Rosie peered over the parapet of their own trench at the No-Man's Land ahead. She sighed deeply, rubbing her eyes and murmuring to herself, "That assault should've been coming by now," as the patter of Rain hitting her helmet grew to an annoying degree. She watched the Insurrectionists from Iris's platoon stepping through the line, outright ignoring the Fed troops as they carried the parts for an anti-tank guided missile launcher to a defensive position.
Diz murmured, "Maybe they wisened up. This line ain't gonna be as easy to take as the last," as she sat, curled up beneath a poncho, trembling away the hours. Rosie had wanted to jab at the fact that that was what was said about the last three defense lines that the UNSC had punched through. Admittedly, that was also partially because of the fact that the UNSC was receiving intel from the inside, from her and a few turncoat Federation infantrymen she'd managed to recruit through back channels.
"I wouldn't stake a bet on it," Replied Iris, causing both women to look to her. The woman shifted her SRS-99 onto her back and pointed at Rosie, motioning for her to follow. The spotter sighed, nodded and handed Diz the binoculars, then marched with Iris to the rear. Iris told her, "Tell me the Roughnecks are ready for what's coming, because estimates from our AI put the UNSC's current advance at about another week from the planetary capital. The sons-of-bitches are taking it nice and slow with us."
"Why?" Rosie raised a brow. Good thing the woman didn't know and couldn't tell she was ONI yet.
Iris shrugged, "Playing with the defenders who don't surrender while also making sure they don't cause unnecessary damage? Seems like a standard Post-War MO for a First Contact like this. Whole Hearts and Minds thing," She then replied, taking a step to the side as another pair of her men ran forward with disposable tubes containing AT missiles for their launchers. She sighed, "They get tanks, Air Support and fucking Hinge-heads and we've got old Metis launchers and armor from four hundred years ago. I hate these odds, honestly."
"Trust me, me, too," The girl replied, "I'd go find Rico and ask him for the readiness status of the Roughnecks, honestly. I'm just an NCO."
"Fuck," She sighed deeply, "Look, it's not that I hate the guy, but there's something about this whole clusterfuck that's made him a right mess to deal with. I don't know if I'm gonna have the capability to-" then she gasped. Pulling the Fed down as the roar of fusion engines echoed overhead, they watched as a pair of Longswords escorted by Broadswords dropped heavy payloads into the rear, the blasts of explosives rippling across the entire defense line.
Iris poked her head up over the cover and scoffed, "They just hit one of the ammo dumps... Harrassment campaign-loving bastards," only to pause as she saw two Seraphs bearing down on them next. Volleys of plasma fire washed the trenchline, boiling and turning the ground to glass and forcing the girls into cover. SHORAD systems opened fire on the air assets. Anti-air tanks with quad forty millimeter cannons fired proximity-fused explosive rounds into the sky in volleys, black clouds of smoke and shrapnel enveloping the aircraft.
Their shields flashed with impacts. They veered off, but not before dropping two fuel rod bombs mid-turn. The screams of pain filled their ears, with Iris watching as Rico jumped into the trench with Ace and a pair of other Roughnecks. He ordered, "Set up the Nuke launchers nearby! Iris, I'm gonna need your boys up here with-" but he was cut off as a volley of plasma from a second wave of Seraphs hit.
"We already have Metis launchers up! I think the Hinge-Jaws are leading this one, though!" Iris scowled. She drew her sniper off of her back, leaned it against the parapet as more plasma rounds impacted around them, then switched the ORACLE scope on the rifle to thermal. She blinked, then swore, "Oh, fuck! I'm seeing Phantoms landing troops in the rear..."
The UNSC artillery in the distance also let loose, the distinct drumming of a dozen guns firing in cadence filling the air. Rico stood to his feet and yelled, both over radio and here, "TAKE COVER!" before bracing beside a wall. A mix of High-Explosives and other shells thundered around them, craters forming, geysers of muddy earth, water and the remnants of grass filling the air alongside billowing clouds of smoke.
Iris swore to herself as she crawled over toward Rico. She grabbed him by the collar and said, "They're suppressing us and covering the tracks of the fucking Elites! Tell everyone to open fire!" before she switched her own radio on, "SUNRISE ACTUAL to all elements! Switch to Thermals and open fire! Don't waste time!" before running past Rico. She murmured to herself, "I and my boys are good as fucking Ambush predators and they're setting us up with the forward grunts. I swear to God, I'm gonna snap that General's neck if we make it out of this..."
She set up next to the machine gunners and rocket launches as Rosie finally appeared out of the smoke, her arm bandaged after she took a chip of shrapnel to it. She patted the girl on the back and hefted her Morita over the cover, shouldering it as the artillery bombardment ceased, giving way to the roar of the Federation Forces' MGs and rifles to fire. Iris hummed as she peered through the thermals of her rifle again, then gasped, going pale.
Rico, who had just joined them with Diz, saw this. He asked, "What's going o-"
... The deep, reverberating hum of antigravity engines filled the air. As the smoke began to clear, the first glimpses of the purple, bulbous hulls of the advancing armor came into view. Shaped like sea creatures of old and escorted by much smaller minnows, the great predators of the Covenant's and Swords' arsenal trudged forward, three-pronged plasma mortars pointed at the sky.
The turrets mounted just behind the driver's hatch of each vehicle opened up. A staccato fussilade of plasma hit around the soldiers and Feds. Above, flying contraptions with cannards and antigravity systems appeared, firing their own twin plasma cannons. Beside Iris, one of her soldiers caught a bolt to the chest and his upper body was gone. A Fed militiaman that had witnessed this screamed and scrambled out of cover, pleading with whoever listened that he would get out alive. He was shot in the back.
Wraith tanks aimed their mortars. Seven tanks, a platoon, fired simultaneously. The simmering azure boulders of energy arced toward the trenches and struck on or around them, the screams of the dead and dying Feds and Sapien Sunrise echoing. Above them, Banshees swept in, two of them firing their fuel rod bombs at advancing enemy vehicles in the rear. SHORAD tracked and fired, a burst catching one of the birds in its antigrav canard. It still managed to limp away.
Iris grit her teeth and slapped herself, murmuring, "I need to stop freezing...!" then turned to her launcher crews and radioed, "All ATGM Crews, fire at will!" as she poked up and snapped off a shot at a Ghost. A round bounced off the front plate of the vehicle, but dented it. She smirked. They were just as easy to take down as always, so she aimed for the right-side antigrav generator and put the three remaining rounds into it.
The vehicle careened and stopped, but the Elite aboard stood, unabated, letting the vehicle crash as he jumped off. He drew his twin plasma rifles and opened fire, advancing alongside the tanks on foot, all while followed by a platoon of Sanghelios-loyal Grunts. More Ghosts advanced as ATGM launchers fired their payloads. Two missile struck one of the tanks, but one did little after hitting the thick frontal armor and the other barely managed to scratch the forward antigrav generator.
The return fire from the tanks was swift. Plasma, both in the form of automatic fire from the turrets and heavy single-shots from the mortars, landed again amidst the lines of Fed and Innie troops. Iris swore to herself as she ducked into cover, while Rosie fired her rifle at the infantry trying to push up to them. Rico primed and threw a grenade, then gave a chop of his hand toward one of the troopers carrying a nuclear launcher.
The trooper nodded and hefted the weapon, aimed it and fired. A Ghost caught the missile dead center and evaporated as the nuclear blast-wave washed over both sides, but the rocketeer was killed by a sniper Elite, a needle round piercing clean through the man's chest. Iris growled at that. She aimed and fired a shot and one of the Elites manning the turrets on the tanks died. A second volley of ATGMs lanced out from the tubes, multiple striking the less-armored gravity units of the vehicles. One of the tanks sputtered, but continued its advance like a wall.
Diz fired her rifle as she called out, "This is batshit insane! How do you stop these things?!"
"Fire and pray you hit something important!" Rosie shot back. She watched a Sniper line up a perfect shot for Rico, then grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to the floor just as the needle round snapped over their heads. She stood to her feet and opened up, emptying a full magazine into three Grunts that were trying to jump over cover and attack them up-close. Two of the critters died, while a third stumbled and fell in front of her.
She drew her knife and finished it off by stabbing it clean through the head. It let out a gurgle as its fluorescent blood spattered her face, but she twisted and pulled the blade out, cleaned it and sheathed it, before taking cover and reloading her rifle. She couldn't reload fast enough as a leading Elite jumped in and drew his Energy Sword, slashing to the right.
A Sapien Sunrise soldier fell, cut down by the blade as the Elite turned to face Iris. Her eyes opened wide, then grew bloodshot as she felt fury well in her chest. She set her rifle aside and drew her AR, opening up on the Elite and watching its shields flare as it charged her. She ducked under a swing from the Energy Sword which decapitated a Feddie, stood up and fired more bursts of AR ammo as she backed down the trench, more Swords' troops jumping into the trenches as the tanks made it to the edge and fired toward the base at the rear.
When her AR clicked empty, she tossed it aside, then huffed as she felt the air get knocked out of her longs. She got thrown to the floor, the Elite trying to pin her down with its hooved foot as it drew back to stab at her. She grit her teeth, drew her own blade off her belt and stabbed it into the back of the Alien's leg, severing whatever passed for an Achilles heel.
It stumbled back, but swung again at her, clipping her armor and melting parts of it. She swung back at the Elite with her own blade, but didn't make contact as, even with a severed tendon, the Alien's movement was incredibly fluid. She heard the yelp of a man behind her alongside the cough of a needler, but couldn't take her attention away from her opponent.
She surged forward. The only way to win this was to press the advantage and she'd damn well do that. She watched the Elite thrust toward her, trying to intercept her mid advance, but she caught its arm in the open and cut at the fingers, causing it to growl. It smacked her with its open hand and sent her flying back, before turning about, blade still in its bleeding hand. It stumbled forward and cocked its hand back as to stab her.
... It was, however, the Roughnecks that surprised Iris. Rico called out, "All Roughnecks, focus fire on the Alien!" before half-a-dozen rifles started chattering. Bullets struck the Elite's shields and collapsed them before starting to pierce through the armor plating and the undersuit. Purple blood began to pool at the creature's feet as it was filled with lead, then it collapsed.
Rico, without a second thought and with Diz and Rosie helping her, pulled Iris to her feet and told her, "We're pulling back! Hope you don't plan on staying here to die?!"
Iris nodded, "Tell your General I'm gonna fuckin' kill him..." And she scrambled to her feet, grabbing her gear and running with the rest of her force. The Elites advanced over the trenches as the Federation and Sapien Sunrise's retreat was sounded, plasma still raining death unto the retreating platoons, killing dozens of men without cover or air support to keep them safe...
On another part of the front, Third Platoon was surprisingly relaxed. Parisa sighed deeply as the sky above began to clear, the rain stopping as the sun peered through the clouds. She listened to radio transmissions from other units and said, "Well, seems like the Elites have overrun another Defensive line just moments ago, so that counterattack may not be coming after all."
"Ah, man," One of the Shevchenko twins started, "And we dug our trenches for nothing?" as he prepared his gear.
His twin sister laughed and told him, "Nah, you learned how to properly dig a trench," As she hefted her BR75 onto her shoulder. The UNSC force here was set to displace and engage the enemy farther along at a nearby village that, per drone reports, had been evacuated. Of course, the Platoon themselves were waiting for someone else by the main road. Someone who decided to send them a message through a back channel.
And there he was. Parisa crossed her arms to her chest as she watched Jake approaching. Despite his injuries, the man seemed jovial enough to raise his hand in greeting and say, "Howdy, folks. Apologies for being late, but apparently command doesn't much like the idea of one of their WIAs walkin' out of the hospital like he didn't get injured," with a smirk on his face.
"Yeah, no shit," Jane started, "Are you fucking psychotic, man? You'll tear your stitches!"
"Eh, I'll be alright. I got you to patch me up again," He shot back, proud and jovial.