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Looking at Undercity 23, one might assume that it was an error in design.

Built upside down, with much of its underlying infrastructure supported by a complex foundation founded upon the ceiling of the great hollowed out subterranean complex, much of the city looked very much like an overhanging beehive. But the hive was, just like Elysion, a wonder of American engineering. Calling it as such would be an apt description, given the gestalt social structure the Enclave had painstakingly created for its citizens. This parody of the Pre-War city of Detroit was interconnected by a vast network of walkway corridors and tunnels, with skyways marked by blinking traffic lights and holographic signs flitting in and out of projections. Day in and day out, President Howard's speeches blasted from nearly every media source- keeping the people busy with thoughts of war.

Following his official declaration, a curfew was put into effect.

Commercial and civilian traffic were replaced by military vehicles and personnel along all travel routes. The foundries and factories burned bright in the darkness of the cavernous dwelling, churning out the Enclave's many war machines from every assembly line. Likewise, soldiers marched out of the barracks to be transported upside. In the heart of this hive hung the Enclave's Special Tactics Division headquarters, marked by its thick concrete walls and bunker-like architecture. Like all Enclave military personnel, they too were mobilizing, albeit at a more relaxed pace.

Everyone had their gear stowed in the transports and were now lining up for departure, everyone except a handful of officers. There were four of them playing pool in the HQ recreations wing, and one seated alone in the mini-bar. The Enclave had as many spec ops divisions as there were letters in the alphabet.

These officers were Hornets, the Enclave's hammer. Vat-grown motherless bastards with centuries of accumulated knowledge of modern warfare implanted and imprinted into their DNA. Remorseless, obedient, adaptive- they were the Enclave's perfect soldiers. Whenever the unseen empire met an obstacle, if surgical precision proved untenable, the brutally direct methods of the Hornets were employed. Now faced with the biggest threat since the Chinese Invasion, the Hornets would have to be pitted against the Dominion's finest, and they relished in the opportunity.

The man hunched over the mini-bar stool, nursing a cold sweaty shot glass in one hand and thoroughly analyzing a file containing the latest field intel on Arkana in the other, was Lt. Richard Cotter.

Friends called him 'Dick' or 'Dickie', everyone else just called him 'Stinger'.

He was the biggest in his batch, a giant of over seven and a half feet. It was easy to spot him from a crowd, if not for his stature it would be the plethora of cybernetic augmentations jutting out obscenely from his massive body. Dick got his callsign from his first kill, which was a mutated wasteland wasp descended from the Pre-War Yellowjacket. The mutant wasp's sting should've been enough to send him into a coma, but Dick simply walked it off with only a minor rash in the spot where he'd been stung. It left that first mark on his body, the life he lived within the Enclave's special forces gave him the rest. Scars covered him from head to toe, for he refused to have them repaired. It made him more intimidating, which did well for him in his line of work.

"Dickie."

The giant turned his head slowly to glance back at the open door. Standing there, all geared up for war, was his good friend Donald Spiers. The runt of his batch and a real skinny one too, but when deployed in power-armor Donnie was an Enclave giant same as anyone.

Donnie nodded, "It's time."

Dick finished his drink, tightened the suspenders holding up his pants, then proceeded to get in gear as well. He opened his footlocker, slipped into his jumpsuit, pulled up the zipper and sealed the locks. The Enclave officers marched down the hallway and into the fitting stations where their combat gear was being configured with additional modifications.

Hornets distinguished themselves from the rank and file with their black livery bordered with dull yellow, hence the name. And the armor they used was somewhere in between unarmored exoskeletons and the ubiquitous X-series power-armor. A Hornet battle-rig was designed for speed, sacrificing protection for increased mobility. It had anti-grav repulsors instead of a jetpack and possessed fewer ballistic plates for protection.

To the user, it felt like walking on air.

The engineers followed their specific requisition orders and snapped the devices into place. Shoulder-mounted grenade launchers, displacer knuckles for close-quarters, kinetic absorber plates, among other things. The Hornets were going to be air-dropped into one of the thickest engagements of the Enclave-Dominion War, with little infantry support and barely any air cover. The briefing stated that the Dominion had a big presence in the area and had control of the skies. They were pretty dug in, having fortified a position in one of the more intact Pre-War cities with enough firepower to turn the whole landscape in on itself. The Hornets were supposed to drop in and silence their guns to break the deadlock where their bombers had failed.

A difficult task for the Hornets, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Dick climbed into his battle-rig and let the steel envelope his body in its cold embrace. His helmet HUD lit up as the core hummed to life. Dick waited patiently for the diagnostic systems to run its routine scans, then stepped out of the fitting station. He picked up his .50 General-Purpose Machinegun, checked the chain housing with a gentle tap of the fist, then marched ahead of his squad. Donnie followed close by.

The eight of them boarded an Enclave jet dropship which would take them far into Arkana and dump them directly over the unsuspecting Dominion. The dropship was automated, piloted by some of the Enclave's most advanced AI systems. There was a big chance of them getting shot down, given the sheer amount of defenses set up by the Dominion. To limit casualties, Enclave transports were outfitted with automata drivers and pilots with a few notable exceptions.

"Hornets, listen up!" Dick announced after getting some new intel. "We've got a last minute heads-up from the recon team. Dominion Blackwatch presence has been confirmed. Once we're on the ground, keep your eyes peeled and your guns steady. They're the best of the best, but then again, so are we. Watch your six, copy?"

"Solid, LT!"

Dick fastened his armor onto the safety hooks, which then pulled him tightly against the bulkheads. A signal light turned from hateful red to bright yellow, bathing the whole compartment in its jaundiced glow. The Hornets were locked in and would only be released when the light turned green. Then, it was going to be a swift plummet to the ground. Even with their jetpacks, the several tons of steel wrapped around their bodies would weigh them down.

"Hey, I heard that the doms call them 'aesirs' or some shit." One of the Hornets started up the usual pre-mission banter to pass the time. "Vat-grown, just like us."

"Nah, I heard they pair 'em up with supermutants. They take the most fertile waster women, lock 'em in a room with the greenies for a year and pop their babies out like some kind of breeding program. Can you believe that?"

"Dude, supermutants are sterile. Come on, everyone knows that."

"You boys can speculate all you want." Dick interrupted them, "But what's real is their strength. Don't underestimate them."

"You seen one up close yet, Stinger?"

"No, but I've seen the damage they can do. The Dominion's equipped them with an advanced type of power-armor, more compact and more agile. Calls them 'hard-suits'. On top of that, they've got working fusion-lances. Cuts right through our armor like melted butter. RD would like to get their hands on some of them, so try to leave a few intact, alright?"

There was a long pause as the soldiers digested this new info, "So what the hell am I gonna do if one of those 'lancers' zones in on me?"

"Concentrate fire." Dick declared, "If you die, the next batch comes in and picks up where you left off. Or did you forget how expendable we are?"

An hour later, the dropships descended from the skies to deliver their cargo. The Enclave ground forces, patiently waiting for the Hornets to bring an end to the Dominion's bombardment, hunkered down in their holes until the mission was completed. The Dominion fortress guns were firing round the clock, while their soldiers were filling the air with tracer-fire. Neither side was making any headway, it was a stalemate. Hundreds of bodies littered the soil from one mad sortie after another. The fight had long regressed into trench-warfare, driving both powers to reevaluate their tactics. But before the Dominion could get their shit together, the Enclave had already made its move.

The Hornets had arrived.

"Get ready to drop!" Dick howled, seeing the yellow light blink slowly. "Two minutes!"

The hatches below them retracted suddenly, revealing a sky on fire. Missiles, las-fire and tracers brought down the dropships by the dozen. Fortunately, the Enclave had a hundred more. As soon as the light turned green two minutes later, the locks on the Hornets disengaged and down they went. Dick reoriented himself and activated his repulsors, so did the rest of his squad. With a loud crack, the dropship caught fire and exploded. A Dominion missile managed to hit the engine, sending the craft on a swift downwards spiral until it crashed against a nearby hill.

The Hornets swooped in and landed on site so quickly it was impossible for the AA crews or the targeting computers to get a bead on them. By the time they saw them, boots on the ground and all, it was too late.

"They're here!" A Dominion officer roared angrily into his radio, "Goddamn zeds! They've breached the fucking perimeter!"

Zeds. Doms. Each side had a name for each other, with as much spite wrapped around it as possible.

The rooks were quick to take cover, hunkering down in the sandbags before shooting at the Enclave shock-troopers. Three Jottun mechs lumbered out of a nearby dry-dock as soon as the alarm was sounded. Dick cocked the chamber on his machinegun. There was no soaking up fire against the Dominion, they had the kind of caliber to take on the best Enclave armor and it showed.

The staccato bark of 40mm cannons, customarily used on aircraft or light-armored vehicles, spewed out a deadly torrent of mixed AP and HE shells downrange. The Hornets were dying all around him they may as well be called 'fireflies' with how quick their light fizzed out.

The Stinger bellowed out the command to snap his squad's focus back on the objective, "Mow 'em all down!"

Fighting erupted inside the compound, diverting half the attention of the Dominion to repelling the invaders- just enough to ease up on their stranglehold on the Enclave main body. Dropships were falling right out of the sky, but those that managed to get their men on the ground more than made up for those losses. They sicced the whole hive on the fort. Dick and his team managed to slaughter their way through the artillery emplacements, firing everything they had on hand to bring down even the hardiest of the Dominion mechs. They succeeded in silencing the artillery guns as they were told- but not without cost.

Poor Donnie got his head blown clean off.

He started celebrating a little too early. He was just in the middle of taunting the dying rooks who were crawling all over the ground with their guts hanging out when a flurry of shots sailed just inches from Dick's face. The Stinger was reloading and he turned his head a millisecond, just enough that the 40mm's passed him by and struck his friend all above the torso. He felt the vibration in the air, it rocked him inside his power-armor like a loose peanut in its shell. When he turned to look, Donnie's headless armored corpse was standing still with his gun still rattling off round after round.

One big headless statue encased in black and yellow painted steel.

Wasn't long before it too toppled to the ground and joined the hundreds of casualties littering the battlefield. As a testament to how easily he embraced the Enclave's thoughts on vat-grown folks like him, Dick simply shrugged and looked in the direction of the shot. It came from an ack-ack some 500 meters away, he could've sworn he'd cleared it out minutes ago. The crew was still in pieces where he'd strafed them with his machinegun, but someone else was operating the 40mm.

Hands on the levers, finger on the trigger, feet on the pedals and a cigarette on his lips.

Dick's eyes widened, he knew he was staring at one of them. The aesir was built like a sentry bot, it was like looking in the mirror. Of course, the guy didn't bother wearing a helmet, as if he wanted Dick to see his face. He wore the armor of Blackwatch, nightmare black with dull orange covering the edges. The Stinger hunched forward and activated the grenade-launchers in his back. The unflappable Blackwatch operative spat out his cigarette, fired off a single shot from the 40mm, then rolled off the gunner seat just as the grenades reduced the ack-ack to pieces. The shell went wide and screeched as it ricocheted off a wall. Dick's hands moved on their own, reloading his machinegun while his eyes tracked the aesir running off for cover.

"They're backing up, advance!" An Enclave officer with a rank higher than Dick's shouted while signaling the Hornets forward.

There was a lull in the shelling, allowing the main body to finally breach the enemy lines and get clear from no man's land. Three regiments of the Enclave regulars scrambled from the muddy trenches and fox-holes, eager to get some payback. The Hornets that managed to survive the first bout split up to hold the taken ground, while the other half rallied to the Stinger. He wanted to find the aesir responsible for killing Donnie.

A powerful explosion rendered the main entrance wide open, and in poured a stream of motorized infantry. Light-armored infantry support vehicles and transport trucks rolled over the smoking rubble as the Enclave seized the advantage presented by the reeling Dominion forces and captured the fortress outer perimeter. Dick threw a quick glance at some of the grunts picking off some fleeing rooks, and a few who were going through the wounded to execute the non-essentials.

He heard over the radio the screams of other Hornets getting caught in an ambush laid by the Dominion, and that got him moving a little faster.

"Help! They're all over us!" The anguished voice yelled into the receiver, followed by the rattle of gunfire and the shrieks of men getting cut to ribbons.

"Trooper, what's your location?" Dick replied.

There was no answer.

As his team exited the compound and headed deeper into the fortress, they found about a half dozen Black Bear tanks waiting for them. They must've gotten them out of the motor-pool while the Hornets were busy clearing out the artillery emplacements. Crouched on top of the lead tank was the same aesir Dick was looking for. The pale-skinned blue-eyed bastard was smiling at him, and it pissed the Hornet lieutenant off. Worse still was the fact that he'd allowed himself to be drawn right into one of the oldest tricks in the book of warfare.

"Get back! Take co-"

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by the thunder of the tank guns. The Hornets dispersed in all directions, only to be cut down by the ensuing hail.

There wasn't much of Richard Cotter left by the time they stopped firing, nor of any of his fellow Hornets. The rooks painted the surrounding walls and dirt red with their guts.

Solomon Moore, the senior-most Blackwatch officer on the fort, took a long drag from his cigarette and spat it out. The mad grin that was still on his pale face grew even wider.

"Fuckin' zeds." He laughed. "Fall for it every damn time, hahaha!"

Solomon was put in the frontlines for the same reason the Enclave put men like Richard Cotter on the job. The perfect tool for the current problem. Poor Dickie was the hammer, a tool made for blunt force. Solomon was a scalpel, precise and surgical. The Dominion had him where they wanted, to break the siege on Bloody Ridge and turn the momentum on their side.

"Fox-three, Fox-three. Sit-rep. Why the hell are my guns quiet, over?"

That was the voice of the base commander, technically Solomon's boss. The aesir spoke into the receiver, "This is Fox-three, zed para-jumpers smoked the whole arty-ville and blew a hole right through the fucking gate. We've got zeds pouring into the outer compound. Will do our best to shore up the line and keep them off your backs, over."

"Can you get the guns back online, over?"

Solomon shook his head, "Negative, negative. Whole thing's fucked, over."

The commander sighed, "Understood. Be advised, ETA on Nidhogg fifteen minutes. We will have air support, but we must retake control of that wall. You're gonna be the rock to break the wave, but by all means- break it. How copy?"

Solomon glanced up and saw a shadow in the clouds. It was moving slow, but it was getting bigger by the second. "Solid copy. See you on the other side."

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