Bullets raked the front of one of the Oryx IFVs as the Marine platoon from its rear dismounted, taking cover behind it. Federation Mobile Infantry units had set up heavy defenses within a raised square near the city center, their autocannons and machine guns chattered away as the UNSC continued its own push. Above, Close Air Support of the UNSC forces rained directed attack munitions on the enemy's positions, explosions blossoming like fiery flowers across the field.

Jane had taken cover behind a hill of rubble out of which the broken remains of concrete walls jutted out while she treated one of their Marines, who'd taken a few piercing rounds to the exposed parts of his body. Beside her, Jake let loose bursts of automatic fire with his AR, while Niko hefted his LMG and fired until the barrel glowed. The SAW's drum magazine emptied quickly, even as the Half-Asian Marine tried to be 'conservative' with his shots, meaning he was aiming to kill as many people per bullet as he could.

Beside them, Marta hefted her SRS-99 sniper rifle, shouldering it and aiming through a crack in one of the walls at one of the enemy's autocannons. They'd actually brought out an emplaced gun to fire up at the air assets that kept dropping payloads onto them in one of the most surprising shows of semi-competence to date. They'd left the cabin exposed, though, the idiots.

The woman zeroed in, slowing her breath as bullets struck and sometimes punctured the wall she hid behind, copper jacket shards scraping her armor. She didn't flinch, her aim zeroing in on the head of the gunner just as it aligned with the head of the loader. She smirked, then squeezed the rifle's trigger gently. The roar of the shot overwhelmed the cracks and snaps of her allies' guns for a moment, only for the cannonade to return moments later as the hypersonic round left the barrel and struck the target.

Both men's helmets were flung off their heads, sides punctured by the high-caliber AP bullet. She turned toward the other side of the road and gave a thumbs up to their Lieutenant. The man gave an approving nod, before motioning for the Oryx they were supporting to move forward via three chops of his open right hand toward the enemy's position. The IFV pushed forward, its cannon opening up. The first explosive shell struck the 40mm Anti-Air Cannon, spraying shrapnel into a repositioning Federation platoon.

The next few targets the 30mm cannon locked onto were a series of Fed positions just down the middle of the place, placed well apart from each-other and manned by three or four men and women. The Feds lit up the IFV, one of them standing up to aim a rocket launcher. Marta's rifle rang again and the contrail ended right at the red mist that was once the gunner's head.

The 30mm followed up next, chugging alongside the coaxial machine gun and the battle rifles of the Marines behind it. HE rounds detonated in the pits that the Feds were using as cover, deepening craters in an already-lunar landscape. The Lieutenant screamed something out to the half of the platoon with him, before radioing in, "All HAMMER elements, enemy MG nests are suppressed! Push into the square and use their foxholes as cover!"

He stood to his feet, hefting his own battle rifle and pushing forward alongside Niura, who loaded buckshot into her shotgun and racked the pump. Jake stood to his feet, running past Marta and patting her on the back, before calling out to Niko, "Displace!" and turning to Jane, "You hold back here with Marta! Keep us covered!"

"Don't get hit! I'm still waiting on fucking resupply!" She called out as she applied a tourniquet to the wounded man's leg. He let out a groan, though there was no pain, obviously, since she'd administered a painkiller. Jake, Niko, Ayaan and a couple other Marines pushed forward, bounding across the street under their sniper's cover. Jake was the first to jump into a foxhole, kicking away a Federation soldier's corpse for Niko to pounce in next, setting his own LMG up at the edge of the hole.

Ayaan jumped and flinched, before falling into the hole with a grunt. Jake grabbed Ayaan and dragged him into cover, before looking him over worriedly. Ayaan groaned, hunched over the hole's side and threw up, before feeling his gut and giving Jake a thumbs up. The markings of where the rounds had struck marred the Marine's chest plate, but he was alive and not bleeding. The kinetic force must've given his lunch a what-for, though.

Niko let out a short laugh, shouldering his LMG and opening up. He further suppressed the enemy units in the middle part of the defense line. Ayaan pulled a grenade off his webbing, thumbed the priming button and removed the pin, then long-armed it over the cover. It landed right in front of a Feddie position, surprising the riflemen there as it detonated and rained shrapnel.

Jake slapped Niko on the back, to which the man called out, "COVERING!" as his friends bounded over to the enemy's position. Jake was first in and, noting that one of the men was still alive and going for his rifle when he'd spotted them, he lifted his assault rifle up and opened fire, nailing the survivor with three rounds to the head. He dropped into the cover as their Oryx pushed forward, 30mm cannon still thundering.

Their objective lay ahead. A large building, presumed to be a library, that was being used as a Command Post by the Federation forces in the surprisingly large city. 30mm rounds slammed into the facade, shattering the remaining windows and pushing the defenders and any heavy weapons they had further inside. Two more Platoons of Marines pushed out into the square, bounding from abandoned foxhole to crater and onward to another foxhole.

The Oryx and one of its siblings rolled around the square itself, avoiding the trap of going through too rough a terrain even with their tracks. Both vehicles laid down suppressing fire from their coaxial 7,62 machine guns, some times firing 30mm bursts to cover the Marines. Jake, his boys and girls and the Lieutenant and Sergeant rallied up in the middle, with the Lieutenant stating, "Hell of a welcoming committee!"

"Ain't that fucking right, sir!" Jake grinned.

"We'll be moving with support from SHADE 1-1 and 1-2! Three through to five will be providing cover for the armor outside!" He told them, "One-One will take the radio building to the left of the library! We and Two are taking the library itself!" The Lieutenant then ordered. The responses were cheerful oorahs from the Marines as they reloaded their weapons.

The Lieutenant gave one hand signal and the teams leaped over their cover, suppressing MGs and enemy positions on the way to the door of the library. Underbarrel grenade launchers thunked thrice, grenades launching into the broken windows and thumping, muffled by the walls, as the Marines breached into the place. Jake, Jane and Niura took cover behind a side wall, opening up on a platoon of concussed Mobile Infantry and tearing into them.

Jake was the first one to spot the next targets as well, headshotting one of the enemy's officers, a soldier carrying a Carbine. The man tumbled over and landed, face-first onto the floor. His comrades turned about, out of cover, and tried to return fire. The group put them down as well, pools of Federation soldier blood painting the wooden floor of the library red.

The other Platoons pushed in with them now, UNSC Marines with rifles raised moving to the opposite side as Jake and Jane moved together through one of the main doors. Jane hefted her battle rifle and grunted as two bullets slammed into her BDU's armored vest, before she scoped in and sniped the man that had fired at her. She took cover behind one of the overturned book-cases as the others scattered across the hall, firing grenades and their weapons up to the second floor.

Niko opened up with his LMG, suppressing the upper floor and letting Niura, Jake and Ayaan push forward while Marta set up behind them and poked at the enemy's own scope-armed riflemen. One couldn't really call the idiots snipers. Designated Marksmen maybe. The group pushed up the stairs, bullets whizzing past their ears as the enemy fired erratically.

Jake raised his own grenade launcher and fired it on the move, the 40mm round arching through the air and detonating mid-flight above the enemy, raining shards of steel down onto them. Airburst grenades, Jake remembered. He knew he'd kept some of them. Advancing alongside the others, the man continued suppressing the enemy to let the rest of their team march up the stairs.

Jake pushed up next to Niura, before calling out, "We got you fuckers surrounded! Surrender and we might just let you live!" before one of their youngest stood to his feet, hands up. Jake watched the others try to pull him back down, but the young man dashed toward the UNSC until they showed him to stop. Another Marine gave him a quick once-over and removed any extra ammo off his body, before they tied his hands up and sent him to the back with Jane. Jake called out again, "The little kid had the balls and brains to surrender, lads! And you just saw we didn't kill him! C'mon out!"

No answer. Jake sighed, then whispered, "Warning shot," before hefting his rifle and loading in a small smoke grenade. He fired it just over their heads and one of the men let out a scream. All of them threw their weapons aside and raised their hands, swearing up a storm as they stood up while the smoke grenade went off. The Marines grabbed the men by the collars and pushed them down, checking them for equipment, grenades and the likes.

Jake sighed, rubbed his face and murmured, "Gonna be fun clearing the rest of the city, I guess... That kid looked barely fifteen..." before noticing one of the guys with stars on his collar pins. He stopped the man with the cap and stars and asked him, "Hey, buddy. You an officer?" which got a nod out of him. He motioned toward the boy that they'd nabbed first, before asking, "How old's that guy?"

"About sixteen..." The Man replied with very little regard.

"The fuck's a sixteen-year-old doing on the front lines? He should be with his mom," Niura asked, leaning her shotgun on her shoulder. The man seemed to be avoiding their gazes, but Niura grabbed him by the chin and yanked his head toward her. "I'm here, dickhead," She growled, "Now, answer before the butt of my rifle decides to talk to your gut. The fuck's a kid doing on the front line, exactly?"

"He's volunteer militia," The Officer yet again replied impassively, "We done?"

She scoffed, then said, "Yeah, we done..." Before grabbing him by the collar and tossing him to the floor next to his men. She radioed in, "Command, this is HAMMER 1-3-2. We secured the enemy OP, seized an officer alongside a platoon of POWs. Break..."

"Copy that, HAMMER. Well done. Your Lieutenant reported in as well and as we told him, all units are to stand-by at Checkpoint Lima until tomorrow. Air Support will be returning to provide us cover while we engage the last remaining outpost on the planet tomorrow morning at Oh-Six Hundred. Until then, rest easy. Command out," The radio crackled to life.

Jake sighed, relieved, then said, "Guess that's bedtime in an enclosed space, finally..."

"Heh," Jane snorted and patted him on the back, "You even got some books to read."

"Let us know how much of it is propaganda, Jake," Niko chuckled, leaning his LMG on his back. Jake was about to protest, before sighing. Ayaan let out a short laugh as he walked by him as well, with the Weston lad following along, leaving the POWs in the care of the other Marines. This was gonna be a fucking pain in the ass to sift through and he was pretty sure he was ordered to do it.

Boot Camp...

John Rico, a not-so-remarkable student and a not-so-remarkable person, sat himself down with the rest of his training unit to watch the news. The usual FedNet broadcast told of victories on Planet V, one of the most outer planets that contained the newest city belonging to the Federation. The hard-jawed, tough rich kid had joined the Infantry in order to follow after a girl.

Dumbest decision he'd honestly ever made, he thought to himself as he listened to FedNet speaking about the Bug Quarantine Zone, the whole Arachnid issue and the likes. He had tuned it out by now, simply trying to find out more from Carmen, the girl he'd even joined for. He considered his decision to join a mistake because of the new War against these guys, the UNSC.

Looking at stills taken from the battle on Planet V, which showed the enemy's soldiers clad in fairly similar kit to their own, surrounded by the fire and flames of a war within the capital city. Pictures looked straight out of a war movie about World War 2, Rico thought as he stared on. He felt a hand clap against his back and looked up to see the curly ginger childhood friend of his, Dizzy Flores. The tomboyish young woman asked, "Soaking in the sights of the shit we jumped into?"

"We're not there yet," Rico commented, distant. Diz hummed.

"Yeah, but we will be, considering," She told him, "We'd started Boot when these guys came in with demands, all willy nilly, just before the Sky Marshal and the Guards at Geneva arrested their envoys..." and she looked at him. "How're you holding up, Johnny? Y'know, after Carmen..." before she searched out the words in her mind. Johnny waved it off and she sighed.

"We'll see how the training tomorrow goes... We got that live-fire drill Sergeant Zim warned us about," He commented almost prophetically. He had a gut feeling something was gonna go wrong. The two stared at the screen as news from the Front came back on, with him motioning to the soldiers in the images as they fired back at the unseen UNSC forces. With a huff, he said, "Look at that. The guys are fighting in the middle of ruins..."

"Heard from rumors that the enemy units are Marines," Another guy familiar to both of them, namely Ace Levy, quipped as he walked up to the pair, "Y'know, similar lunatics to our own Navy boys and girls. Brought outta prisons, straight, cold, dead-eyed killers and we're going up against them," before he let out a short laugh, "Gonna be interesting, I'll tell ya what."

"I'm really not looking forward to facing well-trained enemy units, Ace," Rico told him, staring at the images, while Levy quietened down to watch the feed with them. For a moment, in one of the frames, Rico could spot an enemy armored vehicle. Behind it was a platoon of enemy infantry armed with very modern-looking weapons and armor that somehow felt like it was putting their own to shame... Rico didn't know if he wanted to go against these guys, or if he wanted to have a bout with the Bugs. At least the Arachnids were dumber than humans...

"The enemy continues to attempt to put pressure on our boys, but the Mobile Infantry is showing them what-for. The city will be rebuilt and life on Planet V will prosper once our brave men and women have thrown the foe off our newest colony! Their demands for subjugation will only lead to their downfall. Find out more on tonight's broadcast on how you can help the War Effort by buying War Bonds. Would You Like to Know More?" The voice of FedNet spoke, jovial as ever.

A gut feeling told the three MI Cadets that this wasn't going to be as easy as FedNet was making it out to be. These guys looked at least marginally better-prepared than the average Mormon they would have expected to deal with. Rico said, "They up-and-came to tell us to surrender to them... And then start this damn war just as we're joining up to get our Citizenship."

"Well, War always knocks when you least expect it," Diz sighed, then looked to the two men beside her and stated bluntly, "I'm hoping our boys and girls can force a concession or ceasefire on PV sooner, rather than later. Means we probably won't have to do anything but patrol a DMZ, maybe..." before turning to watch the footage switch over to more combat from an MI position. A missile streaked overhead, caught by the cam as it slammed into a house at the end of the boulevard... Tanks, armor, missiles and air support. The enemy was fighting just like them, save for the fact MI never much got tanks deployed beside them.

Ace shifted uneasily, watching the Mobile Infantry continue their return-fire tactics, tracers whizzing by their ears as commentary from the FedNet stopped. All three of them continued to watch, morbidly curious of seeing a War on TV for the first time in a long while. Yes, the enemy was tougher than the Mormons, Rico thought, but they hadn't even broken out of Planet V. Fleet must've been keeping them pinned...

... They'd win, he thought. No matter what these treasonous ass-hats threw at them.