The Scrin were making life particularly… difficult when it came down to brass tacks.

The fact that they had shields of some kind and were able to deflect incoming attacks while ignoring the outgoing was making life rather difficult for those of the Coalition's sniper corps.

There were American snipers here with their 7.62mm rifles, there were a select few heavy snipers with their .50cals, there were a few even that were using anti-tank rifles of the 20mm and up categories. All of them having a rather poor time of it all, their weapons proving ineffective against the forcefields, merely being stopped short before they even came close enough to count as a tentative hit even.

Something had to be done, the pride of the Sniper corps was at stake here.

The Scrin were concentrating their defences against the land forces that surrounded them as well as that of the sea where the ships were located. It meant that inside the red zone was it was being called, there was a distinct lack of defensive emplacements, the Scrin thinking that their own technological advantage was enough to secure them this victory, that there wouldn't be anything that would be able to break through. Thinking that was on a very basic level… very very wrong.

The Coalition's special forces made their way through the shields that had been erected, themselves not caring about slow movement apparently, as they were unimpeded as they did so, crawling through with disgusting ease. The operators crawling their way across no-man's land, making sure that they didn't show up at all against the Scrin sensors and then crawling through the Scrin frontline itself. A nerve-wracking task that was testing the limits of their limited stores of courage.

The fact was that the operators had no idea as to the specific capabilities of the Scrin themselves, every step being one taken on faith that their training and their equipment would see them through the other side… alive that is. Training that relied on their opponents being human… joy.

Crawling their way in, the operators were greeted on the other side with an absolute hive of activity, the Scrin shuffling about the place with what looked to be vast walkers with multiple legs, constructing things in the middle of nowhere, accelerating Tiberium growth so that they could see it with their very eyes while also calling in more and more units through the little gate-like things they had setup. Targets of opportunity if they ever got the chance.

Each one looked like it was a hole in the fabric of reality, a ball of absolute darkness that looked much more menacing than a ball of absolute darkness should be. From these emerged fully formed units, units that looked like they were insect-like in origin, or perhaps arthropods?

For high command it didn't really matter, they were getting the information from the feeds in their helmets, all of it being stockpiled away the operatives assumed.

For the snipers themselves, they were going to establish themselves on little rises of dirt, or possibly a few of the vast buildings. Their targets were unknown as of yet, the fact that they were all aliens might mean that they didn't display the same social cues as humans did. Making it harder to pick out leaders or important figures.

Observing them for now, was the only real option that they had and it was rather grating to be so close but so far when it came down to it. Just shooting randomly would see them kill a few no doubt, but when the enemy could just warp in so many more units then it didn't matter. By the same token, they would be exposing themselves and in doing so be an open target for any retaliation attacks. It wasn't like they were able to blend in, being soft and squishy compared to the big and mechanical looking aliens.

Then again they were snipers, that didn't mean that they were solely here to be killing things. Rather they were very good when it came to directing artillery, directing airstrikes, watching and gathering information, marking possible high priority targets and more. Very few of which required them to be shooting really, killing one or 2 might do something, but calling in an artillery strike that killed 50 was infinitely better.

So the snipers themselves settled in to wait for whatever it was that would be happening next, their eyes watching the masses of metal and… green bits as they moved around and did their strange things. It was not perhaps the nicest way to view the world, but they were really… butt ugly.

Even the most generous of them couldn't offer better words to describe the things. The way they scrabbled around, floated like drunken jellyfish, wobbled like a drunken sailor… it was embarrassing to watch.

As for the other special forces teams, well they were going in and they were having a much better time of it. The fact that the enemy was so very big in some cases meant that they were going to be able to simply throw their explosives upward into the vulnerable bellies and detonate them. Or they could just climb the very unresponsive legs and plant them that way.

All of them knew that the main attack would be occurring in 5 hours. Enough time for them to gather as much information as possible before exfiltrating. The masses of interceptors in the air prevented the satellites above from seeing the large pods that were on the ground, each swarm centered directly over them, denying any intelligence to their own side.

The fact that they were interceptors meant that trying to use aircraft to get information was slightly less risky, what with South America's Bz classes able to get in unimpeded apparently. Their presence had been what allowed them to map their routes into the red zone after all.

The problem being that they couldn't afford to linger, the longer they were inside the red zones, the higher the chance that they could be detected if inadvertently by the masses of interceptors that swarmed about like angry bees. All it took was for a swarm to hit one of them and they were going down, the pattern they all flew in apparently random.

So it fell on the special forces operatives to go in and give as clear a picture of the aliens as possible with video cameras mounted to their helmets and elsewhere on their bodies for maximum coverage.

As for NOD's special forces, however, they were having a very different experience from those of the Coalition.

The NOD Red Team was deploying. From the Space Station that they had constructed to look like a regular cannon station, but was instead a drop facility, they would be dropping directly onto one of the massive carriers. Inside they were going to get as many scans as possible of the interior and attempt to find a way to cripple it. If they could not then they would be dying when the Catalyst missiles came in and struck, detonating all of the Tiberium that was lacing the ship, no doubt killing them as well.

There was to be no mercy if they failed their mission and Red Team didn't expect any. They knew the consequences of failure as well as anyone else.

The Pod itself was of a different design from the others deployed up until this moment. Rather these pods were designed in the event that the aliens got a foothold, that they would need them to infiltrate the vessels used by the aliens.

In this case, the bottom of it contained a taper to very sharp point, one that would allow the pod to cut through their air, and more importantly, to slam into the carriers and carry on straight through to the other side of the hull. Allowing them in essence to breach the carrier, to get inside and carry out their mission.

The fact that each carrier was essentially the size of an aircraft carrier at 300 meters, they were going to need to deploy Red Team in a wide spread, a squad to each 50 meters or so of the carrier, otherwise they would never do what needed to be done in time.

Waiting in the pods, Red Team were waiting for the Space Station to work out a trajectory for them to drop in. Too quickly and they would miss, too late and the same. While each one could be steered to an extent, it was not to the extent where it was preferable to do so since the limits of how much they could steer the pod limited it to a mere few hundred meters, the pod going so fast that any more was impossible. The Pod was after all, going to need to get down there before the damned aliens intercepted it like they did everything else that had been sent at them.

A ping, a shudder and they were on the way down. Each holding onto their pods for dear life, the violence of the ride shaking their very bones as each pod did not slice through the air, but instead decided to punch straight through heedless of what lay in the way. The shudders increased, the fires on the outside indicating just how much they were fighting against friction, the rocket boosters on the rear activating once they were clear, and the pods were headed straight. Now it was a simple matter of trusting NOD engineering and waiting for the moment of truth.

Bam.

The pod slammed into something that was very clearly not the ground, not when a second Bam echoed through their bones a moment later. It looked like they had landed and things were much better than they had been expecting. It was confirmed when the pod hatches burst wide open and shot out onto the decks of what looked to be the carrier. It was too… alien to be anything else. The entire thing being metallic with undercurrents of the green that marked the Tiberium laced through it.

The first Red Team was out, weapons raised into the air, their bodies ready for whatever it might be that waited for them on the other side. The whatever question being a very solid nothing.

There was nothing, just a vast cavern that very clearly went the entire 300 meters from one end of the ship to the other. Sure it undulated as the carrier moved like a fish through the sky, but that still didn't excuse the very big nothing that was inside. Red Team 1 threw into the air a scanner, one that would capture the entirety of the inner cavern in a radius of about 50 meters. The data being sent back to NOD proper without any needed to be prompted.

There was a very loud and powerful wind that was blowing through the entire carrier, one that was cutting across it instead of up and down. Perhaps the sides were open to the air in some fashion?

The NOD team made their way over, weapons still up, still being cautious, still being very careful as to what they were possibly facing. Those interceptors were rather dangerous after all if their plasma weapons were any indication.

The idea that the outside was being filtered in was coming true as the 5 of them experienced stronger and stronger winds as they made their way outside. It was very clear that this was not the most aerodynamic of designs, perhaps they were planning on getting something out of this?

As they walked closer to the edge of the cavern, it became rather obvious that the gusts of wind were coming from in between the massive pillars that arched into beams over their heads. A closer inspection revealing a gap that was wide open to the air. The NOD team was about to try and drop down to explore it further when it became rather obvious that doing so would be a bad idea once an interceptor emerged from below where they were standing and shot out into the wider world.

Looking down, the Red Team 1 could see that in the "wall" there was a little black ball surrounded by a blue circle built into the wall, clearly, a means for them to create or summon units of some kind.

Sabotage would need to include these in some manner, perhaps there was a central power conduit of some kind?

Red Team 1 reported their findings and prepared to make their way up to the 'head' of the carrier, perhaps there would be a conveniently big exposed piece of Tiberium for them to use their catalyst grenades upon?

This was certainly not the death filled fight to the death they had been expecting.