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Chapter 33: Lucifer's Stand
Date: 05:45, May 27th, 2170
Location: Mining Site 02, Tartarus, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System
Kapitán Nikolai Kozlov listened carefully to the reports still flooding the airwaves. None of the news was especially good, which made it all the more vital to him, encased as he was within the bunker complex.
Skirmishing was still going on, both at the other mining site as well as at Tartarus itself. The enemy had been driven off, but was only temporarily. As soon as they mustered their courage and grouped together again, and he did not doubt for a moment that they would, the battle would resume.
This was both good, and bad, news for the human forces. Good, that they had a time to catch their breath, re-arm, resupply. Bad, because the enemy was still out there, preparing to attack once more, and he was not sure that they would be able to hold them off again. Their problem was the same problem faced by every elite army ever fielded by the human race. No matter how good their training, how powerful their weapons, how valiant their courage, all of it was meaningless in the face of the raw, overwhelming numbers that they were facing.
As a brutal man had said, so long ago, "Eventually, quantity has a quality all of its own."
Their only hope was to bleed the enemy white, until they could no longer stomach the thoughts of battle, and retreated.
It was a slim hope.
He sighed and turned to the holotable in the center of his command center, located deep in the bowels of the complex. The three-dimensional image of the complex showed the numerous tunnels connecting the pillboxes and bunkers, small green lights checking them off as manned, ready, and waiting for the enemy. The exterior thermals were updating constantly, detailing the mass of native savages slowly encroaching around the entire site.
"Yet more bad news." he muttered. The other two prongs had accelerated just before they attacked, launching full frontal assaults, which had predictably suffered extreme casualties. This group was acting in a far more intelligent fashion, trying to find ways through the scrap barrier instead of blundering into the kill-zones.
He brought up the channel to his tiny mortar squad, nestled safely back at Tartarus, "Mortar platoon, target, 700 meters due north of bunker complex, fire for effect."
"Da, Kapitán!"
The beautiful thing about mortars compared to regular artillery was that you did not hear them coming. There was no piercing scream as the round tore through the air, there were simply the explosions as they impacted trees, earth, and flesh.
The thermals painted the picture well, heat blossoms appearing amidst the blue-skin forces.
He grinned tightly, "Solid aim! Walk rounds south-east, 30 degrees, maximum effort."
Though there only four mortars in his platoon, they were firing like he had a full battery on call. The aim began to drift as they fired at their maximum rate, but with the rounds falling like rain, he was obliged to forgive them.
He nodded slowly as the native mob began to move rapidly forwards, they were not going to sit there and take the artillery fire, even as light as it was in the face of their numbers.
"Artillery, slow rate of fire, and switch to local control." he changed to the complex-wide signal, "Heavy gun crews, target super-fauna, all other forces target the natives, fire at will."
Tracer rounds began to flash as the heavy machine guns began to hurl fire into the jungle. The heavier roar of their main guns sounded through the complex as the gunners carefully fired their armor-piercing rounds at the incoming beasts.
He felt a slight snarl build within him. He could not see what was happening here. The thermals were accurate, in their own way, but they could not show the exact composition of what was approaching, only that there was a lot of it, concentrated in a long band from his northeast to western sides. And the enemy, damn them, was keeping the bulk of their forces hidden within the dense foliage.
More roars began above his head as the precious few fifty-caliber weapons relegated to anti-air work began firing, thirty-caliber weapons joining in as the native banshee riders swarmed downwards. Screams of both pain and challenge came across the comm system as the much more vulnerable anti-air crews came under severe arrow fire.
He swore loudly as the casualty reports began to come in, the radar painting a bleak image of swarming banshees and Great Leonopteryx above them, and barked new orders, "Air batteries, withdraw inside now! We can't afford to lose any more of you!"
The men and women did not even bother responding, simply releasing their weapons and bolting inside as rapidly as they could, sealing the doors behind them.
The roar of gunfire began to die off; he frowned and turned back to the thermals.
"What the..." the natives had made a single, small push, and after suffering several casualties, had pulled back into the jungle.
"Mortar battery reporting, low on ammunition, ceasing fire."
The transmission broke him from his stupor, "Acknowledged, good work, maintain alert."
He continued to frown at the screen. The bulk of the native forces suddenly began to move again, but not towards his complex. Instead they were heading southeast, around his right flank and towards the road leading to Site 01 and Tartarus beyond it. The force paused upon reaching the road, and then began to accelerate along it, fragments drifting into the forests, diffusing to the point where the thermals had issues picking them up.
"Son of a bitch! God damn that American traitor!" he could not help swearing out loud, only retaining enough presence of mind to make sure his headset was not on. The other three soldiers in the command center blinked and turned to face their commander
It did not take them long to realize what was happening either, and their swearing began almost immediately.
He slammed his fist down on the holotable and brought up his priority channel to Weigand, "Oberst, this is Kozlov, enemy is bypassing Site 02, repeat, enemy is bypassing Site 02. Appear to be leaving a rear guard along the road to ensure we cannot pursue. Sully appears to be moving towards Site 01, most likely intending to use the road to evade the majority of the outer defenses, over."
A short Germanic curse greeted his news, "Acknowledged, tell your people there to prepare for a full encirclement of their position. I'm sending Adler to reinforce the position with Brunhilde."
"I'm requesting permission to pursue!"
"Denied, you'd be slaughtered and you know it. Alert your people there and remain in position until I order otherwise."
Acknowledging the command; he slammed his fist down once more in anger, before opening the channel to warn his subordinates what was coming towards them.
Date: 06:55, May 27th, 2170
Location: Mining Site 01, Tartarus, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System
Brunhilde shuddered as the remains of her last escort slammed into her roof, the Leonopteryx that had thrown the machine around like a toy winging rapidly away.
They had arrived less than twenty minutes ago to find the battle fully underway. The already battered eastern forces had slowly crept forwards, using the dead bodies of their kin for what cover they could, and began to hurl fire-bombs and shoot arrows in the gunnery slits. The massive force swarming from the other direction had simply sprinted down the road, assaulting the weakest area of the complex with raw speed and ferocity.
The Russian defenders and miners inside were surrounded, trapped, and were fighting with the desperate, craven nature of cornered animals. The communications channels were filled with the sounds of gunfire and screaming as they fought in vain to hold off the massive swarm. Some officers were desperately trying to keep their fire teams focusing their fire appropriately, while others were equally screaming for reinforcements at junctions within the interior, gunfire and screams punctuating their shouts.
In the sky, Adler's helicopter squadron had not lasted long. They had hurled their missiles into the fray as they approached, then done everything they could to keep the enemy from swarming Brunhilde, but the enemy had simply swarmed them, tearing the machines apart one by one.
Below, another burst of light flared amid the dawn as a pillbox's ammunition exploded, the air wave causing the Valkyrie to shudder. The bunker complex itself already glowed with the lights of a dozen fires, with yet more starting as fire-bombs both rained from the sky or were hurled by the blue-skin warriors on the ground. Only intermittent gunfire responded. Far too many humans were fighting for their lives inside the complex against the viper-wolves and blue-skins that had torn through the doors and raced into the darkened tunnels. He doubted that the savages would handle themselves well in the tight confines, but the viper-wolves… they would exact a fearful toll on the Russians and the miners within.
"Fire on the right wing!" the bellow came from one of the top bunkers, causing Adler and the pilot to swear in unison.
"Slow starboard engines by twenty percent, increase their coolant intake to maximum!" the pilot's hands flew over the controls as he struggled to carry out the orders.
He took the flight controls, his forward mounted gun having been torn off by a banshee ten minutes previously, and wrestled to keep the great ship in the air while the pilot continued his frantic work. Her guns kept roaring throughout, her main battery spitting death at the savage cavalry trying to head north to Tartarus, while her numerous defensive guns tried desperately to keep the airborne threats away.
But in this, her own size was working against her. Her massive bulk made her an easy target for the enemy to hurl their fire-bombs at, and her hull was burning in several places. Her aft bunker had been torn open by a Leonopteryx, and though the beast had been slain, the gunners there were fighting a furious battle to prevent the natives from trying to simply board her.
He had just managed to restore his ship to level flight when the ship shuddered once more, her tortured body screaming in protest as one of the overheated starboard engines simply exploded as a fire-bomb struck it directly.
She dipped suddenly to the right, swerving down far too swiftly to the ground. The pilot swore, seizing the controls back. The remaining starboard engine's lights began to flicker as he pushed it beyond its capabilities, while the port engines cooled as he expertly leveled them off.
"We need to fall back sir! The engine won't last much longer!"
"Nein! We can't abandon the men in the complex!" he shouted back.
"They're already dead Hauptmann!"
He winced, the words an icy blow to his gut. He stared out the window at the burning hill of concrete and soil, the flashes of outwards gunfire slowly faltering, the radio still chorusing with gunfire and screams.
"Scheisse! Do it."
The pilot kept up their long starboard bank, steadying them out on a northerly course as he struggled to gain altitude.
Tapping his communications channel open, he reported as quickly as he could, "Oberst, I regret to inform you that Site 01 is lost. Brunhilde has sustained major damage; we are attempting to withdraw to Tartarus."
"Confirmed Hauptmann, get your people back here. Thermals show the natives are advancing and spreading out, preparing to his us from all sides. Kozlov is still pinned down at Site 02, as soon as you land get your people into the interior trenches, we need every man." Weigand's voice was laced with tension, the heavy gunfire sounding occasionally betraying the fact that he was in his AMP suit.
The natives were not content to let the massive gunship escape, as soon as they saw her beginning to withdraw, they ceased attempting to stay at range and swarmed towards her from every direction.
Her machine guns continued to spit tracer rounds in every direction as she tried to limp home, her heavy guns ceasing their ground-pounding, the gunners frantically aiming at the more pressing airborne targets. One banshee simply exploded in red cloud, broken, bleeding wreckage falling from the sky after a high explosive round slammed into its chest, others dove and banked away, attempting to avoid that side of the shuttle.
The communications chatter from the gun bunkers streamed across the interior channels, giving the pair in the cockpit the grim news moment by moment.
"There! There! Leo with a rider, target it!"
"Can't see it, banked below us!"
"Five banshees, starboard, kill them!"
"Increase fire aft! They're trying to board!"
"Another Leo! Coming in port!"
"They're aboard! They're ab-"
The last broke off in gunfire and screaming. The main guns suddenly ceased fire, and the gunfire within her hull increased as their crews sized their weapons and rushed to the aft end of the ship.
The radar image screamed a warning at him; six lithe objects were diving from high altitude, directly towards the already burning starboard wing.
"Starboard, high! Tötet sie!" he bellowed.
The upper bunkers responded instantly, gunfire slashing at the diving natives. One fell. Another. Two more. Then the last two were past the ship, and their remaining starboard engine had burst into flames.
Alarms screamed in the cockpit as both the pilot and Alder fought to keep the massive craft in the air, desperately trying to feed coolant into the wing. The already overtaxed engine was screaming now, the built in fire-suppression system overwhelmed.
"Can we make Tartarus!?" he shouted to the pilot.
The other man shot him a glance, and shook his head just as the engine's fuel line detonated, sending the entire right wing hurling off of the ship in pieces.
Brunhilde began her final dive, trailing fire behind her.
He felt... oddly calm as he stared at the onrushing ground, the G forces slowly pushing him back into his seat.
Almost leisurely, he activated the channel to his Oberst, "Ich werde Sie in Walhalla sehen mein Freund."
He did not hear any response, but then, he did not really expect one either.
The ground rushed up to meet them. There was a flash of light, the screaming roar of tortured metal, and then there was nothing.
Date: 07:15, May 27th, 2170
Location: Ops-Center, Tartarus, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System
The explosion was massive, even from a distance. Parker stared at the fading flash, and the entire Ops-Center quieted around him.
"Was that Brunhilde?" he asked into the silence.
No one in the Ops-Center responded to him, but the massive gunship was no longer present amongst the chaos on the holotable. Beyond the loss of their air power, they could no longer raise Site 01, the overwhelmed complex was completely silent to their hails.
What had looked like a pair of banshees had flown from Sully's force to the group to the north, no doubt bearing orders. Shortly after they arrived, the blue-skins had begun to slowly spread out from their dense formation, beginning instead to encircle the entire base. More savages arriving from the mining site had begun a similar maneuver, and he guessed that the human colony would be totally surrounded within the hour.
Oberst Weigand and Captain Jones had been forced to spread their people out across the entire perimeter. There was no way they would be able to hold for very long, not against a determined attack. The troops would have to fall back to the trenches and defenses around the Ops-Center, the ones his miners were currently defending.
To make matters even more hectic, Kozlov kept requesting permission to try and fight his way out, to get his people back to Tartarus, but Weigand had shot him down each time. As much as Parker truly wanted the detachment of Russians and his miners to get back to the base, he had to admit that it would be suicide for them to try. A little over a hundred men, without AMPs, without air-cover, trying to fight their way through thousands of savages across three kilometers of jungle… No, they would have to stay put in the relative safety of their complex until they could think of something.
But what the hell are we going to think of?
He could not even begin to answer his own question. The natives' losses were insane, they had to be. Even from here he could see the carpet of bodies lying before the northern trenches, and he could not even imagine how many had to have died at Site 01 when they swarmed it.
But despite all of that, Thomes's last report from orbit had guesstimated the hostiles were down to just over three and a half thousand natives, with an unknown number of beasts still darting around. The biggest problem was not the numbers themselves; rather it was that Sully's group was still mostly intact. He and the others were sure that it contained all of the savages the bastard had no doubt spent time training how to actually fight.
Expelling his breath in a long sigh, he fought to keep his fear off of his face as he saw Weigand and his AMP teams redeploying to the southern perimeter, getting ready to fight against the oncoming horde.
Date: 07:25, May 27th, 2170
Location: Tree of Souls, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System
Mo'at had been weeping almost uncontrollably ever since she had rejoined with Eywa over an hour ago, and Max had no idea what to do. She had been continuously trying to convince her goddess, praying, begging, everything and anything the tsahik could think of to stop the fighting. But she had never burst into tears, clutching at the branches of the sacred tree like a lifeline.
Hesitating, he glanced at Norm and the two carefully moved up towards her.
"Mo'at? What is it?" he kept his voice as soft as he could.
There was a very long silence before she responded, her voice distant, "So much death... so many lives in pain..."
"The battle has started," Norm whispered quietly.
"It's probably been going on since last night," he nodded, "Mo'at, are you all right? Do you need anything?"
More silence. "The pain to stop."
He winced, "Eywa still won't listen?"
The Na'vi matriarch slowly detached herself from the branch, nearly collapsing in place, tears still silently streaming down her face. "The great mother believes the only way to stop the pain is to drive the tawtute from her body."
His hand flickered through his hair, "Dammit. Why won't she listen?"
"Because she is a goddess of life, and is acting as she sees fit to preserve her children and the balance." the tsahik replied to his rhetorical question, drawing in deep breaths to bring herself under control.
Sitting heavily, he groaned, "There could be a balance with the humans here though. Yes, they're going to damage things, it's unavoidable, but contained damage can be managed, and they can heal what they hurt when they're finished. Did you ask her to look into Grace's memories, about those weapons?"
The tsahik shuddered violently, "I saw them." she whispered.
"Did Eywa?"
"Of course."
"And that didn't convince her? You can't defend against things like that! I mean, the best response even humans have to those weapons is to not be where they explode!"
Mo'at shook her head slowly, "She saw, but did not listen to my voice. Grace's memories are alien to her, difficult to read. Flashes of insight, not one of your… what are they called, 'books'? I saw flashes of terror and horror at the idea of those weapons, but not much more than that. It is very difficult to convince the great mother to act against her chosen course…"
Norm laughed quietly, "Humans don't see, but Na'vi can't listen. That's irony."
The Na'vi woman turned to glare at Norm, who held up his hands in apology, "Sorry... just... just had to laugh at something before I break down."
Her eyes softened and she nodded. He sighed and stared at the lightly glowing tree.
"We have to keep trying, or this battle is going to tear everything apart."
"It already has." Mo'at responded quietly, "I felt the deaths of hundreds of my people... of toruk's pride, of nantang's rage. The battle rages on and soon nothing but ashes will remain of both our peoples."
They sat in silence for a long while, simply staring at the tree, trying to find some avenue of argument that they had not yet tried.
Katrina broke them from their reverie, "Max! That Thomes chick is on the line for you."
He sighed and got up, jogging over. Behind him, Mo'at and Norm slowly rose and followed.
The pilot flicked on the microphone and speakers as he approached.
"Dr. Patel, have you made any progress?" the Captain's voice was almost desperate.
"We convinced a tsahik to aid us, but Eywa is not listening to our arguments."
"We can tell." she snapped at him, "We just lost on of our mining sites, and we're under total siege. Weigand doesn't think that we can withstand the next assault."
Everyone grimaced, "Casualties?" he asked.
"We've lost a quarter of our personnel KIA, and a lot of the rest are walking wounded. The natives have to have lost at least two-thousand, maybe more, but they're still coming dammit."
Mo'at held a hand to her mouth.
Thomes continued, "Get in touch with us as soon as you make any kind of progress. At all. We're short on hope here Doctor." She cut the link.
They all stared quietly at the radio for a while, before Mo'at silently turned and strode back to the tree, chanting softly as she began joining once more with her goddess.
Three humans and one Avatar watched her go, before slowly following, sitting on the ground and roots, staring at nothing as a titanic war for the fate of two species raged a few hundred kilometers away.
Date: 12:15, May 27th, 2170
Location: Tartarus, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System
"Fall back! Repeat! All positions fall back to the inner defenses!" Jones was bellowing across the comm system, his voice hoarse from the bellowing.
Fires were raging all across the base, the tracer rounds of weapons were slashing everywhere, the heavy gun on the roof of the Ops-Center was bellowing its fury at the airborne natives trying to slay the soldiers below as they fled form one trench-line to another.
Everywhere he looked, Parker saw insanity. He could see Weigand's AMP team covering the withdrawal along their southern flank, while Jones was personally leading his best engineers to try and cover the retreat of the rest to the north. Savages were firing arrows from the trenches at the retreating men, and yet more of their people were screaming as fire-bombs covered them in flaming napalm, joining the natives screaming as bullets tore into their flesh.
He had thought he had seen was battle was like before, during both of the raids he had been caught in the middle of.
This fight was doing its best to show him how stupid that idea had been. How stupid even the concept of that idea had been.
His eyes refused to be torn from the windows facing north, the engineers struggling to race across the open ground and get to the safety of the trenches around the Ops-Center, from where his miners were desperately trying to provide covering fire.
An engineer fell as a viperwolf tackled her, more of the beasts swarming in to feast. An explosion tore them all apart, and with a sickening drop of his stomach he realized that the American had pulled the pins on her own grenades, rather than be eaten alive.
Such feats of heroic insanity were all around him, and on both sides. A mortally wounded native woman bore down on an engineer whose own blood covered his body, both drawing knives as they thrashed and wrestled weakly on the ground.
An AMP, the triple headed image of Cerberus on its front grinning madly, raced north to provide what help it could. The pilot simply grabbed the native woman's queue with one mechanical fist, picked her up, and slammed her into the ground hard enough to leave a bloody stain where she impacted. The engineer she had been wrestling with lay still upon the ground.
He felt himself heaving, with nothing coming up. He had already vomited everything out of his stomach hours ago.
Tearing himself away from the scene outside, he stared instead at the holotable, staggering over to it. Less than a third of the American engineers remained now, even as the last few survivors leaped into the trenches around the building. The AMP team had lost half of their number, both to native fire-bombs as well as diving banshee riders. Weigand led his mechanical brutes into their own deep positions in the trench, and the battle began to slow once more.
Blinking rapidly, he stared at the screen and listened to the slowing gunfire outside. The natives slowly began to crawl, limp, or run back to the outer defenses, occasionally firing arrows inwards, but stopping their efforts to swarm the base.
A massive Leonopteryx, the only one still alive, glided to a landing in the jungle just outside the base, with most of the banshees following it down.
"Dammit!" He swore, "That's Sully! Do we have any mortar rounds left?"
"Negative sir." The communications officer shook her head. "We used the last two hours ago."
"Shit." shaking his head, he stared at the feed before activating his comm system, "Weigand, this is Selfridge, what are they doing?"
The Oberst was panting with exertion, his voice weary, "Falling back, preparing to skirmish it appears. They've been fighting constantly for hours now, and working a bow is far more effort than firing a gun. They must intend to rest their arms for a while before they attempt to finish it."
"How long do you think?" he pressed.
Weigand's voice turned thoughtful, though no less exhausted, "Several hours at least. Most likely until nightfall."
"We still hold the main landing pad, should I have Thomes send her ship down for the wounded?"
"Nein." His voice laced with regret, "We cannot afford to lose our last shuttle, have the medics turn the apartment complex into a triage center."
He nodded, forgetting that the other man could not see him, "Think we can hold them tonight?"
"We've lost over half of our men here, but they've lost hundreds. Unless Sully manages to rally them, their morale must be very low at the moment. We might have a chance if we're able to stand fast."
Parker expelled his breath and nodded before frowning. Weigand had not sounded terribly confident.
He cut the communications and glanced down at the table before realizing something. His hands were shaking uncontrollably again. He gulped, and forced himself to sound calm as he shoved his hands into his pockets "Right. Let's get the wounded treated then."
Next up is Chapter 34: Lucifer's Fall
Glad that everyone enjoyed the action in the last chapter, so here is some more. The battle continues to rage, though both sides are now badly battered, and Mo'at and Max continue to strive to convince Eywa to stop the madness.
Probably two more chapters of combat ahead, or maybe just one very long one, before it's over, one way, or the other.
Please keep reviewing!
Review Responses:
AndreyRus: I agree that I'm better at the battle sequences, probably a consequence of reading too many war stories and playing too many rts and fps games. I do enjoy the philosophy bit though, and you can't get better at something without trying it.
forgotten shock trooper: that song is on my youtube writing playlist actually, though most of the last chapter was written to Requiem for a Tower.