, slicing its way through the remaining Praetorians.
Zeriel knew what was going to happen next. "Target!" he shouted, even though he knew there was no chance of acquiring the target and firing before the enemy reached them.
The last thing Zeriel Holdar saw was the blade of Altron's beam glaive vaporising the inside of his tank.
Daniel Williams swore loudly as he wrenched the controls of his Taurus around. "More of those damn cyborg-things to the left, two," he said.
"Got it, lead," replied two, Elena Banks. "Moving up."
Her Taurus came up behind Daniel's, turning on the way to fire a burst of shots into a pair of cyborgs approaching down an alley. They were surrounded, enemies in all directions.
Now he knew why cityfights weren't so common anymore. The main advantages of a mobile suit over tanks and infantry were firepower and manoeuvrability. In these cramped conditions, their fire lanes were restricted by the overcrowded buildings, and their manoeuvrability was cut down to almost nothing.
The World Nation forces had made a quick initial advance, gaining access to the town in short order and rendering the enemy artillery almost useless, but now they were stymied. The nuances of urban combat were unknown to the mobile suit pilots, who were used to battles over wide open terrain, or in the blankness of space. He knew the counter-assault was taking heavy losses, but two hundred mobile suits couldn't fail to take this small town, even if they had to systematically destroy every single building.
What they should have done, realised Daniel, was keep the entire force concentrated together. Instead, they had gone in over the entire western side of the town, spreading the force into more easily-resisted pockets. They hadn't counted on the enemy being this well dug in already, or there being so many of them with so much heavy weaponry. They had though it would be a relatively simple matter to sweep through the town and round up the enemy, and, once they had them encircled, move in for the kill. No one had thought that infantry and tanks could put up this much resistance to mobile suits.
"Over the top, two," he said, lifting his Taurus' hand to indicate the building to their left, behind which the enemy were approaching. "I'll go round groundside."
"Roger that," replied two, and her Taurus boosted up and over the four-storey building, weapon ready.
He rounded the corner, his beam rifle already aimed for where he knew the enemy would be. There were six of them, a mismatched group of mostly-mechanical monsters bristling with weapons and armour. Not one of them was smaller than eight feet tall; tiny by mobile suit standards, but giants by human ones.
His first shot took out the lead cyborg, incinerating it completely, and his second destroyed the entire left half of the one next to it. They returned fire, sending heavy shells and laser beams slamming into his Taurus. He staggered, going down to one knee as the shots tore into his right leg.
Elena came over the top of the building, beam rifle blazing, and obliterated the rear two. She landed heavily, feet cracking the ground under her Taurus, in the middle of the remaining two cyborgs.
They stopped firing, and turned on her. Daniel raised his weapon, sighted, and took out the rearmost one, but the last cyborg got into striking range. It was tripedal, three bladed legs propelling it forwards, with one arm replaced by a double-barrelled weapon, and the other by a massive claw at least two metres long.
The claw, crackling with energies, smashed into Elena's Taurus just below the knee. It punched through the titanium armour like wet paper, and almost tore off the leg. Elena went down, and it moved up, bladed legs stabbing into the mobile suit as it walked up to its chest.
Daniel roared in anger, kicking in the thrusters and charging straight at the cyborg. He couldn't use his rifle for fear of hitting Elena, so he would have to resort to just beating the damn thing to death.
It was faster than he was, though, and before he got halfway, its claw punched down once more, directly over the cockpit. It pierced the armour with a great, ripping shriek, locking out straight, buried inside Elena's Taurus. It withdrew the claw, and Daniel saw with horror that it was stained with fresh blood.
His Taurus reached the remains of Elena's, and he kicked out with one foot, connecting with the enemy and launching it into the building beside him. It smashed through the wall in a cloud of dust. Daniel turned his beam rifle on it, firing shot after shot into the newly-created hole until there was no chance that anything could still be alive in there.
Something hit him in the back so hard it almost brought him to his knees. He fought to his feet, and turned. There were three cyborgs at the corner of the street, all firing non-stop at him.
He didn't care any more. Elena had been with him from the start, since training. Even while the rest of his unit died, one by one, Elena stayed with him. Now she was gone, his unit was no more. Tears glistening in his eyes, he blasted his Taurus towards the three cyborgs.
Rounds slammed into his Taurus, shaking him, but he kept up his speed. He dropped the beam rifle, and reached down to his waist, pulling free and activating the beam sabre there. He raised it, howling a battle cry, and swung at the cyborgs.
The blow sliced two of them in half, but the third, a hunched, tracked abomination, opened fire with a huge weapon mounted on its back. A blinding beam of light speared into Daniel's Taurus, catching him in the waist. The energy exploded with a force comparable to beam weapons, searing through armour like it wasn't there.
The plasma cannon gutted his Taurus, and it fell to the ground. Two more shots later, and Daniel Williams was no more.
Above the town, four huge shapes dropped from orbit, framed by flames from the friction of atmospheric entry. They were massive, each one over fifty metres tall, and thirty wide.
When they landed, they shook the earth.
Then their side panels fired free, propelled by explosive bolts, and their contents were revealed. Dominus Cruor stepped from the southernmost one, the Warhound Titan stalking forwards towards the town, Vulcan Mega-Bolters cycling. In its command throne, Princeps Adamus Krieg was melded with the Titan, mind to mind, spirit to spirit.
Beside it, Mors Ignis emerged, the barrel of its inferno cannon flaring with flames. The Warhound wasted no time searching for targets, and set of at a loping, pounding gait towards the town. The first shots from the enemy glanced harmlessly off its void shields, flaring into nothingness.
Morior Sanctus, the third Warhound Titan, followed more slowly, its weapons configured for long-range combat. The turbo-laser destroyer mounted in its right arm lowered slightly, and then fired. A beam of intense light flared, and an enemy exploded within the city, thin armour no match for the immensely powerful weapon.
And from the last emerged the largest; the Warlord Titan Mors Mortis.
With the mind-impulse link fully active, Silas was no longer Silas. Now, he was part of Mors Mortis, merged with its ancient consciousness. He stepped forwards, feeling the ground shake beneath his footsteps.
As he neared the town, shots started to splash off his void shields. The powerful shielding darkened under the flaring energy beams, but held. Titan void shields were capable of holding off even shots from other Titans, and Mors Mortis had six of them, layered so that if one went down, another would be ready to take its place until it could be regenerated.
Four shapes, each one just over a quarter of his height, rose from the town on powerful thrusters, banking towards him. Their weapons flashed, but did no harm.
"Deus Mechanicus," he growled, the words emerging from the massive voxcasters in his head. The Gatling Blasters in his shoulder mounts cycled up to firing speed as he acquired targeting solutions on the approaching enemies.
Theshells that flew from the Gatling Blasters were the size of tank shells, each one the length and thickness of a man's leg. The force of their impact was powerful enough to tear down structures and eat through solid rock. And the Gatling Blasters fired them at almost twenty-thousand shells per second.
The two weapons fired in unison, bolts lancing out with a solid droning roar to smash the enemies from the air. The outer pair were first to die, shredded to scraps by his fire, and the inner pair dropped low to the ground in the hope of avoiding him.
He laughed harshly and stopped firing. The huge blade mounted on the lower half of his right arm crackled, and energy danced along it as its power field activated. He stepped forwards to meet the remaining enemies.
The first veered off at the last instant, narrowly avoiding his heavy blow. The second carried on, its own blade drawn, and smashed itself to pieces on his shields. His laugh became colder. The last enemy was flitting around him, chipping away at his shields to no avail.
One foot stomped backwards, and his torso pivoted at the waist, bringing his blade scything around in a lightning-wreathed arc. The enemy craft didn't notice until too late, and his blade met it, and destroyed it. The power field ripped it apart at a molecular level, leaving only scraps for the blade itself to smash through.
His laugh cut off, and he stepped forwards again. Towards the town.
Wufei snarled in anger as he watched the monstrous machine rip apart the four Virgo II's. It was huge, in keeping with the enemy; huge ships, huge weapons; it followed that they would have huge machines too.
He brought Altron to a dead stop, in an intersection between four roads. He could see what passed for the enemy infantry approaching from all sides. The only reason he was still alive was because he had kept moving. That tank had done too much damage for him to risk it again.
The thrusters were getting close to overheating, though. They were not meant to be active for an entire battle in atmosphere. He couldn't last much longer. Sooner or later, they would give out altogether.
Growling, he brought them up to capacity once more, blasting Altron up towards one of the monsters that were busy slaughtering their way inside the town. It was one of the three smaller ones, if twenty-metre tall behemoths could be called small. Its right arm was a huge flamethrower, spewing gouts of fire down into the streets. Its left was a huge, twin-barrelled machinegun, spitting explosive-tipped bolts into the mobile suits that its flames flushed out.
It saw him before he got within four hundred metres, and shifted its aim towards him. A tempest of bolts and flames streaked out towards him, and it took all his skill to keep Altron out of their path. The thrusters were redlining as he constantly flicked them on and off, changing direction almost at random to throw off the monster's targeting.
Remembering the fate of the third Virgo II, he killed his acceleration, bringing Altron down to a crawl. It saw what he was trying to do, and he was wreathed in flames before he had a chance to move again. The fire ate away at Altron's armour, overheating the already too-hot thrusters, and he was forced to drop back from the machine.
Bolts from its machinegun followed him as he moved, tracking him through the air mere metres behind. Buildings collapsed, riddled with craters, and streets were churned into rubble.
Grimacing, he took Altron back in close. He kept up his speed, this time. There was no chance of getting through those shields without being shot first. He activated his beam glaive, and charged.
The beam weapon hit the machine's shields with a juddering spark of discharge, the invisible shield darkening beneath his blow. He dodged away as it brought its fire towards him once more, only to dart back in and strike again, wearing its shields down, blow by blow.
The machine was moving, heading further into the town. It trampled between buildings, and over the smaller ones, paying little attention to the direction of the streets. Wufei followed, boosting down narrow streets and in between buildings as quickly as he dared. One wrong move, and he would be so much scrap metal.
He rounded the remains of an apartment, and struck out for perhaps the twentieth time. The shield darkened all over, then failed. His glaive passed through, and his momentum carried Altron with it.
So, when the second shield layer came online to replace the first, he was already inside it.
Smiling cruelly, he struck upwards with the glaive, punching it into the top of the machine's chest and ripping it free in a spray of sizzling parts. He swept the glaive around to the side, then back, cutting deep into the flamethrower on the machine's shoulder mount, and boosting away before the resultant explosion could damage him.
The machine swayed under the force of the explosion, and Wufei took the opportunity to finish it. His beam glaive struck out, and emerged with a snap-hiss from the top of the machine's wolf-like head. It shuddered, and he ripped the glaive free.
It fell away from him, the failing shields slipping past him, and slammed into the ground. Dead.
Wufei checked his monitors. The behemoths could be killed. Three more to go. Treize's forces had taken a battering, though. There were barely seventy mobile suits left running, out of two hundred. He grimaced. It was still doable. Working together, they could take out the huge walkers, and then sweep the town, block by block.
And then he saw something that made all that obsolete.
Up above, four more containers like those that had delivered the walkers were falling.