"Doctor Halsey, are you on this net?"
"Yes, major. This is Halsey. Go ahead."
"Good news, ma'am. We're ready. Orbit and Groundside."
"Ahead of schedule. And our UN friends?"
"Also ready."
"Contact General Hazama and his officer cadre, then... Go on in. Full speed. Let's end that battle before it properly begins."
"Aye, ma'am!"
Gunfire raked the battlements, forcing the Marines and SDF on top into cover. Kurata had to shield himself from the amount of lead the enemy was spitting at them, swearing to himself in his language, before asking the UNSC Marine next to him, "Just when the HELL did they bring this much heavy kit up!?" as he peeked and shot two shots. The Marine next to him, one carrying a Battle Rifle, let out two bursts, then ducked as a round hit inches away from his face.
"I don't fuckin' know, man," He replied, reloading his battle rifle. Poking out again, he opened up on the enemy and spoke over Radio, "HITMAN-3-ACTUAL, ENEMY FORCES ARE IN CONTACT ON THE EASTERN GATE! Looks like they're bringing in siege equipment here! And it doesn't look too fucking pretty for us!" then ducked back into cover. His ammo counter read the weapon was half-full. He poked out again, without firing this time, before reporting as he hid again, "Counting four, maybe five ladders!"
"Hold the line, Corporal, don't let them overwhelm you." Richard spoke, the ring of gunfire audible through the com. "We'll send reinforcements if possible, but you must hold the line."
The man swore to himself, then replied, "Copy... Eastern Gate, out," before running, hunched-over, toward their machine gunner and tapping him on the shoulder. The Japanese soldier carrying an M249 SAW turned toward him, to which the British-born UNSC Marine ordered him, "Controlled bursts! Aim for the troops carrying the ladders!" and pointing out the squadrons of soldiers carrying what looked to be metallic ladders, tall as the walls.
One of the team's snipers started popping off at enemy units, taking out some of the ladder carriers as a Marine carrying boxes of ammo ran forward. The machine gunner opened up as well, controlled bursts of three and four rounds leaving the barrel of the weapon, the heat around it causing the air to distort. Legionnaires tried to utilize their shields to cover their brethren, but failed, taking rounds in the chests, legs and the likes as 5,56 and 7,62mm punctured through plate armor and wooden shields.
The group ducked as an SRS sniper round rang through the air, the round ricocheting off the side of the battlements and damn-near giving the machine gunner grunt a heart attack. The soldier crawled back and repositioned, looking terrified as rounds started flying again. The man gasped, however, watching as a Japanese UNSC Marine ran forward, her sniper rifle in hand, before sliding into position and slamming the bipod of the rifle onto their cover.
She scoped in the enemy's snipers and fired, all within a second of setting up. She ducked, repositioned and fired again, dropping a man with a Jackhammer launcher, then again, going for an officer. She stopped beside the Marines and SDF, speaking in Japanese to Kurata, "Your Lieutenant needs you at the North gate, Sergeant Kurata. Sergeant Tomita and the others have been sent to defend the town square and our CP there."
He nodded in thanks, then stood up. Ikari then looked to the soldier beside her and said, "I have our backs. Stavrov will also be coming in to support us. Add to that our corpsman and we should be fine here, for now..." as she scoped in the next target:One of the bastards carrying the ladders. She shot, turning his head into mist and his helmet into a blooming steel flower, took another shot and killed another man before growling and reloading her weapon. "They just keep sending bodies to bring those ladders up..."
"They wanna get us in, close," The Marine replied, firing bursts, "And I'd say we let'em."
"Have them climb up and hose them with the MGs?" She asked, ducking as a bullet from an older gun rang off her helmet. She felt the top of her head as the dizziness from the kinetic impact set in, then silently murmured a thankful prayer to God for the fact UNSC Armor was resistant to even their own old bullets, because that shot would definitely have brained her.
She murmured, "I'm fine with it..." as she drew her pistol.
On another section of the wall, Richard, Torres and Itami directed the defense, with Torres stating, "I'll be going downstairs! Gotta check on Tomita and my own boys and girls!" just as a round rang over their heads. Richard and Itami replied to the enemy with 7,62mm rounds, with the UNSC Marine giving his US counterpart a thumbs up. The US Marine dipped down through the stairwell, ducked in cover as a round punched through the stone wall and stopped in the other side.
Torres swore to himself, "Fuck me, that was close..." as he clambered down and kicked the main door open. He saw the Knights, with the Princess at the forefront, setting up barricades to box the enemy in at the gate. Clapping a hand down on the woman's shoulder, he said to her, "I'll be going to grab a couple more of my Marines to help with this!" as he watched the Abrams rolling through the place continuously. Edward was checking to see where he was needed.
Aside from that, two Humvees were arrayed here, with the one carrying the Mark-19 GMG already pointed toward the door, the Marines taking cover behind the open front doors of the victor, windows rolled down and rifles at the ready. The other, with the M2, had the Marines swarming all around it, carrying and distributing ammo among themselves. The MG gunner had two cans of ammo immediately to his left, somewhat blocking his traverse. Good thing he only had to aim to the right to shoot square down the center of the door once it got breached.
The man marched down toward the CP, where he found Kurokawa and the other medics tending to the wounded civvies and militia. At the other gates, gunfire continued to ring, save for the South Gate, which they'd left to be defended by Kuribayashi and her squadron. The medic nodded to Richard as he approached, with the woman continuing to patch up the wounded man.
He saw Rosie at the com station, listening to her as she fought with the machine. She turned to him and shrugged, stating, "Shit's fucked. I can't get through on the line with anyone, it's like they all just started talking at once..."
"Maybe, that means the Task Force has finally mobilized," Richard said, semi-hopeful for that outcome to be true. It'd mean their reinforcements were en-route to them and moving as fast as humanly possible, bearing full combat load. That was gonna be one hell of a fireworks show, but it depended on them making it out of this fucking mess alive. He patted Rosie on the back and ordered, "Keep a long range close, but man the place. Stavrov's gonna back up East Gate."
He actually saw the woman running toward the gate, backed up by Tomita and a pair of other riflemen, as well as one of their Warthogs, the one with the Gauss Cannon. She turned to see the Lieutenant and gave a quick salute and a happy grin, before going through a door into the battlements. Rosie smirked and nodded, "Go, sir. I'll join ya in a fuckin' second."
The Lieutenant nodded, then selected a squadron of US Marines and a group of SDF soldiers and ordered them to follow him. The group trailed behind him, guns up as they climbed up the walls and reinforced their firing positions. Torres said, "Nice of you to join us again!" annoyance filling his voice as he put rounds down range from his rifle. Dropping his empty tin magazine, he slid in a fresh one and clicked it into place, before scoping in another pair of ladder carriers and fired at both in a single burst, striking one dead in the head and the other in the shoulder.
"Sorry..." Murmured the man as he shouldered his own rifle. Before long, he saw the first ladder go up as they were distracted with pinning the others down. The first to clamber over the edge was an Insurrectionist assault rifleman. He aimed his weapon at the squad, one-handed, as he climbed up. Clad in what looked to be ragged pieces of modified armor with various signs on them, the man was the first one to also go down to a headshot, brains splattering like a fine mist behind him.
Richard had stood to his feet and aimed his pistol, the barrel of the high-caliber hand cannon still wafting up smoke. The man then stumbled forward, looking out toward the front. He saw a contrail from a rocket. One of the Jackhammer launchers had been fired. Below, he felt the scent of burning wood and charred steel. Before long, he looked inward, into the city, at what'd happened.
The gate had been breached...
"Oh, shit..." Richard murmured...
He felt the whisper of wind flying behind him, then heard the death groan of one of the enemy's men. He looked back, to see the Princess, her blade drenched in blood as she stood over the corpse of an enemy. She looked to him, stating, "Keep your eyes open, Lieutenant!" before she gazed down. Gasping, she ordered her men in Latin, all while the trio of Lieutenants simply watched. She surged forth, disarming one of her soldiers with a clean sword strike to the right, then decapitating him with a left-ward slash.
Richard shook his head, clearing the confusion, before firing a burst from his rifle at another of the enemy's own lunatic melee troopers as they tried climbing up. He patted Torres on the shoulder, flashed him a grin and teased, "Lucky dog..." as he pushed forward. The American Marine scoffed, then snorted and looked to Itami and the others, while Ivanov opened up on anyone trying to get up the ladders, laughing like mad alongside Taylor.
"Prep to fall back off the walls and reinforce the gate!" Richard ordered, then looked to the Princess and said, "If we sit over here any longer, we'll be sitting ducks, waiting for the enemy to wrap around and kill all of us like a snake!" words to which she simply nodded. Stabbing to the right with her sword without even looking, she gutted an enemy mage that had climbed up the ladder. She then kicked the ladder off the wall, before cutting through the plate of another man with her sword and nearly vivisecting him.
Torres put a round mere inches past the woman's ear, dropping another enemy that tried to rush her, while Itami fired bursts and pushed the other ladders off. Ivanov and Taylor both descended down the stairwells already, while, below, the chug of fifty-caliber weaponry and a Mark-19 filled the air. Torres and the princess looked to one-another, with the US Marine flashing a proud grin, which garnered a blush out of the woman.
The two then overheard another pair of enemy soldiers climbing from behind them. Piña spun about on her own two feet, then slashed downward, cleaving a man's unarmored head in half, while Torres drew his pistol and put two clean through the skull of the bastard behind him. Holstering his pistol, he marched up to the Princess and grabbed her by the wrist, stating, "Time to go!"
The two ran down the stairwell as well, the last ones to come out at the bottom. Marines and SDF fired into the gateway, spent casings piling high on Humvee rooftops as the group pushed past them. The Lieutenants had gotten to ordering their men around, radioing in on the Short Range for support and fighting tooth and nail against the enemy force that threatened to envelop them.
"Fire only if you see movement!" Richard called out as he clambered on top of one of the Humvees, "Don't waste your Fifty ammo!"
He ducked as soon as a Jackhammer missile flew in and slammed against a building behind them, shards of glass and stone pinging off his armor and the hulls of the transports. He shook his head, slapped the shoulder of the Marine on the gun and said, "Nevermind! Fuck'em up!" before climbing down from the front of the vehicle. The Marine in question began letting off.
Torres, Itami, Richard, Kurata and the others began pulling back as two more Jackhammer missiles flew in, one of them dangerously close to a Humvee. The roar of a turbine engine filled the air and muffled the gunfire around them as the Abrams peeked around the corner behind them and fired. A HEATFS shell lurched forth into the smoke clouds around the gate itself, disturbing the smoke enough to leave a hole through it. Following up, a thundering blast rumbled through, the gust of wind kicked up by it blowing the smoke away.
A replying missile came, too little too late, though, as the vehicle rolled back behind cover just as it struck and rained even more chunks of stone and glass across the floor. Pouring through was enemy footsoldiers, infantry carrying assault weapons, mages and the likes. The Warrior Bunnies came next, however, with Tyuule in the lead. Blades gutted the bastards as the fast-assault Native Shock Troop of the UNSC cut at their flanks, forcing mages and riflemen to redirect their fire while the Marines, the Princess's Archers and even Lelei could pick them out with their magic and projectiles.
Tyuule cried out, "UUKHAI!" Her voice bellowing with fury as she raised her own rifle and fired from the hip, AP round bursts cutting through the lines of Imps and traitors like hot knifes through butter. Speaking of knifes, Tyuule, Delilah and their girls danced with their blades, cutting apart enemy melee troops and shooting anyone too far for their blades to reach, before retreating back into the cover of the alleys as the Mages sent fireballs and explosive blasts their way, charring and destroying chunks of wall.
A QRF unit moved in, Marines and SDF firing bursts from their rifles to meet the enemy head-on. The tank reappeared, its coaxial and top MGs letting loose while the cannon aligned. Another shot left the barrel and body-parts were flung sky-high, stunning the Princess and her Knights. The sheer power with which the HEAT shell had ripped through the enemy lines staggered even Lelei for a moment, while Tuka kept firing arrows from her bow.
The crew, however, quickly recovered as the rest of the enemy force poured through, into concentrated fire from the entire Marine/SDF Firing line. The smart ones, namely the Insurrectionists, presumably, took cover and fired back. One of the Humvees popped a tire and was unable to move. Two rounds punctured the front, supposedly up-armored windshield, with one hitting the driver in the chest rig, but without doing much damage due to having bled its energy in the windshield, thankfully. The man got out, holding the door open as cover, then started firing from his M4.
Meanwhile, the Gunner kept letting loose with the M2 .50 cal as Lelei washed the area ahead in flame herself, dousing several of her own former compatriots in the cleansing hellfire of a manmade flamethrower. Beside her, Rory grinned as she felt the surge of adrenaline usually given by the speed and ferocity of heavy-duty close-quarters combat. As some enemies slipped through, she jumped in, using her halberd to slice one of the bastards in half. She thrust the tip of the halberd into another's chest afterward, tossed him aside like a ragdoll and vivisected a third guy.
Still, more kept pouring in. More and more spent casings fell to the floor, piling high on the sandy floor. It was almost like whatever commander they still had alive had decided to just hamstring his invasion by going through one gate and one gate alone. It was mentally deficient to say the least... Well, so Richard wanted to think, until all of them heard the West Gate pop wide open under a Jackhammer strike.
The Marines there had descended from the battlements downstairs as well. Much of the unit was already fighting CQC against the Imperial force that had advanced upon them, with Rosie and the others picking up kit. Even Kurokawa, the medic, stood at the ready to help their comrades. Several US Marines and some UNSC Marines took shrapnel and bullets, two of them dying as the Marines and Knights engaged in street-to-street fighting, inch-by-inch, being pushed back more by the mass of bodies than the skill of the enemy.
The streets ran red with the blood of dead Imperials and with that of their own wounded. The Princess and Torres fought back to back, while Tyuule and Richard rallied their men and tried to hold the line. Reinforcements came in from the other gates, while the tank had also joined in, but tried to keep itself our of harm's way. A couple of Jackhammers to the side and it was dead and gone, crew inside probably cooked alive.
"Jesus fuck, there's a lot of them..." Richard murmured as he emptied another magazine, "Fuck, down to my last..."
"Same here..." Torres replied as he watched the Princess cut through enough men for her own sword to start turning Dull.
"We'll make it..." Tyuule whispered as she shouldered her rifle, firing... "We have to... For Myui and everyone here..."
Tyuule was right. They had to keep on fighting. Fighting until they ran out of ammo and needed to use their fists. The Formal household, the well-being of a kid and perhaps their very war depended on it. And it might as well have. As the enemy got close, the man slammed the butt of his rifle into the face of a Centurion, breaking his jaw and then filling him full of lead. He drew his pistol as well, aiming and firing with both weapons as the enemy got close...
Before his radio crackled with static.
Above, the drone of engines filled the air. Richard stopped and looked up as the gunfire began to die down, before he saw them. Like knights of yore and dragons out of tales from the heavens, like the cavalry during the Eleventh Hour and like Heaven's Archangels descending to save their lives, a hundred air assets emerged from beyond the walls. Helicopter gunships, transports, Pelicans and ground-strikers arched in.
Richard's face morphed into an an incomprehensibly large grin as he turned toward the enemy again, firing bursts with renewed vigor and ordering "PUSH THESE MOTHERFUCKERS OUT OF THE WAY! FRIENDLY AIR SUPPORT'S COMING IN AND THEY'LL NEED'EM IN THEIR KENNELS! PUSH, BOYS AND GIRLS, PUSH!" as he saw the sky fill up with even more air transports and gunships.
A-10 Warthogs and Sukhoi Su-25 Rooks dived in, their 30mm cannons letting lose tandem bursts at the target outside. One of the A-10 Pilots reported, "This is Wardaddy 1-2 to allied ground assets, we got the enemy beyond the Gate. Preacher 4-1, your targets are still within the confines of the gates, but it looks like our boys and gals are starting to push them out."
"Copy, Wardaddy. We're going in for the strike. All allied assets, please stand clear of the gates." A Japanese Cobra pilot reported as she flew in, leading a squadron of American and SDF attack choppers. UNSC attack craft, Sparrowhawks and their own gunships, opened up on the outer perimeter as well, lasers, missiles and cannons tearing through scores of enemy units.
"This is Grach to Wardaddy," The Russian Su-25 Pilot called in, "Turning in for second strike. Rocket pods are hot. Cover my ass," He requested. The American A10 pilot happily watched Russian warbird dive in, its unguided missiles screaming out of the hive-like pods. A wall of explosions filled the front of the gate, shrapnel and explosive shockwaves rippling through the place, tearing asunder the mob of lunatics trying to get into the city.
Following up on the airstrikes, UNSC and UN vehicles filtered into the town. Warthogs, tanks, transport trucks, all of them disgorging infantry that supported the push. Above, Apaches and Cobras lit up the gates with their cannons while the allied defenders watched them soaring overhead, Piña and her knights staring with muted awe at them. Bozes whispered, "By the Gods... Iron Wyverns...?"
Tyuule approached, stating, "No, my friend..." with a smile on her face, "That is the might of human ingenuity... Technological machines."
"Incredible..." Piña murmured, watching as the Pelicans also landed, deploying medical teams and supply units, as well as a certain someone. Doctor Halsey approached the group, a smile on her face and her SPARTAN fireteam behind her. Richard, Torres and Itami all saluted, before all of them turned to the Princess and Queen and waved them over. The two nodded, with Tyuule smiling at her friend as she led the way.
Piña spoke, "Greetings..."
"Your Highness..." The Doctor bowed respectfully, then spoke openly to the Princess like she'd speak to any royalty, "My name is Doctor Catherine Halsey. I am the commander of the United Nations Space Command force on your world... Let's hope my meeting with you will be far more productive than the one with your brother was those three years ago..."
Piña nodded, before humming and looking around at her Knights, all of them stunned. She, too, was stunned as she saw the Army units that had been deployed mopping up the remains of the Imperial Army and the Insurrectionists. Any survivors that could had long ago surrendered. Some hours after the battle, Richard was sat down on a crate, drinking a bottle of Coke on his own and watching the doctors working.
He blinked, rifle laying beside him, its barrel slightly thinned by the wear and tear caused by so much fighting. Unsurprisingly, he saw Tyuule in much the same state. He greeted her with a raise of the bottle, to which she raised her own mug of tea, before sitting herself down next to him and stating, "Doctor Halsey's been grilling Piña for the better part of two hours now..."
"Well, she wants to know things... Y'know how she is..." He commented, then sipped from his drink. He extended it to her as if asking if she wanted to try, but she shook her head. He hummed, shrugged and looked forward, before murmuring, "This was a clusterfuck and a half. Thank God for their timely arrival..." before he chugged half the bottle in one go.
She chuckled, then nodded, "Yeah..." as she watched a squadron of Chinooks coming in from toward the setting sun, before moving to touch down outside. It was gonna be one hell of a reconstruction effort, she thought... She then scooted up closer to him and leaned herself against him, which surprised him, clearly, as he froze on the spot. Chuckling, she let her ears droop as she sat beside him. Torres and Itami both saw the two and lifted their own glasses of ale, laughing, before Itami himself was to be chased by Rory.
As lions on the battlefield, they'd fought until just recently. God help them, they could get some rest, perhaps, finally...