Aterran-Maxima
An Auraxian's Collection
In A BlinkDespite the rampant industrialism of the factions on Auraxis and their ability to produce all manner of weaponry for the war, the ability to field large armor contingents was somewhat hampered by the extreme weather shared among the continents. Oshur and Hossin were prime examples of this, with the continents sometimes being near uninhabitable for a third of the year due to extreme monsoons and hurricanes. The other available continents, Amerish, Esamir, and Indar, would be home to sporadic weather limitations, such as flash floods, snowstorms, and sandstorms respectively.
The natural formations of these continents would also be a hamper to the movement of armor, as many a commander had learned of ever present dangers such as quicksand or thin ice on the more temperature diverse continents. The result being that armor command elements would task out recon elements to move ahead of their armor hours in advance, reporting not only the endangering terrain but hostile movements as well. On Amerish this was considered a major necessity, simply due to the mountain terrain on the continent, the nooks and crannies of the rock could allow all sorts of nasty surprises to lay in wait.
Moving southbound along the eastern mountain range of Amerish, a contingent of New Conglomerate infantry and armor made a steady approach towards the eastern side of Splitpeak Pass, intent on besieging the facility there in a multi-stage assault. In order to get there first, the roadway had to be scouted out. Units from the 17th Light Cavalry had been dispatched along the movement to act as early scouts and screening for the massive element. Affectionately titled 'The Roughnecks', the scouts had a notable reputation for navigating the hills and mountains of Amerish.
Sgt. Davisson was at ease as he scanned the terrain around him from inside the harasser's metal confines. On his left, passing quickly as the vehicle ate up the dirt road was a sharp dip as the flattened line gave way quickly to a rolling valley, full of the color of life. On his off rotations he would sometimes step out into these types of fields near post and collect a few flowers to give to a trooper he was sweet on. Despite the constant back and forth of the war, there was still time given to break away from the front either through duty rotations or section changes, and he had been seeing her quite a few times over the months. Despite the fields reminding him of this, what was on his left was much more imposing.
Rising up like the fingers of a titan, the spires of the Split Peaks grasped at the sky. They were a dark gray, years of fine grinding against the natural elements scaring them into twisted and jagged points with harsh slopes filled with shadows. His eyes were checking each of those shadows with glancing looks, discerning if a threat was hidden within. So far, so good, but they were going to have to slow their pace soon to start checking the roadway itself.
Alright team, slow the pace." Came the voice of the squadron's officer, "We're looking for the standard stuff, first and second crews scan the road, third you're on overwatch." Davisson was the first crew, so his team would be looking for anything standing out on the road. They slowed sharply, not enough to dismount, but to allow the short range sensors of the harasser and the crew to sweep the ground. Admittedly the teams were looking for mines as a priority, so disturbed dirt and rock, but also for break-ups in the terrain. While the weather on Amerish was rather pleasant, sub faults could happen along the ranges, and it wouldn't be due to having the lead vehicle of the upcoming column buckle forward and hold the movement up.
He panned the visor of the outer camera right to left, then back again carefully, looking for anything out of place. All in all it seemed they were good, but they'd probably be at it for a good thirty minutes before they hit the max extension from the column and would have to circle back. His eyes would flitter every so often as the sun would catch on a rock or the lip of the road, but he knew it was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it was a bit surprising that the Terran's hadn't mined the road considering how valuable the installation in the pass was. He took a minute to think about it, and recognized that the enemy probably wanted to use it as an assault platform for the lattice.
"Hold on, looks like we got something." The officer spoke again. "All teams, we've got a split off the road that raises up ahead, I'm getting a reading from something up there." He paused, then hesitantly continued "Ignore the road for now we'll speed up here and check it out then double back." The harassers picked up speed, the second team taking the lead as the officer led them forward. A sudden turn left them moving off the road and into an incline, the dirt road giving way to a light level of gravel, it didn't shift the vehicles too much thankfully but they soon noticed that any speedy movement would throw up a cloud of dust.
"Keep it slow, let's not let anyone know we're here. There's a bend up there, we'll follow that up about 500 meters." They climbed, harassers moving at a near escort pace while turrets panned from side to side. A noticeably worrying feature of the split was that it was akin to pacing in a riverbed, with the side slowly rising. If it weren't for the unknown signature they were picking up, and even that was faint, they wouldn't have even noticed it. The sun was above them directly, but the way the light came down made it seem as if they were traveling up a marble sift. The bend came sharply , but merely went another couple of feet before shifting back again.
'Target is just ahead, it's single is still faint but it's coming from something at the rise here." the officer announced, and the harassers moved forward. They crested the incline before coming to a halt around the source of the disturbance. Buried partially in the gravel was a cylinder, roughly the size of light shell casing. It was a dulled steel, slightly dirty from the dust around it, with an ocular top that pulsed a slow blinking red. Their sensors would have detected if it was an explosive, so that possibility was ruled out, but they still couldn't figure out what the machine's purpose was.
"Sir, what do you want us to do with it?" asked one of the troopers standing around the device.
"Run it over with the scans, and then we're going to bring it back with us." He stated, before continuing, "It's not standard Terran tech, but something tells me it's important." The trooper scanned it with handhelds once more, and asserting that it wasn't some hidden explosive compartment, reached out to grab it. As soon as the trooper's hand touched it, Davisson noticed that the pulse accelerated slightly, then stopped entirely. He wasn't the only one it seemed, as the officer saw it too.
"Get it back in the vics now. I have a feeling that it wasn't supposed to do that." He stated, rushing to his own harasser, leaving Davisson with a sinking feeling of unease. The troopers manhandled the object into the back of team two's harasser, before mounting up themselves. The harassers spun around in a group before starting their retreat back down the slope at a slightly more hasty pace than they ascended. The object sitting in back of team two's harasser bounced slightly, throwing a glance of sunlight directly into Davisson's outward sensor, blinding him for a second.
That was all it took for team three at the front of the line to disappear in a ball of shrapnel and a flash of light.
"Evade! Evade!" roared the officer over the comm, "Get down the slope!" They barely dodged the ruined wreck of team three, the harasser cored out from the fuel tank by a tank shell. There weren't going to be any survivors, and even then they had orders, they had to get the unknown back to the column and warn the oncoming troops. The harassers sped down the slope, tearing up the gravel, which thankfully saved them. Another shell blindly fired into the smoke from their unseen attacker, missing by a few feet as the harassers weaved at the cannon's retort.
They burned their way down the slope at a breakneck speed, before hitting the lip of the road. A small amount of air left them skating along the far edge, and the shriek of tires rotating at a near destructive pivot slung them rapidly back onto the roadway. The cloud behind them was ripped apart however, as suddenly two red and black harassers appeared. Clad in non-reflective paneling and armed with the stubby multi-barreled form of a G-20 Vulcan, both harassers roared with an unmatchable speed towards their prey.
"Contacts rear!" came the unnecessary observation of the officer even as Davisson spun his turret to the rear to face them. The C85 Canister mounted topside of his harasser was more suited towards dealing with tightly packed groups of infantry, it could still punch a hole in the light armor of the scout vehicles. Davisson led his target as quickly as he could, all the while his driver put them between team two's harasser and the enemy. Ensuring their charge was protected, he let loose with the weapon, the firing and rechambering of the canister sounding like a large mallet banging.
The leftmost harasser was riddled with the explosive pellets, rending the body of the vehicle with high velocity shrapnel wounds. It slowed the vehicle due to the kinetic impacts, but it still remained in pursuit. As he heard the autoloader begin its work, a terrible whirring filled the air, audible over the engines. He saw the multiple barreled Vulcan's begin their fire pattern, a shocked yelp involuntarily leaving his lips in terror as both guns tracked towards his vehicle. They were saved, when his driver smartly jinxed the harasser forward to the right. The vulcans at full rev couldn't chase as accurately as other weapons simply due to the momentum of the rotary system. They had a few seconds to re-correct if they slowed the fire rate, but it seemed as if the gunners were feeling extra today, as the whirring didn't abate.
There was another roar as the unseen cannon fired, and suddenly a shell blitzed across his visor in a streak of gray. Davisson's eyes widened at the sudden brush with death before the sparking forms of red tracers filled the visor. A shearing noise was heard as suddenly the left side of the cabin was riddled with bullets, and within seconds he was face to face with the outside frame of the vehicle. The scathing winds howled, the harasser a wounded beast as the all too encompassing sound of engines and gunfire deafened him. His driver, despite losing part of their side jinxed again, unintentionally throwing the enemy directly into Davisson's line of fire.
He wasted no time, and depressed the trigger of the weapon, spitting another volley of explosive flechette at the enemy harassers. There was a rapid series of banging as his hits landed on the frontal cabin on the right harasser and some of the topside. A hose popped below the vulcan, and the windshield of the vehicle turned to spider webs as several shards created an abrasive surface. The vehicle slowed slightly in shock, but continued to chase, and more worryingly, fire. Both of the enemy vehicles were wounded, but made their retaliation swiftly.
With a display of accuracy that bordered on unnerving, the left harasser switched up its angle of fire, and led a strafe of rounds directly at the lower half. A loud compression of air, heralded swiftly by the sound of a sharp series of pops, sent the harassers spinning with enough force to nearly eject Davisson from his seat and into the air. One of the rear wheels had been popped by the retaliatory fire, and had sent the now spinning harasser into an uncontrollable crash against the mountainside. He watched in horror as bullets still continued to fill the air around him, even as the two harassers continued to chase team two's harasser down the road, paying the crashed vehicle no mind.
"Mazba," he coughed out, trying to get the attention of his driver, not even bothering with comms due to the shock that they were still alive. He received no response, slowly reaching his hand that weighed pounds heavier than it should be towards the blue shoulder beyond his sensor array. "Mazba." he tried again, but his driver didn't turn to him, staying somewhat slumped forward. He reached the shoulder, only to feel it slackened and still. He pulled back his hand thinking the driver to be merely comatose due to the crash, but as he pulled away he took notice of the slightly sticky texture on his hands. Disheveled, he brought his hand to his face, squinting as he tried to make out the texture on his gloves.
Blood covered his hand, a muted red against the black and blue gloves. He gasped slightly, a mere sharp intake of air in response to what he already knew was true. He leveled his gaze into the cockpit itself, only to see the window pane shattered in multiple places, riddled by 20mm rounds. He turned away from the scene, instead peering out of the mutilated side of his harasser. The gap there was large enough he could easily fit through, but it was askew, facing the road at a harsh angle. He placed his hands upward, edging himself out of the crack awkwardly. He didn't know it, but had received several fractures to his arms, and was only able to ignore the pain through sheer adrenaline.
His legs just barely crested the outside of the cabin before his arms gave out, sharply canting him forward in a dive impossible to escape. His body slammed off the side of the compartment like a slug bursting from an egg, using what little strength he had to pull himself forward. Despite the concussion he most certainly had obtained, he heard a purring noise. He looked around, facing the direction the harassers had driven off towards. It didn't appear that one had returned to finish the job, which he was thankful for, yet the purring persisted. Annoyed, he turned around, hopeful to find out what was making the infernal noise.
There, sitting in the roadway, low bodied and painted a sharp marble white was a Lightning battle tank. It had been the unknown shooter upon the hill, perfectly camouflaged in the daylight due to its lower body profile. Its turret, a 75mm barrel nearly as long as the body sat stationary, pointed directly at Davisson. He didn't even have time to scream before the tank fired point blank, tearing his upper body in half before directly impacting the harasser behind him.
Unfortunately for Sgt. Davisson, the remaining harasser crew made it back to the column before it was destroyed. The Terran harassers and their unknown assistance had broken off beforehand along the road, and retreated. The NC troops, despite now being unable to surprise the Terrans, advanced along the road towards Splitpeak Pass, taking with them the unknown object. As Conglomerate engineers poured over the object, the column fast approached the slope that had taken their scouting party's lives. Within seconds of sighting, the unknown object sparked, increasing its pulsing beam rate.
The following moments were captured from recon nets near Silver Valley Arsenal as the air was torn apart by thunder, multiple airborne munitions came careering down upon the NC column, impacting the ground hard enough to be registered on the Richter scale. The object, as would be later revealed in a series of classified documents, was a low tier scale model of an Orbital Strike Relay, while not able to produce an actual laser capable of blowing holes in terrain, could be tracked by a low light level sensor, perfect for guiding smart munitions down on it's position.