Chapter 99: Hard Landing.
"Holy shit look at them all! It's like a meteor shower!!" Adesus exclaimed as the drop pods containing the Clan and its allies hit the atmosphere high above their heads and began to streak across the night sky.
"That's how we do things in the Clan, hit hard and hit fast and speaking of which I do believe that's our cue," Markus said lifting his wrist comp up and tapping a few buttons on it.
"Let's really get this party started, hit it boss!!" Levi screeched pumping her fist into the air before hugging a rather surprised-looking Victus who swished his long tail.
"With pleasure," Markus said and he pressed the final button which triggered the detonation sequence.
As they watched the anti-air gun swivelling to try and try and track the high altitude targets just starting to come into its range high above their heads the whole thing suddenly erupted in a cloud of bright green plasma gas as the charge they had set detonated.
The superheated gas cloud engulfed the entire gun site, vaporising all organic matter on contact while slagging all the metal components of the gun, leaving it nothing more than a smoking husk in the sitting centre of a circle of black scorched glass.
"Spectre one one to Seeker one one, window is open I repeat window is open, we'll see you on the ground, over and out," Markus said into the comms.
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Over the Clan chat frequency, Vessa and her pride heard the Spectre team on the ground call in to confirm the final destruction of all the anti-air that would be targeting them on their descent and they also heard the Grand Patriarch of Clan Mason respond.
"Roger that Spectre one one, good job, we'll see you on the field of the hunt soon, tell Spectre one three to put the kettle one, though he might need more than one we're bringing a lot of company, Seeker one one out," he said.
"Alright that's the call in code, that means we're on our final descent, hang onto your tails girls, here we go!" Cemmil said and no sooner had the words left her scaly lips than the pod switched its trajectory and dropped like a fucking stone towards the earth far below them.
As it turned out while the Spectre team had taken out the hard-planeted AA sites in the zone, the bugs were not simply willing to give up and their mobile squads and vehicles all around the region opened up in an attempt to bring down anything they could hit.
As a result, as soon as they were low enough the sky turned into a full-on light show with brilliant glowing balls of hot plasma ripping through the air in all directions.
But thankfully the Clan were used to this kind of thing and had designed their drop pods accordingly, not only did they have shielding but they also had incredible evasive systems that allowed them to dodge around the majority of the incoming fire but to also deflect that which did manage to make it through.
Vessa felt like her stomach had turned into a hopper bird bouncing around her body the way it was as their pod went through a series of high-speed twists and turns to evade the incoming fire, she had to stop looking out of the window because the spinning sky was starting to make her feel rather sick.
Suddenly four pods shot down ahead of the rest tracking at incredible speed before flipping over and firing a series of retro thrusters to decelerate before making impact with the ground, it was only then that Vessa could see the flashing series of infra-red strobes that had been set up in the shape of a large X in the middle of the desert to give them a Navi-beacon to lock onto.
Somehow Vessa just knew that the pods belonged to Jack Mason and the rest of Seeker One as word around the Clan was that no matter the battle either he or his wife was always the first to set foot onto the battlefield and the last to step off.
That was actually both a comforting and refreshing take on leadership in Vessa's humble opinion as she and the rest of her pride were used to their leaders issuing orders from the comfort of their underground bunkers filled with males and luxuries, while they and the rest of the brave Surface Stalkers were out in the thick of the shit, which was even worse now that they were Star Stalkers and were on the surface of a planet that wasn't even their own.
So to have a leader on the ground right in the centre of the front ranks was both refreshing and kinda humbling because it showed everyone that Clan Mason practised what they preached when they said that no one's life was more important than anyone else's to them. After all, if they were willing to not only put their most powerful Dream Warrior but the leader of the Seekers of Truth right there on the front line they were truly going to be a force to be reckoned with.
Her pride's pod went through a sudden and very rapid spin that made her feel like her stomach was about to eject itself along with her heart right through her tail hole before shooting back up into her throat as the retro thruster underneath the pod fired to slow them to landing velocity.
"Touch down in five...four...three...two...one, punch out!!!" Cemmil yelled through the private pride comms and Vessa hit her release button just as the pod hit the ground and came to a rest in the sand.
There was a whoosh and a loud pop as the explosive bolts that held the canopy covering Vessa's section of the drop pod fired and flung the metal door off the pod and a few feet away into the sands.
Her whole pride jumped out of their seats and immediately retrieved their weapons and gear from storage before taking up firing arcs around the pod in a circular defensive formation.
All around them, others were doing the same, both other Star Stalker prides that had the honour of being among the first wave along with Serpentinus Royal Sword Packs.
The Clan Mason pods were predominantly made as one-seaters except apparently for the War Angel pods and Battle Angel pods which like their Serpentinus counterparts had four seats, meanwhile both Hunters and Seekers had only one.
Looking around the desert at all the pods partially buried in the soft sands it kinda made Vessa think of her home city's recreation zone during the season of change when the trees would release their seed pods, in an attempt to carry on their line and the ground would be covered in hundreds of little oval-shaped popper pods which would burst open and spew a handful of little seed out onto the ground.
On the surface, this would happen during the rainy season but thanks to it not raining underground they recreated this event by using a load of ground-mounted or pride-carried sprinkler systems to trick the seed pods into thinking it was time.
Though it had always been a bit of mystery to Vessa how the trees even knew what season it was underground, she had always figured that it must have something to do with the influence of the Great Tree, otherwise how in the name of hell did a tree which had never even seen sunlight know when it was the right time to drop its seeds.
"All ground teams spread out and secure the LZ for our armoured units!!" the Grand Patriarch's voice called through the comms.
Like a well-oiled machine, all of the ground teams immediately moved to set up a large and wide cordon to provide cover for their drop ships which were following them down.
"Come on girls let's show 'em that we Star Stalkers got this!" Cemmil yelled running ahead of her pride up a large sand dune nearby with the other following her at a run.
About fifty meters to their right Vessa saw A Royal Sword pack slithering for all they were worth to climb up another dune while to their left she saw the golden armour of a team of Hunters doing the same.
As she looked at them her HUD highlighted them in blue to show them as friendlies while also displaying a call sign next to them to identify them, though thankfully it was kinda small so her visual field didn't become a mess of text.
As she reached the crest Vessa dropped onto her belly to ensure that she did not present a really easy-to-shoot silhouette on the top of the dune, she raised her rifle onto her shoulder and began to scan the desert ahead of her looking for any telltale dust clouds of movement.
Above her head, there was a roar from above her head and Vessa hazarded a glance upwards just in time to see the large boxy drop ships angling themselves to come in for a landing in the large cordon.
The Clan and its allies had staggered the waves of drop ships in order to prevent the armour from getting stacked up or bunched up on the ground, which would end up presenting a very easy target for the enemy.
So looking up into the sky Vessa could see groups of drop ships doing high-altitude circles of the safe zone as they waited their turn to descend and drop off their payload.
To her eye, it kinda reminded her of a picture of a DNA helix she'd seen once in biology class.
"Throwing out a sweeper drone!!" Jex yelled from her immediate left and Vessa turned just in time to see her pride sister throw what looked like a small blue ball over the top of the dune like she was pitching a catching ball.
As it spun through the air the little ball popped open and unfurled into a small spherical drone with four magneticly charged coils that created a small AG field around it which gave it a slightly blue glow as the coils energized.
The little drone made a high-pitched series of beeping noises as it spun on its axis and righted itself before looking back at its owner and then speeding off into the distance to begin its sweep.
These things had originally been made to scout and map the lava tubes of their home world, they were equipped with powerful scanning sensors that could render a 3D image of whatever it was they saw as they sped along.
But during the war Surface Stalker prides had gotten hold of some of them and had upgraded them with a whole host of sensor packages designed more for detecting biological entities.
Now the Star Stalkers had done the exact same thing with these fourth-generation drones being capable of feeding real-time visual data back to their pride and smart targeting that allowed the drone to home in on and identify anything it came across.
As Vessa watched, the little drone zipped about over the dunes ahead of them, scanning away merrily as it did.
In her HUD a 3D mapping image was being rendered by the data it was collecting allowing her to activate an overlay created from all the data it had collected, which included anything from natural hazards like quicksand pits to artificial ones like minefields it might detect along the way.
It could also be used to tag and relay the positions of enemy troop formations in real-time while also scanning them and providing them with a detailed analysis of both their weaponry and armour, allowing the Star Stalkers to come up with an adequate defence.
Vessa also knew that the data that was being transmitted back to her pride was also being transmitted to Clan Mason as well as the Serpentinus so they could also make use of the data that was received to get a better view of their surroundings.
Behind her, there was a loud whine and Vessa turned her head just in time to see one of the Clan's new MBTs the Titan rolling out of its transport container and onto the sand where thanks to its Raptorian-inspired drive system the 70-ton behemoth gluided along like it was floating on a cushion of air.
But it seemed that their shiny new MBTs weren't the only vehicles they were deploying in this engagement.
Among the large hevily armoured tanks rolling out of their carry crates were smaller scout vehicles that the Clan called the Fire Tigers.
The vehicles were apparently multi-purpose scout vehicles designed to run ahead of an armoured column and provide real-time intelligence back to the fire group.
The vehicle itself was low-slung and rather squat, it was shaped kinda like a large floating wedge with six large magnetic cushions fitted around the hull which gave it its name given its resemblance to the six-legged predators of Clan Mason's homeworld.
Its hull was highly angular and fitted with a type of adaptive camouflage that appeared to match its background kinda like the little octopods that lived in the lakes of the Raptorian homeworld.
The hull was sloped and obviously designed to deflect incoming fire away from its crew areas by using physics, how it would fare against plasma shot was anyone's guess but by the slight ripple around its hull it obviously had similar shielding generators to that of the Titan.
Mounted in the centre of the hull at the top was a twin-mounted automatic 30mm coilgun designed to lay down suppressive fire on infantry and lightly armoured vehicles.
The turret itself was a squat little thing that kinda reminded Vessa of an upturned bowl sitting atop of the armoured hull, this was obviously to give it a low profile while still giving it the ability to deflect incoming fire by sloping its dimensions.
The third and final Clan vehicle that was making its debut on the battlefield was a troop carrier they referred to as the Rhino.
Now apparently this was in reference to an animal from the ancient human homeworld but Vessa couldn't be sure as her information had come from a couple of prides her own were friendly with that had close ties to some within the Clan itself.
But what was obvious was that this vehicle was designed to be multipurpose just like the FT.
It was oval in shape with a long curving hull and was covered in small retractable armoured panels to allow the crew of the vehicle to fire out of them.
It was also the only vehicle of the trio that had a twin-drive system.
Its first was the hover system that all the other vehicles used but it was also fitted with retractable tracks that allowed it to land and drive like a conventional armoured vehicle but when it flew the tracks turned ninety degrees and acted as additional armour for the sensitive hover coils fitted under the vehicle.
Also present atop of the vehicle was another of those 30mm automatic coilgun turrets though this one seemed to be fitted with a few surface-to-air missile launchers as well as some smoke launcher tubes.
The vehicle seemed to be able to act as a mobile cover system for its deployed troops as well by having two large swing pannels that could extend from either flank of the vehicle to soak up incoming fire while it advanced, Vessa figured that this was why it had tracks as even the Yautja would struggle to be tall enough to reach those pannels when it was floating.
That's when she heard a sound that made her smile all over her snout as she knew that engine whine very well.
Out of one of the large transport crates drove eight of the Raptorians own fast assault vehicles known as the Gipka.
These things had been developed with the help of Surface Stalker prides like her own before they became Star Stalkers and since then had undergone some modifications.
The result was a cross between a miniature tank and a rapid assault buggy that was crewed by a pride of four raptorians, though other than possibly a human non of the Clan Species could really hope to squeeze into the compact little vehicle.
They were often referred to as tankettes, but just because they were small in stature didn't mean they were weak.
They had been designed with both speed and firepower in mind as well as being able to engage a whole host of targets on both the ground and in the air.
The vehicle was shaped a bit like a small pyramid with a flat top at the tip with heavy adaptive armour plates making up its triangular hull.
Now what made this new armour system the Raptorians had developed so clever was the fact that the commander could actively adjust the angle of the outer plates to actively deflect incoming fire.
Sat atop of the point of this pyramid was the tankette multi-armament system that had two 20mm rotary chain-fed machine guns that used both a protective barrel shroud and a heat control gas system to keep the six barrels from warping under sustained fire.
But the fun these little tankettes could dish out didn't end there, mounted to the sides of those massive mighty guns were a series of missile tubes which launched their new surface-to-surface Skipper missiles.
These missiles once locked onto a target would chase it down and detonate directly above it sending a barrage of high-speed molton shrapnel down onto the target which could devastate both armour and infantry alike.
But the Raptorians were not done there, mounted directly above the two mighty rotary cannons which could be elevated ninety degrees skywards to act as a CWIS system, were four large missile tubes which launched the Scale Gnat anti-air missiles.
These high-speed missiles were designed to bring down aircraft by locking onto either their radar signature or the heat of their engines and chasing them down.
So what these little tankettes lacked in heavy armour or size they made up for in both utility and firepower, then when you added in on top of that that they were crewed by elite prides that had been training to pilot these things for months since the war they were bound to be formidable weapons.
But that's when the Serpentinus decided to roll out their own contribution to the armour section of this war party.
As Vessa watched one slither its way out of the large crate she felt her mouth fall open inside of her helmet, the thing was shaped like an oversized Serpentinus!
Apparently, these things had been designed to fight specifically in soft desert sands, or soft moist jungle soil and even in water.
They called them Sand Crawlers and they while they looked like an oversized serpentinus at about 40ft long with a multisegmented curved hull they had quite the party piece under their overlapping scaled hulls, they could burrow.
Now the brief they'd had on these things was that they were ambush weapons designed to move like some of their desert-dwelling cousins, that is under the sands of the deserts making them near impossible to detect by standard methods.
The bullet-shaped nose of the vehicle was fitted with a sophisticated drilling system which could be used to burrow through both sand and soft earth while even being able to cut right through tree roots, hell these things could even go sub-aquatic by quite littraly being able to swim through the water, all while carrying both the vehicle's crew and two teams of Royal Sword packs coiled comfortably within its hull.
But its abilities didn't end there, the vehicle was fitted with a series of pop-up gun turrets that allowed the vehicle to remain pretty much under the ground while these turrets popped up and fired at surface targets while being controlled by their operators who were safely contained within the hull itself.
Seeing how each of the species had approached the challenge of vehicle warfare kinda made Vessa smile as the influence and mentalities of each were plain to see.
Clan Mason's vehicles were designed to be a heavily armoured hammer that could take a barrage of fire before punching clean through whatever was in their way.
The Raptorian vehicles were designed to be a multi-purpose scalpel that could cut out specific targets or set down on the ground to become mobile turret systems that could lay pinpoint fire down on their target from cover.
The Serpentinus were ambush predators who would strike and fade out of sight leaving the enemy confused as hell as to where the fire had come from before they popped up somewhere else to hit them again, sewing both discord and panic among their enemies.
Suddenly there was a loud bleep from her HUD and Vessa's attention snapped to her display, it was Jex's drone, it had picked something up.
"This is Star Stalker one three to Seeker one one, our autonomous scanning drone has detected incoming forces, bearing six five one seven, range five kilometres and closing, number unknown but it's detecting heavy armour, I repeat incoming enemy forces, over!" Jex's voice came through the comms.
"Roger that Star Stalker one three hold position we are sending armour to reinforce you, Seeker one one out," the Grand Patriarch's deep voice said through the comms and Vessa couldn't help but feel her heart flutter in her scaly chest, it was no wonder the Grand Patriarch guarded that male with such fervour when he looked and sounded like he did, he could melt a pride of xenophiles into a gibbering puddle by giving them a single look or reading them a dictionary, it made her think of the poster she had of him and of the Guardian of Males hanging up in her locker back in the barracks.
Suddenly four Titan tanks moved from their formation and moved towards the dune they were dug in on before being joined by four Raptorian Gipkas and two Serpentinus Sand Scrawlers.
The Titans moved up the dune before angling their hulls to allow their turrets to peek over the top of it while the Gipkas set up between them doing the same, meanwhile, the Sand Crawlers moved into the base of the dune and vanished from sight with barely a shifting of sands marking their movement ahead of the group as they slit up to create a bottleneck.
Jex was now routing the drone's feed to the fleet comms which allowed them all to tap into its feed so they could see what it saw as it settled itself on top of a large rocky cliffside to provide overwatch.
To Vessa's eyes, it looked like a column of army ants marching across the sands but there were also smaller figures amongst the large armoured column as well and they were obviously their foot soldiers.
"Alright ladies batten down, this is what we trained for, I want this by the numbers, it's gonna be our job to keep those foot soldiers from breaching our lines and attacking either our armour or breaching our lines, it's going to be on us so lets show everyone what Star Stalkers can do!!" Cemmil said confidently and as one her entire pride cheered.
"Hunter six one to Seeker one one we also have confirmation of ground troops converging on our location, bearing eight five six three, range eight kilometres and closing, count many, over," a distinctly Yautja voice growled into the comms.
"Roger that Hunter six one hold fast armour support is on the way over," the Grand Patriarch replied and just like that another detachment of vehicles began to move out from the holding lines, it looked like it was about to be game on.
The first things to open up were the Gipka's with their long-range surface-to-surface missiles, it seemed that the tankettes had tapped into the feed from Jex's scout drone and had used it to triangulate a firing solution.
As one of their multi-turrets swiveled to point skywards and with a series of loud whoosh sounds their missiles began to take to the air kicking up clouds of sand in their exhaust.
On the drone feed, Vessa saw the column marching ever closer until one of the bugs on the ground began to fire skywards as they detected the incoming high-speed missiles.
The odd little vehicle kinda made Vessa think of a beetle with what looked to be some kind of anti-air system planted on the back of its carapace because as she watched the odd-looking apparatus swivelled and began to fire streams of plasma into the sky in an attempt to knock the incoming missiles from the sky.
Now while it was successful in intercepting some of them there were simply too many in the air for it to get them all and there were a series of blasts from above the column as the missiles detonated and sent their payload of deadly flechette-style shrapnel downwards in a a series of cones onto the column below.
The anti-air bug itself was inside one of the cones and sustained pretty intense levels of damage by all the chunks that were blown off its colourful carapace and by the fact that it was now missing one of its six squat little legs.
But it appeared that the bugs had designed this vehicle or caste to take quite a heavy beating because despite leaking yellow ichor from numerous holes in its carapace and missing its centre left side leg, the creature or vehicle which ever it was, simply shook it off and carried on walking and scanning the air above it.
Many of the other bugs in the column were not so fortunate and even from here Vessa could see many twitching eviscerated and dismembered bodies littering the sands of the desert, but it seemed that their comrades cared little for their brothers and sisters in arms fate, as they simply left them and continued on their path at double the speed.
The Gipkas kept up their bombardment on the column as they did their best to thin out their numbers before they reached their lines and to be fair they did a pretty damn good job of it as when the first of them crest a dune and finally came into sight of the main line there were lot less of them than they had started out with.
Vessa switched from the drone's feed to that of her gun cam which was attached to her scope and allowed her to fire her weapon completely from cover without having to hold it physically up to her eye to see what she was aiming at.
As the digital scope focused in on the distant targets, there were a series of loud cracks from above her that sent a shockwave of sound cascading down onto the ground where it washed over her and her pride as the Titans began to open up.
The twin barrels of the massive heavy battle tanks seemed to be telescopic because as they fired most of the recoil was absorbed by the barrel and a series of smart shock absorbers that ran alongside it to slow down its retraction.
The massive guns sent a projectile down range so quickly that if you blinked you'd miss both the shot and the impact at the same time.
Their direct line of sight range was impressive because Vessa saw the large slugs impacting their targets even from here and they were devastating.
The first thing the column to crest a dune had been one of their massive walking tanks that looked like a scarab beetle with a set of massive plasma cannons strapped to its back and no sooner had it done so than the first salvo of shots had hit it square on.
The impacts of the heavy slugs had quite literally blown the walking tank to pieces but it had been an oddly delayed reaction.
Vessa had seen a series of holes appear on the insect's carapace where they had impacted on it and the large insect had faltered, stopping dead with one of its massive armoured legs frozen in mid-step as it was now unsure of what to do, its attentive also seemed to spaz out but then the whole thing just exploded in a shower of yellow gore and armoured chunks.
"Holy shit!!" Vessa exclaimed into the private pride comms.
"Yeah I'll say, damn those Titans hit fucking hard!" Jex exclaimed.
"Button it up ladies and get ready, that was only one tank and there are plenty more where that came from," Cemmil said and boy was she not wrong because only moments later a whole wall of them crested the dune.
It seemed that the column had fanned out to create a walking wall of armour and no sooner had they crested the dune than they opened fire.
Huge balls of green plasma streaked over their heads and some of them impacted against the hull down Titans turrets causing their shields to flare to life to disperse the plasma away from the metal components underneath.
It seemed that the insects preferred an area bombardment and saturation type of fire to direct fire, but this itself could be seriously problematic because you never quite knew what they were going to fire at as this type of fire was pretty indiscriminate.
"This is Seeker one one to the GMF we need CAS any wings you can send our way? over," the Grand Patriarch's voice said into the comms and a second later the Grand Matriarch herself responded.
"This is Hunter one one roger that my love, I'm dispatching a wing to you now, code name Wasp, over," she replied.
"Roger that, thanks my heart, I'll see you soon Seeker one one over and out," the Grand Patriarch said.
That's when Vessa saw little figures moving among the much larger tanks through her scope.
"Infantry!!" she called into the comms and she felt her entire pride checking their aim and matching it to hers to confirm what she was seeing.
"Pick your shots and make 'em count, weapons-free ladies!" Cemmil said and with that, the pride opened fire.
No sooner had her pride opened fire than others along the line did the same and a mixture of ballistic and railgun fire began to rain down on the advancing bugs along with plasma shots which obviously came from those Clan Mason shoulder-mounted plasma casters they wore.
But it seemed that the bugs were not simply content to walk blindly into a wall of fire like an insect into a bug zapper, the infantry scattered and began popping up all over the place to return fire and they were deadly accurate.
A ball of green plasma shot sizzled the air right next to where Vessa's head had been only moments before she dropped down below the lip of the dune they were holding leaving a streak in the air in its wake.
Once she'd reloaded her gun she lifted it up over the lip and began firing again at the advancing fan of bugs who were now doing fire and manoeuvre bursts, they seemed to be covering one another but she knew from seeing the callous way they'd ignored their fallen after the Gipka missile strikes that this was not out of concern for their comrade's safety, this was merely to make the defenders keep their heads down.
Suddenly a high-pitched whine began to rise from somewhere directly above their heads a moment before the comms burst into life.
"This is Wasp one on station, did someone order a flying flyswatter!?" a distinctly male Xeno voice said through the comms.
"Roger that Wasp one this is Seeker one one good to have you here, we need a couple of hundred pounds of fuck you delivered first class to some bugs that are getting a bit too close for comfort, over," the Grand Patriarch said.
"Roger that Seeker one one, we see your problem, heads down tails up because here we come!" Wasp one replied and that's when they saw them.
For some reason, Vessa had expected them to send down high-speed fighters but these were not agile and nimble fighters at all, these were gunships!
She recognised the configuration from their briefing on how to recognise friendly vehicles and these ones had always stuck out for her as they basically made her think of flying tanks, the Clan simply called the Condors.
Now while Vessa had absolutely no idea what a Condor was by the size and sheer presence of these things they must be a force to be reckoned with.
The craft was a large boxy body with multiple gun ports sticking off it in all directions and four massive engines mounted on four large pylons that stuck out of it with two at the front and two at the rear, they were also VTOL.
A point they proved moments later when after doing an initial high speed fly by to mark their targets the craft split up and went into a hover before opening fire on the exposed bugs.
Each one of them seemed to be equipped with ballistic chain guns much like their Gipkas but also with both missiles and even heavy railguns because they rained absolute hell down on the bug lines from all sides.
It was also at that moment that the Serpentinus chose it was their time to strike and out of the sand directly between the enemy lines turrets began to pop up and fire point blank into the sides of tanks and infantry alike before vanishing back beneath the golden floor.
The result was absolute chaos from the bug lines as they struggled to adapt to this assault from both above and below, thats when the Clan really decided to show they weren't playing around, this came in the form of a Seeker team.
There might have only been four of them but there might have well have been a thousand because the moment they saw them crest the hill in their deep rich blue armour the bugs seemed to completely forget that they were under attack from all sides and solely focused their attentions on the four blue armoured figures.
They rained pure hell down on the four Seekers turning every single gun they had available on them, but they might have well have been pissing into a gale force wind because they hit nothing but air.
Now Vessa had never truly seen Seeker of Truth in battle but she had seen the vids and heard the stories but to see them with your own eyes was something else entirely.
The four mismatched figures one of which was blatantly a Serpentinus by their body shape moved so fast towards the enemy that they were nought but a series of blue streaks that seemed to glide over the sands directly toward the enemy.
It was obvious that the bugs had been forewarned about the Clan's Seekers because their reaction to their appearance was very telling, nothing that had happened to them so far had elicited such a strong reaction out of them but these four warriors seemed to whip them into a frenzy.
Vessa found herself worrying about a blue-on-blue situation with the four warriors bouncing around the bug lines but she need not have worried because as she watched the four of them systematically used the enemy's own fire against them.
As she watched one of them appeared momentarily atop one of their battle tanks and seemed to be doing some kind of dance until they caught the attention of one of the other tanks which without a moment's hesitation turned its massive cannons and fired at them.
The result was one very burnt battle tank and no Seeker to be seen until they showed a second later doing the same dance atop the same tank that had just blown its friend into smoking chunks.
Between the Seekers sewing absolute chaos in the enemy lines, the Wasp CAS team, the Serpentinus ambush squad and their own efforts the bug column was systematically dismantled until not a single one of them was left standing and by the sounds of the roars coming from the opposite side of the plateau it seemed the other column had met a similar fate.
"Looks like you have clear air Seeker one one since we are near bingo on ammo we are going to head back to the GMF to refuel and rearm but if you call us we'll come, Wasp one over and out," the Xeno said over the comms.
"Roger that Wasp one thanks for the work, tell my wife I said hi as she will undoubtedly show up to debrief you in person, Seeker one one over and out," the Grand Patriarch said before he turned to address the defenders.
"Alright people let's batten this place down, it's time to get this place set up, we got a war to fight and to win!" he said and the massive roar that peeled across the desert said it all, they were in this to win it.