Chapter 18: Shifting Tide
Sakura navigated her way through the Intel HQ's main floor. Everyone was hurrying about every which way. Something was definitely going on. She found Naruto, Gaara, Shikamaru, and Ino in the war room talking urgently; their faces were very grave.
"What's going on?" she asked, "Everyone's running around in such a hurry, and there's a lot of chatter on the radio channels."
"The Mizukage and the Kiri shinobi are here," Ino said in a grim tone, "They're about half an hour away right now."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Sakura was confused.
"They got too close to the Zerg hive," Gaara told her, "The Zerg noticed. They've sent large waves of zerglings and roaches to slow them down; keep them from getting to us."
"It seems the Zerg do not like the idea of another village bolstering our forces," Shikamaru put in, "It's got them worried."
"Not too worried though; at least not enough to commit anything stronger," Naruto joined in.
"Then we should get out there and help them," Sakura urged.
"We're already on it," Ino told her, "We're launching our first assault raven squadrons right now, and we're preparing the transport ravens as well. It'll take time, but we can escort them here."
"We're going to pick up the Mizukage and her lieutenants right now, and Lee's about to head out with the first of our tank divisions," Naruto and Gaara started heading for the door.
"Right, I'll get our medical units ready; we'll be on standby waiting for you to get back." Sakura promised.
Naruto and Gaara headed straight for the fields, buffeted by people every which way as they went. When they got there, Kakashi and Sai were waiting for them.
"You're here, good," Kakashi greeted them, "We don't anticipate any complications, but I'm going with you guys just to be safe."
"Don't worry, you're in good hands," Sai assured them, "My squad's been training day and night; they're the best pilots in the entire shinobi alliance."
"Your squad's the only pilots in the entire shinobi alliance besides Kankurō's," Gaara laughed slightly, "By the way, where is Kankurō? Shouldn't he be here too?"
"He and the rest of Raptor Squadron headed out already; they're making sure the landing zone will have plenty of air cover when we arrive," Sai told him.
"Wait, are you going to be flying us there?" Gaara asked.
"No. I'm the leader of Talon Squadron; your escort. It's my team's job to make sure no unforeseen threats interfere with this. Don't worry, Raptor and Talon Squadrons have been training and preparing for this type of scenario the second we got ravens to fly."
Naruto and Gaara nodded, "Let's do this."
The group took off, flying high above the base. They flew right under the massive supercarrier holding above them, and streaked through the sky to the east. A few minutes out from Antioch's airfields, Sai called out something on the ground below them. The passengers looked down to see a group of 7 brand-new tanks speeding their way underneath them. Lee was leading this 1st Armored Division. They could easily tell which one was his; it was painted the exact shade of green of the spandex he wore.
"Looking forward to seeing them in action," Kakashi remarked.
"Me too."
There was a lot of radio chatter all along the ride; pilots talking to each other, talking to Intel HQ, calling out things.
"Approaching LZ," their pilot announced.
"Raptor Squadron leader to transport teams," Kankurō's voice came over the radio, "your landing zone is in a contested area. Reroute to a new landing zone 200 meters back behind friendly lines."
"Acknowledged."
The ravens made a sharp turn, turning away from a line of movement going across the ground far below. It wasn't long before they reached a small clear area; they could see a figure in blue with long red hair waiting for them.
"LZ is clear; beginning our descent."
Sai and his assault ravens began circling the landing zone above them, "We'll hold position until you guys are ready to go."
The three of them stepped off the transport.
"Mizukage Terumi, it's good to see you again," they greeted the red-haired woman.
"Terumi? Really? Oh please, I think we've all been through enough to be on first-name terms."
"Okay. Well, it's great to see you again, Mei."
"Likewise. I just wish we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances."
"Don't we all," Gaara commented dryly.
A loud bang nearby made them all jump. Somewhere beyond the tree line they could hear the screams of zerglings and roaches. A handful of Kiri shinobi teams ran through the clearing, heading towards the source of the sounds.
"Perhaps we can catch up more somewhere safer?" Kakashi suggested, motioning towards the ravens.
Mei hesitated briefly, "Are you certain these things are safe?"
"Yeah, don't worry. Tenten approves every single one before they're allowed to see any action at all. They're perfectly safe and fully operational," Kakashi assured her.
Mei nodded and stepped on; her lieutenants boarded the other 2 transports directly behind theirs.
"What about the rest of my people?"
"We'll fly the wounded directly to the hospitals, and we've sent several divisions including an armor division to escort the rest. Don't worry, we'll make sure your people arrive safely."
A voice came over the radios, "This is Talon leader; transports you are cleared for take-off."
"Get us out of here pilot," Naruto ordered.
The transport ravens thrummed and took off, flying well above the battlefield. They looked down to see the battle taking place before they left. The shinobi were holding a line all along the tree line, while the Zerg charged across a field in droves to try and break it. The number of weapons and jutsus being launched at them were absolutely destroying everything the Zerg threw at it though.
"Well that's a nice sight for a change," Kakashi commented, "Nice to see us really coming out on top for once."
"And look at that," Gaara pointed not too far away from where they were.
He was pointing at Lee's tank division and the shinobi accompanying them. At the rate they were going, they would be reinforcing the line in less than two minutes. It was a sight that would make anyone smile.
"How bad have things been?" Mei asked.
"Bad," Kakashi answered grimly, "We've been under siege most of the time, and the few victories we've had have come at an extremely high cost. Even with our best weapons and jutsus, the Zerg keep bringing either overwhelmingly large numbers or bigger and bigger stuff of their own."
"Or both," Gaara added.
"What about your own alien allies? You said they were incredibly technologically advanced. Haven't they been helping?"
"They've been helping a lot, and it's cost them dearly," Naruto shook his head sadly.
"There was only a single supercarrier of them, and a lot of them were injured during the crash," Gaara explained, "And the only reason they had so many is because of an even earlier battle."
"With so few to begin with, every death is a very serious blow. And now, they've just lost their commanding officer, so the ground forces are in disarray."
"And of course our fights with them before this didn't help things at all."
Mei shook her head; she had read the reports. If she didn't trust the three shinobi before her as much as she did she would never have believed them.
"And now, they've lost their commanding officer on the ground, so they've taken a serious blow to morale and unit cohesion."
The four of them looked out the side of the raven; they could still see the battle from here. Ravens, both kinds, were streaking past heading towards the fields, and smoke rising from the tree line. Silence fell between them as they watched. The battle was nearly out of sight when a voice came over the radio.
"Intel HQ to transport squadron: Be advised, you've got multiple hostile air units inbound on your current trajectory."
"Talon squadron, form up behind me; we'll intercept them."
"Talon Four to Intel HQ: Where are these air hostiles coming from? I thought we destroyed their spires."
"Recent intel shows no new spires have been mutated. They must be survivors from the last series of battles."
"These things survived the shredding the phoenixes gave them last time AND every skirmish that involved anything that flies since? These things should have more scars in that case."
"Doesn't matter. They die in the next ten minutes. No excuses," Sai ordered.
"Naruto, we're on the Gantrithor now. Meet us in the war room," Shikamaru told them.
The ravens made a sharp turn, angling up even higher. The Kiri shinobi's jaws dropped upon seeing the massive golden ship and the base it was holding position over. Their raven flew up into one of the supercarrier's many hangar bays. Landing behind the graviton catapults loaded with interceptors, the pilots stopped just long enough for the passengers to step off before flying back out again.
Mei and her lieutenants stared around in fascination. The gold and metal ships were very beautifully designed. Naruto and Gaara led them out of the hangar, promising them all a tour when the meeting was over.
In the war room Selendis was watching a holographic model of the battle they had just left. Hundreds of tiny holographic shinobi and Zerg were duking it out in a spectacular 3-D battle across a large almost chess-like table.
"Is that the battle?" Mei asked.
"This is a live feed from our observers stationed above the battleground," Selendis explained, "Everything you see is a representation of what is actually occurring at the battlefield at this current moment in time."
"It's proven very useful in coordinating defenses and counter-attacks," Shikamaru nodded.
A dozen zerglings were blown into tiny digitized squares as a bomber phoenix flew across the table. From the left-hand side Lee's tank division rolled up to the front, spraying fire and other jutsus onto the enemy attempting to cross no-man's land. A hulking behemoth lumbered its way onto the field from the far right corner.
"What is that?" one of the Kiri shinobi pointed at it.
"Ultralisk!" Ino grabbed the radio, "All available air units: concentrate fire on the ultralisk! Bring that thing down!"
Several voices echoed confirmation of the order. Four assault ravens flew in from the side, heading straight at the huge monster. The holographic ravens all launched holographic missiles before pulling up and out of the hologram's range. The missiles slammed into the ultralisk, one pair after another. The beast staggered forward and collapsed to the ground.
"Target eliminated. Good work," Ino told them.
"Enemy is retreating," one of the raven pilots reported, "They're pulling back to the hive!"
"Excellent! All forces, escort the Kiri shinobi to Antioch as quickly as possible," Shikamaru ordered.
"Will do command."
Everyone at the table visibly relaxed as the holographic forms of the shinobi all slowly left the field of vision. Selendis powered down the table after a respectable period of time. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the people in the room were actually smiling.
"Now if we can just get more victories like this one, we might actually have a chance at winning this," Naruto leaned back against the wall.
"Is this really the first time you've had a truly decisive win?" one of the Kiri shinobi asked.
"Yeah, it is actually," Shikamaru nodded, "All this time, we've been just holding on. Not really winning, just surviving and beating them back. We've only gone on the offensive once, and that ended in almost total disaster."
"What do you think it'll take for us to win this?" Mei asked.
"Well, first, we need to become more effective," Naruto started, "I mean, Rasenshurikens are strong and all, but against opponents that have no chakra systems and natural armor plating, it's not really as effective as it is against the opponents of the past. Against the smaller and medium sized ones it kills almost instantly, but against anything really big it's not enough."
"So your lava and acid mist will be extremely helpful now," Ino nodded at her.
"Okay, what else?"
"We really just need to rack up some wins in this war," Shikamaru said bluntly, "We have had a couple of minor victories, but only this one major victory to speak of. We need to retake some ground, deal a lot more damage without losing so much, and find ways to more effectively counter our enemy so we can do so."
"Well, what about reinforcements from Kumo and Iwa? Have you contacted them?"
"We sent messengers to both villages after the Zerg showed up, but they never reported back, and we never got a reply from either village. We sent teams to investigate and deliver the message in their stead if need be, and we lost contact with them too," Ino shook her head, "I doubt we can count on any help from them."
"So we're on our own?"
"As far as we know of, yes. We're on our own."
"It's not all bad though," Tenten walked into the room, "The engineers and I are still researching new ways to improve what we already have. We'll make our weapons and vehicles stronger, and with the extra manpower we can easily make more and more divisions of them."
"In the meantime, let's get your people situated and start planning strategies for our next counter-offensive," Selendis powered up the table again and zoomed it out to almost orbital view.
"So long as we're on the frontlines alongside our people. I'm ready to see some action."
Somewhere across the universe….
"Is the gateway ready?"
"Nearly. We still need to test it further though. We're still testing the effects the transition has on organic life. Preliminary and secondary test data seems to show a favorable result pattern, but we're still uncertain about any long-term effects."
"Good. I'll begin preparing the fleet for departure."
"Sir, forgive the insubordination, but Hierarch Artanis is still talking to the council. Would it not be more prudent to wait until we have confirmation of reinforcements?"
"Our warriors could be fighting for their lives at this very moment, including an Executor of one of our fleets. I'm not going to sit and wait while the council wastes time making sure the decision is made in a politically correct manner!"
"As you wish sir."