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The Blood Harbor's businesses started the new day as per their usual routine.
First, in the flesh market, the kennels were opened and emptied of their contents. The slaves that survived the night were herded into pens and issued each a crude bomb collar as they were to be put on display for later that morning. Those that didn't were piled up on a cart to be chopped up into pieces at the butcher stalls and sold as meat. Men, women and children were put into separate pens to be washed with an old firetruck's hose. It was auction day with everything at half-prices, and the peddlers were to make sure that their produce was as presentable as possible. Junkyards and auto shops were next on the list to open up, followed by the weapon stalls, then the food market.
The Lexxers allowed many other businesses to run themselves with free reign as long as they paid tribute to the barons at a generous 10 percent cut of their daily earnings, and that they abided by the rules of the Blood Harbor. Last to open was the Lexington itself, which offered the best items in the whole of the Blood Harbor, and arguably the Corpse Coast itself. The noise and bustle of the harbor resumed its unholy cacophony, enough to drown out the outside world as yet again the darkest impulses and desires of man ran rampant. Slaves, beasts, guns, food and drink were bought in bulks as wastelanders flocked once more into Lexxer territory in droves, lured by the promise of good stock in exchange for their hard-earned caps.
So loud was the clamor of the crowds, shop hawkers and machine-works, that none could heard the gentle hum of engines in the distance.
A guard-tower, manned by a sentry who had dozed off on duty, could have easily spotted the distant rise of dust clouds some quarter of a kilometer away. If the sentry paid attention, he would have seen the eyebots rising high into the sky, surveillance drones used by the Dominion as their means of gathering intel on enemy positions.
The Eights, or ( EITS ) Eyes In the Sky surveillance drones, hovered above the harbor and transmitted their footage back to the waiting column. Once they received, interpreted and relayed the data back to Outpost Seven, they waited for the clear signal to engage.
Tank Commander Sgt. Hannigan, coordinating with the pioneers sitting inside one of the Centaurs, informed the other tank commanders and his commanding officer that there was a slight change in the Lexxer numbers that day. There were a number of crude assault vehicles present at the west and south gates, trucks and old cars with machineguns welded into tripods on top of them like mobile gun-emplacements. There were at least two guard towers on each gate, with most of the sentries posted there armed with pre-War military-grade modular rocket launchers. Rocket launchers were always treated as a serious threat, if not for the tanks then for their soldiers. There was no way to be certain what type of ammunition they were equipped with.
The pioneers, combat tech-specialists and engineers responsible for operating the eyebots and maintain communications with homebase, patched in every officer with an active intercom to Outpost Seven so they could hear Lt. Weiss' decision. It remained unchanged, "We read you, Love 1-3, you're clear to engage. Oscar Seven Out."
"Roger, Oscar Seven." Hannigan buttoned up and closed his hatch, "All tanks, get ready to roll out on my signal. Centaurs take cover, sit tight and wait for the breach, over."
On the opposite end of the harbor, another battle group was positioned to strike, which was headed by another tank commander by the name of Sgt. Port Gannick. Like Hannigan, he was in command of eight tanks in a column along with five Centaur IFV's. Once Hannigan initiated the charge, Gannick's battle group would punch their way through the east, then move in to meet up with his battle group later in the middle. Their priority was to close off any escape route, exterminate every slaver and armed waster along the way, and claim the Blood Harbor for the Dominion. Liberating the slaves was secondary, and although the lieutenant back at Outpost Seven would like to avoid too many unnecessary deaths, collateral damage was acceptable to a certain degree.
"Hate 1-6, this is Love 1-3, how copy?"
Tank Commander Sgt. Gannick's voice cracked a few times, but his transmission grew steady a few seconds later. "This is Hate 1-6, we read you loud and clear, Love 1-3."
"Glad to hear it. Standby, getting into position."
The five Centaurs of Battle Group Love 1-3, bearing the rooks in power-armor, drove up behind a hill and out of enemy sight range. The strategy employed on this particular battle was dubbed Attack Pattern: Kool Aid Man, which involved the use of any heavy armored vehicle in punching a gap in an enemy's fortified position that would allow power-armored troops to enter unhindered by their defenses and fortify a foothold for the rest of the rooks to pour through. The attack pattern had been called something else originally, but the humorous reference to an old soft drink mascot punching its way through walls featured in pre-War TV commercials proved to be too great an opportunity to pass up, and thus the name Kool Aid Man stuck.
"Load up HE." Hannigan told the tank loader, then moved to issue commands to the rest of the crew. "Gunner, aim for the gate and fire when ready. Driver, standby."
The crew did as commanded, moving as quickly as they could through the small spaces within the tank cabin. The auto-loader whirred noisily as it caught the shell loaded by the loader into its mechanical basket, then slid it into the gun chamber with a crisp clap. The breech closed in, and the loader announced that the main gun was ready to fire. The gunner coordinated with the ballistics computer and aimed the main gun's crosshairs on the red steel gate, choosing to wait for a bunch of wasters at the head of a slaver caravan to inch closer and closer to the target before firing.
"Nice stock you've got there!"
Pickman grinned and nodded at the guard as he leaned against the truck bearing 12 worker slaves, all male, former fighters of some hill tribe to the north. He ignored them as the men pressed their faces through the bars of the cage, "Yeah, didn't start out as docile, but a good whippin' or two and a bunch 'o boom-collars changed that right quick."
The guard took a peek and waved for the others to let the caravan through, "Bad timing though, it's all half-prices today. The barons're lookin to attract more customers again."
"That's alright, I was lookin to sell 'em as fast as possible. Half-prices don't bother me none."
"Glad ta hear it. Though listen here, I-"
A powerful explosion blew the massive steel gate wide open and churned anyone standing within two meters of it into paste, while those further away were sent flying backwards into the dust. Pickman fell back hard against his truck and went crashing down to the ground. Every bone in his chest shattered into splinters, while his lungs burned from the chemicals inhaled from the explosion. He died a slow and painful death, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as his throat filled up with mucus and blood.
With a loud groan, the smoking metal slab collapsed along with a great chunk of the wall onto the guard tower behind it, crushing the sentry that dozed off within it under three tons of steel and brick.
From behind the hills came rumbling beasts of reinforced steel and hardened composite, bearing weapons patterned after America's lost civilization. For the first time, the Lexxers of the Corpse Coast witnessed the Dominion's main battle tanks in all their glory, and died screaming as their weapons blew and chewed them into pieces. Before they could even mount a sufficient defense, if there ever was one, the tanks had already punched a hole through the Blood Harbor and were rolling into the streets of the ruined town.
Other assault vehicles, eight-wheeled armored cars armed with 20mm cannons, rolled in after them from behind the same hills to deploy Dominion soldiers in power-armor. The tanks acted as the tip of the spear, crushing any opposition while the power-armored soldiers mopped up after them.
Sgt. Sterling lumbered out of the Centaur transporter and jumped down with a loud thump as the full weight of his armor met the earth below. He was followed by other rooks in power-armor, and by some who were just in combat armor. He took in the familiar surroundings of the west gate, recalled the plan that he was briefed with, then gave the order for his men to commence extermination once the Lexxers started pouring out like roaches out of the woodwork.
"Here they come, give 'em hell rooks!"
Every power-armored soldier was armed with either a minigun or a heavy flamer to provide fire support for the rest of the troops. Carefully, the tanks bulldozed their way through the streets, splitting up into two groups with each holding three tanks to cover more ground while the other two remained at the west gate to secure their foothold on the coastal town. They anticipated that their arrival might spook the traders and wasters in the Lexxer market, and so they had to move quickly to close off any route of escape before closing down the noose to choke them out.
The rooks marched down the narrow corridors of the ancient streets of Corpus Christi. The procession slowed to a crawl as the soldiers went from door to door with every house and shelter, cleaning out any enemy combatants while carefully sifting through the slaves chained up within. It was difficult to determine who was the slaver and who was not, as some of the wasters were unarmed. So, to make things easier on themselves, the rooks just spared whoever was wearing a collar and killed whoever wasn't.
Door to door, street by street, they killed them by the dozen. The ill equipped Lexxers dropped like flies all around them as the Dominion soldiers cut them down in a storm of bullets, lasers and explosive ordnance. Weapons fire erupted from further down the street as a gun emplacement atop a stack of sandbags rattled against the approaching column. Hannigan's tank traversed its turret down range and fired another HE shell, sending debris, blood and guts flying in all directions.
Sgt. Sterling bristled behind his helmet as he torched the slavers firing at them from the windows and doorways, finding great pleasure in seeing them run out into the streets or fall from the rooftops with flames dancing about their bodies. Some of his men, like the sadistic Sledge, cackled as the Lexxers screamed in agony. "Burn you fucking wasters! Burn!"
Sterling could hardly blame him, the man saw too many demons walking freely in the Blood Harbor, and he needed to send them back to hell. It was all necessary. For the Dominion to colonize this place, the slate had to be wiped clean. But even though they were at a just cause, it was his duty as an officer to rein in his men and keep them from going to far, so he watched them carefully as they moved down the street.
"Watch out, enemy rocketeer 12 o'clock." Sgt. Hannigan calmly informed the gunner, who quickly zoned in on the target but was unable to fire ahead of the enemy. The rocket whistled as it spiraled through the air, missing the tank completely as it veered off to the left due to a faulty stabilizer, then detonated as it struck a nearby dilapidated apartment.
The rocketeer, a female raider dressed in orange-painted spike armor, panicked and dove for cover as the massive gun trained itself on her position. The gunner laughed at her attempt, "Hah! Like that's gonna help." Then he pressed the trigger, sending a shell right on top of her hiding place, setting fire to both the raider and the surrounding buildings.
The slaves, liberated from their masters as the Dominion column advanced, peered out of their shelters to witness the battle unfold. Some of them, the more abled ones well versed in the art of combat from decades of hard living in the Corpse Coast, snatched up the discarded weapons and joined in the fight, much to the amusement of their liberators. Some of the soldiers welcomed them, while others eyed them with suspicion. Not every slave there, after all, was innocent. For all they knew, some of them might have been in the slaving business too before getting sold off after a streak of bad luck.
Soon, they reached the edge of the Blood Harbor. Battle Group Hate 1-6 had secured the north gate as well as the east, while Love 1-3 secured the west and shored up the north along with them. Those that remained formed up in the middle of the town and made for the Lexington. The closer they got to the wreck of the ancient carrier, the stronger the opposition became.
For some reason, the Lexxers managed to acquire some crude supercharged plasma casters. Unknown to the Dominion, they procured them over the decades facing off against the Cult of the Reshapened, and maintained them in relatively good conditions though never once making them available for purchase in the market as the barons preferred them to be utilized solely by the Lexxers guarding the carrier. Word had reached the barons that the harbor was under attack, and as the Dominion invaders tore their way through their walls and defenses, they wasted no time in protecting their merchandise and shoring up the barrier blocking off the ramp leading into the first deck.
When the tanks rumbled into their sights, the ramp was detached and thrown aside to prevent the soldiers from ascending into the deck. The plasma caster operators took their positions and started firing with all they had. Plasma casters used fusion cores rather than the standardized MF cells that energy weapons normally used, which provided a considerably bigger punch than most and was enough to penetrate through NERA armor.
Hannigan's tank got hit, and he swore as a stream of superheated metal came pouring in through the front of the tank, cutting up the driver into ribbons and sending sparks flying all over the cabin. Luckily, the ammunition was spared from ignition, otherwise the whole crew would've been engulfed in flames by then. The gunner yelled for the loader to take his place, "Eck's is dead! Daily, take his spot!"
Loader Fly Daily hesitated upon seeing the bloody corpse laying limp against the levers.
"No!" Hannigan said, "Stay where you are! Get on your gun, hit 'em back!"
Daily heaved a sigh of relief, not wanting to be sitting in Eck's guts while he could help it, and took up the remote control to operate the 7.62mm machinegun atop his hatch. The gun rattled noisily from the outside, sending a steady burst that cut apart the Lexxers on the top deck and returned the favor. Gunner Chalk Milton, at the behest of Sgt. Hannigan, aimed the main gun for the top deck and sent an air burst shell to detonate just over the hunkered down slavers, sending fletchette darts spraying all around like metal hail, turning them all into pink mist just like Eck.
"Sgt. Hannigan, Sterling here. What's the hold up?"
"Looks like the Lexxers aren't too happy to see us. They blew off the ramp." Hannigan said, "Although, I think we can find an alternate entry point. Standby. Gunner, aim for the ship bow."
Milton traversed the main gun and aimed for the bottom of the Lexington. "Knock knock, assholes." The entire tank vibrated as the gun discharged another shell, blowing a hole two meters wide in diameter in the ship's hull. Sand and dust puffed up in clouds, then faded away to reveal a hollowed out section of the bottom deck, which remained unoccupied by the Lexxers for reasons they had yet to determine.
Hannigan informed the sergeant on the ground that the alternate route was made available, "Gonna have to work your way up instead of the other end. Good luck in there, Sterling."
Sgt. Sterling led the rooks down the harbor and onto the sands of the dried up Atlantic shore, into the breach to neutralize every Lexxer in the old carrier. Later, they found out why the lower decks were left unoccupied. As it turned out, the lower decks were used to house Lady Green's less fortunate devotees who'd gone feral over the years. Ghouls, ravenous and hungry like starved rabid dogs, leapt up at the sight of the intruders and lunged for Sterling and his men.
The rooks in power-armor tore them apart with their guns, sometimes with their bare hands when the ghouls got too close. When they ascended to the middle decks, they were greeted by more Lexxers in crude cobbled-together power-armor. Ramshackle mechanical harnesses stacked with cast-iron plates, and painted with black and gold to make them look more menacing than they actually were. This was the Gunmaker's Deck, a storehouse of all the best weapons in the Lexxer stock and arsenal. Other Lexxers grabbed the strongest weapons they could get and fought with the Dominion invaders, which ended up setting fire to the whole deck as ammunition boxes started blowing up one after the other.
They did, however, managed to penetrate the armor of one or two of the rooks and kill them. The losses on the rooks' side were minimal, but each downed man was keenly felt, and it served to fuel their hatred for the Lexxers. The medics dragged off the wounded while the rest pressed on to the Pleasure Den, where most of the Lexxers from the Gunmakers Deck retreated after the fight proved to be a losing battle.
The elevator had long left the bottom decks, so the rooks had to use the stairs, which were booby trapped with crude bottlecap mines from one flight to another, further hindering their progress. By the time they got to the Pleasure Den, the Lexxers had already fortified every catwalk and every cabin, sometimes using the comfort slaves as meatshields. Curiously enough, the baroness in charge of the place kept her people from firing first, as if she wanted to exchange a few words with the invaders before another exchange of fire would take place.
Lady Green boldly revealed herself as Sterling and his men poured into the den, "Hold it right there, boys! Let's talk, and avoid further bloodshed!"
Sterling stepped forward, letting his target-finders tag every enemy in place. He allowed the baroness to have her moment, though not at all planning to submit to any of her demands. "What is there to talk about, waster? You looking for a way to survive this, to slip free from your day of judgement? There's only one of two ways that happens to slavers like you- the bullet or the noose."
"You're really set on wiping us out?" The baroness said, "Let me tell you something, tin man. You're gonna have one hell of a fight ahead of you, and it's gonna cost you. Blood will flow, and you'll weary of the slaughter- this I assure you."
"That's a sacrifice we're willing to make." Sterling growled as his men picked their targets and primed their weapons, "This place is Dominion land now, and you're trespassing. Weapons free, rooks!"
The roar of gunfire filled the Pleasure Den amidst the screams of panicking slaves and taunting curses spat from either side. Lady Green's devotees, every one a ghoul drawing strength from the Glowing One's radioactive aura, bore their wounds with little regard as they traded fire with the Dominion soldiers. Their weapons, high caliber assault rifles with armor-piercing rounds, punched right through power-armor. As Sterling worked his way up to reach the Lexxer leaders, his men started taking casualties. Aside from that, the collateral damage grew to an excessive degree as some of the comfort slaves were donned in crude little bomb vests, turning them into walking mines as the ghouls sent them running into the Dominion soldiers.
The entire floor was covered in blood and gore before long, bodies were flying from one end to the other as explosions rocked the entire deck. It was, as the term aptly put it, FUBAR.
Sterling, having reached the platform where Lady Green was located, torched his way right through the ghouls. When the flamer clicked empty, he tossed it down on the metal platform and continued his rampage. His armored fists smashed their faces in, and he tossed them over the rails to join the corpses littering the floor below, then stomped towards Lady Green. The Glowing One wielded a fancy silver revolver, which she laughably attempted to use on the armored rook. The hollow-point rounds ricocheted harmlessly off his helmet and pauldrons, Sterling didn't stop walking until he was within grabbing range, and he seized the madam by the throat.
"Cut me, shoot me, torch me, break me..." She cackled, "...but you cannot kill me. I am beyond death!"
Sterling drew a fist back and hit her so hard in the chest that it pulverized her entire rib cage. Lady Green, greatly accustomed to pain through a long and hard life in the Wasteland, moaned with delight as whatever nerves were left in her mutated body started singing. The sergeant grimaced in disgust at her reaction and reached behind her neck to grab at her spine. With a firm clench, he crushed the flimsy bunch of flesh and bone into mincemeat, and he ripped her head right off her shoulders with a savage pull.
"Not without a head you're not." Sterling retorted, tossing the body and the head aside as he picked up his discarded weapon. He removed the empty tank and screwed in a fresh one, readying himself for the next bout as there was one last set of decks to clean up.
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