Blue and Red: Stories From Shanxi
The Battle of Hunter Hill: Day 2
Corporal Actaeus Endurani
"After a battle as disastrous as that first assault on Hill 120, in almost any other situation, we would have called in an orbital strike and wiped the target off the face of the planet.
"We didn't have that option.
"Now, most of the time, that would be because we needed to take the place intact or needed intel from the target.
"That wasn't the case this time.
"It was strange, fighting without orbital support. 'Victory goes to he who holds the high ground, and there is no higher ground than orbit.' That was one of the central tenets of turian military theory.
"I mean, we always knew the fleet could lose the orbitals, but the fleet hadn't lost a major engagement in any of our lifetimes, and frankly, if the fleet lost, we didn't expect to find out about it until we were on the wrong end of an orbital bombardment, but things on Shanxi were different.
"We didn't have control of orbit... but neither did the humans. That kind of balance was always theoretically possible, but we had never actually had to fight under those conditions before."
Corporal Dennis Nicholson
"When the turians pulled back, that gave us time to dig in. We couldn't fix the damaged Tommy with the resources we had, but we were able to get it into a more stable position, and it formed the core of the static defenses we set up. We'd built MG nests, trenches, pitfalls, whatever we could throw together.
"We also rigged up some Tango Nine in strategic locations for when things went south. Given we had lost contact with the defense sats and everyone else on the planet, we figured things going south was more a matter of how much further south things were going to go, rather than if or when they would.
"It wasn't much, but it was all we had. That, and prayer that the bonies didn't drop something heavy on us from orbit.
"Even with that possibility, we forted up as much as we could, because the old axiom still holds true - you can't take territory without boots on the ground - and even orbital superiority won't decide how things go on the surface of a planet.
"For the Citadel folks out there, the invid taught us that the hard way. When they took Earth, they put up protoplex barriers so strong we would have had to crack the planet to brute force our way through them. The Spacy can talk about orbital bombardment and planetary blockades all they want, but the fact is, control of a world is determined by what happens down in the mud."
Corporal Actaeus Endurani
"The first offensive on Hill 120 made it abundantly clear that a frontal assault wasn't going to work, and we had too little intel to come up with an alternative plan.
"General rule of thumb is that an attacker needs a three-to-one advantage to achieve a clean victory, assuming similar tech levels. But what we knew about Hill 120's defenders was mostly guesswork, and what we knew about their tech was even less.
"We needed intel, and we needed it badly.
"To this day, I still don't know if the Ell-Tee volunteered us, or if Colonel Atticus picked us at random, or if it was because of that stunt the Ell-Tee concocted that had me scampering up the leg of a twelve-meter metal giant trying to kill us all.
"However it went, our platoon wound up with the task of getting that intel."
Corporal Dennis Nicholson
"We couldn't cover every possible attack vector, not without going crazy from paranoia, but while Hunter Hill wasn't exactly in a box canyon, the terrain did favor a single approach, which we positioned the Tommies to cover. Other approaches were covered by sandbagged MG nests and riddled with trenches and pitfalls, and we had positioned mortar crews to provide indirect fire wherever needed.
"The snow kept our Cyclone platoon from setting up an outrider patrol or even riding to Taiyuan to call for reinforcements, so we positioned sniper teams to give us better coverage. It wasn't perfect, but we were hoping the bonies' lack of familiarity with the terrain would keep them from slipping past.
"It worked. Mostly."
Corporal Actaeus Endurani
"Turians aren't built for cold weather. Granted, that doesn't mean we can't handle it - it's not like we're ectothermic or anything like that - and our hardsuits are geared for some pretty fierce extremes, but we're never exactly what you'd call comfortable in it.
"I know what you're thinking. 'A winter assault on a fortified position by troops relatively ill-prepared for cold weather fighting...' Sounds like something out of a history book about what not to do, right?
"But it wasn't like that at all. We may not like cold weather, but the Hierarchy had bitter experience in far worse conditions than that during the Krogan Rebellions, and our training and equipment reflects that.
"So why bring up the weather? Because it was (ERROR: TRANSLATION NOT FOUND) cold there, and I about froze my mandibles off crawling through the snow to get past those snipers, that's why!
"The lieutenant took most of the platoon to launch a diversionary attack - in theory, a probing strike to test their defenses - while my section went in covertly for a closer look.
"Slipping past the first defensive line wasn't as hard as it could have been. The Alliance troops there were spread pretty thin - though we didn't know that at the time - and they didn't really have enough time to set up a properly secured perimeter. The terrain helped too, as it was rugged enough to provide us with plenty of concealment; the trickiest part was the fact that we couldn't cross into their line of sight at all, even when they weren't looking, or the trail we were breaking through the snow would give us away.
"Eventually, we managed to secure a vantage point that let us survey most of Hill 120 and its surroundings. We couldn't quite see everything, but it was enough for us to gauge the defenses the humans were setting up.
"Then, of course, we had to go back."
Corporal Dennis Nicholson
"When the bonies hit us again the next day, it was pretty obvious that it wasn't a serious attempt to break through our lines. You don't send a platoon to do what a brigade failed to.
"Still, we had to respond. We were badly outnumbered, but we couldn't let the bonies figure that out, or they'd steamroll us, so we responded to the attack with overwhelming force. We kept the Tommies in reserve, but we sent the bulk of our Cycloners out to greet them.
"See, the turians didn't have full-scale powered armor like our Cyclones, and they are one hell of a force multiplier. The captain figured if they thought we all had Cyclones, that would make them more cautious, give us time to get the fold-comm up and get reinforcements."
Corporal Actaeus Endurani
"The platoon was gutted. The Ell-Tee bought it, and there wasn't much left of the platoon when Sergeant Terenir called a retreat. I still wish I'd been there, but I was too busy making use of the distraction they gave us.
"Exfiltration was a pain in the ass. The humans were repositioning in response to the lieutenant's attack, and we couldn't risk backtracking with all the activity there. We took a slightly more direct route and ended up literally stumbling right on top of one of their sniper nests.
"It's hard to get a silent kill on someone wearing a hardsuit, especially when you know next to nothing about their internal anatomy.
"When Randis slid the knife in between the armor plating, I remember I kept thinking that I really, really hoped that the red stuff spilling out was blood.
"The spotter managed to get two shots off with this little hand cannon: I've since learned it's an M-37 Weasel, and it was loaded with high explosive anti-mecha rounds. The first shot took down Randis's kinetic barriers when it detonated; the second shot took off half his head. I nearly overheated my Crossfire getting through the spotter's chestplate.
"After that, we forgot about stealth and just moved as fast as our feet could carry us."