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"We've secured from here to here, amounting to approximately eighty percent of the Marian Plateau." The wizened Turian commander who had landed with the fourth wave explained, leaning over a simple table and holo-map display laid out in the center of the camp while Makos fitted with what looked more or less like snow-plows pushed Reaper remains off the edges of the plateau around them. He gestured at the lowlands around the plateau and frowned, "Landing forces in the lowlands, though, have reported stiff resistance… And our orbital forces are struggling."
John could see that in the dark sky above them, in the occasional splashes of fire where a warship was destroyed and left to drift to Menae's surface. Sitting on one of the tall stacks of crates that served as the 'walls' of the briefing zone, John had a good view of one of them coming down in the distance in a great fireball of molten metals, escaping gases, and general slag that hit the distant ground with enough force to hurl dust high into the sky. He could only hope it was a Reaper corpse rather than an allied ship, but from so far away, he couldn't tell.
And, to no one's shock, melting through an orbital fall didn't make it easy for his VISR to tell him based on its silhouette.
"The Alliance Second Fleet is en route to assist us, along with some of their special forces, but we need to secure more of Menae. If we fail, they'll be pressed to support our evac, much less rescue and landing efforts on the Home- On Palaven." The Turian went on, drawing John's gaze back to the holomap as the Turian expanded it to showcase more of the continent they were on, and the group collectively ignore his slip of the tongue. The plateau itself was massive, but the lowlands stretched on for hundreds of kilometers, broken up intermittently by a couple dozen smaller groups of plateaus and hills. "Reaper forces are entrenching in these positions, and scattering smaller groupings throughout the lowlands all across this hemisphere. Each highland position is guarded in orbit by a Reaper capital ship and supports, and we can't spare any from the holding action above the Marian formations and its surrounding, immediate area."
"So," the Krogan rumbled, "no orbital support…"
"Or air support." The Turian commander nodded, mandibles flicking when the assembled leadership muttered under their breath. "It gets worse. The Reapers have some sort of… Smoke condensers, obscuring our sensors, but their Oculi can see right through it. We're expecting it to be… Bad, trying to take the hills."
"Yeah, that sounds about right. A nice, bloody meat grinder, but that's why you brought us." One of the Krogan growled, "Isn't it, Turian?"
"I don't catch your meaning…"
"I'm sure you don't." The scarred warrior growled, pulling a bloodied bandage away from a mostly healed wound and throwing it on the ground. "I'm sure you don't."
"Krogan meat shields for the grinder." Another growled, "Same song, different Turian."
"I… Respect why you feel the way you do." The Turian sighed after a while, turning to stare down at the holo-map. Under his breath, almost like he didn't mean to say it, "I still wonder if curing the Genophage was the smart decision."
"Brave words, Turian."
"My home is burning, Krogan." The Turian muttered, eyeing the taller alien warily and grimacing - which told John he really hadn't meant to say what he had out lout. "We helped you and yours, now you owe us this. Fall in."
"Or," the red-skinned Krogan who'd thrown the bandage rumbled, "we could kill you, and make our own plan."
John saw the Turians in the group tense at that and frowned, drawing the Predator he'd 'found' on one of the supply shuttles. He leveled it on the Krogan's side and, just when he noticed and flinched, put one round into its shoulder. It reeled away more out of surprise than anything and he dropped off the crates while the rest of the crowd spread out away from him, watching him with curious, worried and - in the Krogan's cases - interested expressions. Pacing forward, he kept the gun on the Krogan and sighed.
"Shut. Up." He ordered lowly, "You have a job to do. Do it, or I'll shoot you and we'll find someone else to do your job."
"Hmph." The Krogan rumbled, rolling his shoulder and chuckling darkly. "Finally, someone with a quad to give orders. Fine then, Sandswimmer. As you say."
It sounded… Mocking, somehow, the way he said that.
But he backed down and, after a moment, everyone settled and the Turian commander started again, "Light and medium armor units are being brought in. Surviving drop troopers, and who I was able to get down here in one piece, will take armor and assault the nearest hills in force. Once sectors have been cleared, Krogan landing-ships will come in to deploy more ground forces. And, most importantly, engineers."
"Engineers?" A Krogan rumbled, sounding… Excited. "The trench kind, or the vehicle kind?"
"Both." The Turian answered, "But, most importantly, these engineers are bringing artillery. The Reapers aren;t the only ones with anti-orbital cannon schematics."
"Hah!" The Krogan John had shot laughed, "You're building a big fuck off Krogan artillery piece on Menae?"
"Actually," the Turian chuckled, "we're building twenty."
"You shoulda lead with that!"
An hour or so later, John watches as a heavy Mako tank rolls to a stop at the lead of a formation of, of all things, Tomkahs that fan out behind it into a sort of diamond formation with the Alliance tank at the front. Neither are standard looking, though. The Mako mostly is, but it had been painted a dark blue and black, patterned unevenly to meld into the surface of the moon around it. It had a shortened pair of twin-barrels, too, with a third far smaller one just above them. The Tomkahs were sporting the same paint jobs, and with heavy looking, four barreled rotary guns on their upper turrets. Heavy machine guns poked out from where there had been view-ports and, on the sides of the turret-tower, there were racks of rocket batteries that, in spite of the paintjob, the clearly Turian looking origin, and being standardised, still managed to look more or less spot-welded on.
"Ever manned one of the big guns?" Wratch asked as Krogan, Turians and a handful of what looked like Eclipse mercenaries loaded into the armored units.
"No." He answered simply, collapsing his Lancer and frowning when the Krogan just eyed it curiously. "What?"
"You're keeping the antique…?"
"It works." He shrugged and, after a moment, added under his breath, "There wasn't anything else available. Except sa Phaeston…"
"Ah. Bah, Turian 'rifles', eh?" Another Krogan nearby rumbled. He was barely armored and thin, standing on the steps up into the Tomkah. Their driver, then, he assumed. "Lots of sound to 'em, but no punch."
"...Suppressive fire has it's value in a fire-fight." He argued weakly, holding up a hand and making a 'so-so' motion as he did. "But even for that, eh…"
The Krogan around him laughed, and even a couple of the Turians checking out their own Tomkah joined in. All while one, holding an off-brown Phaeston, just glowered at the distant horizon.
Inside, the Tomkah-turret was more or less what he'd expected. A lever in front of him, set on a ball joint, rotated the turret and lifted the barrels up and down. And a line of terminals were built in just below thick, dark glass that let him see what was directly outside. The seat was too big for him, but not enough it got in the way. And, above him, there were two switches, one green and one red, that toggled lock-in for the rockets. They'd lock onto wherever the barrel's built in designator was pointed and rain down on it - a num-pad beside it let him select up to nine missiles to fire at a time.
"You good on the gun, Human?" The driver, seated below and just in front of him with a mess of pedals and levers in front of him, called up.
"Turn, shoot, lock-on and set number of missiles." He called down, "How hard can it be?"
"Fair enough." He grunted, tapping John's leg with a little cylinder he leaned down to take. "Stew. Not much, just some ration-water, canned stock, meat, and something I bought off the Eclipse called 'spuds'."
"Potatoes…?"
"Dunno, Human food." He grunted, "But it's hot and easy. And not poison for your kind, I asked before I stuffed it all together."
It turned out the 'stock' was dehydrated tomato-sauce, which made it a sort of… Off-chicken and potato tomato soup. It was thick, almost a sludge, but it was far from the worst thing he'd eaten in a hot-seat before heading into the field. A pinch of salt and hot sauce and, in fact, it would have been fairly good. He had about a third of it before he handed it back for the Krogan to down the rest of it. The driver was about halfway through it when the intercom crackled to life.
"All forces, move out!" The Turian commander ordered, "Head to sectors and prepare for contact! Engage at your discretion!"
"Here we go!" The Krogan under him rumbled, "Nothing like a peaceful drive, eh, Doe?"
"Mhm…" He hummed, tying his cloak around his waist to keep it out of the way and sighing.
The 'peaceful' part only lasted about thirty minutes of meandering down the still-clogged roads to get to the lowlands, and heading out into the more open land.
"Harvester tracking- Two out!" John reported, tracking the flying wormlike monstrosity with his heavy-barrel's sights and reaching up to punch the 'two' and the green trigger to fire from the missile rack. The missiles caught it on the flank, severing a wing, and he grunted as he cycled away, "Harvester mobility kill - tracking for new target!"
"Nine thirty or so, one of those Mangled Tomkahs!" His driver called out, voice barely audible over the din of machine-gun fire below them peppering entrenched, waiting Cannibal groups scattered in little holes dug out across the lowlands.
"Acquiring!" He grunted, already traversing the turret. He found the thing easily enough, sitting up on a little hill with rocks around it. It was stationary, with massive tumors oozing around the rocks against its flanks, and he figured it had been damaged and refitted to sit there for whoever got close enough.
From the shots screaming across their armor, that would be them.
His heavy guns ripped it apart, though. Each shot slowly thumping out as the barrels rotated, firing heavy slugs the size of the ODST's fists at faster than the speed of sound. The Krogan munitions were far from refined, little more than a glorified rotary slingshot, but the rounds impacted with titanic force. Enough to shatter rock, shear off hunks of abominable Reaper meat and obliderate whatever armor tried to stop it. A second Tomkah helped him as their formation turned, moving around it, and it went up in a ball of fire just as they passed it by.
"Harvest- Agh!" Their Mako's driver screamed only a few moments after. John spun his gun to watch the wreckage of the tank rolling along the ground as their Tomkahs spread out to dodge it, and the explosion of its engine, as it and the Harvester that had dive-bombed it trundled along.
Until it slammed into a rock outcropping and came apart in a spectacular display of fire and metal.
"Heavy escort is down and- Shit!" The Krogan driver bellowed, suddenly yanking the Tomkah to the side so hard the entire tank tilted, and John was nearly thrown out of his seat. He managed to hang on as the Tomkah straightened and came back around while the driver yelled, "Artillery on the hills under the plateau! Get some heavy fire up there!"
"Seeking!" He bellowed back, traversing the turret while he fought to right himself in his seat.
The plateau ahead had, probably centuries ago, had a landslide that left their approach sector slanted. It was why the site hadn't been picked for a defensive line ahead of the Reapers - it was too easily assaulted, and they couldn't afford the casualties. But the Reapers didn't care about casualties, and had lined the slanted approach with shoddy bunkers of stone and scrap held together by tumurous masses of fleshy black filth, which rockets and heavy mass accelerator fire poured out of in a tide of inaccurate fire pouring down at them.
And, above it, he saw the four legged figure of a heavy Reaper artillery piece, as tall as a building and pointed right at them.
"I'm emptying the tubes!" He called down, reaching up to key in the rocket batteries and slamming 'nine' a half dozen times while he lined up the gun-sight. "That's a Reaper walker! A proper one!"
"Shit!" The pilot snarled, "I see it! It's too much for our- Firing!"
Once again, John was hurled against the side of his seat as the Tomkah turned on a dime, nearly toppling as it dodged a heavy shell that sent tremors through the entire tank. Realigning his tank-sight, he grit his teeth and gave it every rocket he had. Twenty eight missiles arced up, trailing high and curving down. Eight of them exploded as the Reaper infantry on the hill opened fire, spraying fire at the rockets in an effort to stop them. The rest slammed home, splashing along one of the legs as the machine turned, almost looking like it was shouldering the fire before the smoke hid it.
"Solid hit!" He reported, "But I don't have eyes on-"
Suddenly, the world turned sideways and all he could hear was metal screaming. He slammed into his seat, bounced off it, and then slammed into the top of the gun housing as the Tomkah rolled. He heard the alarms start screaming a moment before they died and he looked down, watching the Tomkah come apart, the command tower flying away as the rest of it slammed into a metal spine protruding up and sheared apart.
He landed a dozen yards up the hill from where the rest of his truck smoked and smoldered, and coughed as he sucked in breath and forced himself to roll over. The turret was still powered, bathing him in dull orange light that spilled ahead of him, but he could hear the Husks coming for him and his VISR picked them up further out than the light reached. Drawing his Predator, he picked them off as they came, stepping forward to rest his arm on the sideways seat while he grabbed the Lancer that had fallen on its other side.
When the Predator whined, he counted four dead Human Husks and dropped it, lining up his Lancer with the next dozen and snarling, "Let's go!"
A pair of the heavy rounds from another Tomkah blew them apart before they got close, though, and John watched as one of the surviving Tomkahs from his formation shot by, headed up the hill. It was missing a wheel and some armor, trailing smoke as he staggered out of the ruin of his truck and turned to follow it, but the Krogan inside kept fighting. A Harvester slammed into it before it reached the top, though, bowling it over and ripping into its side as more Cannibals and thin, wiry Turian Husks, unarmored and unarmed like the Human ones, rushed over the hill and down at the last truck as it struck one of the cancerous looking bunkers and it exploded, blowing it onto its side.
He had already started firing when he realized they were actual Turians, not Husks, rushing at them with foam on their mandibles and ragged screams that echoed down at him.
"God…" He murmured, watching the Krogan survivors from the last truck to go down ripping them apart with heavy fire as they advanced.
Above it, though, the heavy Reaper artillery turned again. Its leg was smoking where his rockets had ripped it apart, and it shuddered with step, but it was alive. And taking aim down the hill, shuddering as it adjusted its weight and sent rocks tumbling down, entirely uncaring of its own infantry in the path of its attack.
Turning, he clambered into the ruined turret, muttering, "Come on, come on, have power…"
Miraculously, the turret did. Its gunsight was cracked, but he was able to line up with the Reaper as its barrel glowed dimly. The turret was slow to traverse, and he could hear it coming apart beside him as he forced it. He knew the heavy rounds still wouldn't be enough to kill it but he fired regardless.
And the heavy rounds blew apart the slope just in front of it, ripping up the already unstable ground.
Centuries ago, most likely, the slope had been built by a landslide. And he knew there was a faultline nearby - which, together, told him that the ground here should be unstable. The rock weak, prone to more of the same it had experienced in the past. True enough, when he sundered the hard stone holding the edge of the plateau together just under the surface of the looser rock and soil at the top of the hill, the plateau beyond fractured. Under the weight of the artillery piece, it came undone.
And the Reaper cannon fell, sinking into the rock and firing its shot wide and high, off into the distance where it impacted harmlessly. The landslide didn't stop there, though, pulling the Reaper machine onto its side as it went. The Krogan survivors saw what was coming as well as John did, beating away the indoctrinated Turians attacking them while they rushed for their truck, and John braced himself too.
Moments later several hundred tons of rock, cancerous Reaper flesh, metal and soil slammed into what was left of his truck and it rolled and pitched as the ODST turned to offer his back to the shower of stone that slammed into his seat and tried to crush him. The seat held, though, and John grit his teeth. And put his faith in Krogan engineering.
Finally, after minutes of noise and more bruises than he could count, the landslide ended. Soil and rock had filled the bottom half of what was left of the Tomkah's tower, with only a little gap at the top that he could see stars through. Rolling his shoulders, and dusting off the cloak that had come mostly untied in the chaos. Untying it the rest of the way, and grabbing his Lancer, he clambered for the gap and dug out enough space to slip through.
A meaty fist grabbed him by his head and shoulders when he was halfway through, and he shouted as he was pulled free and hurled away, rolling down the hill.
Forcing himself up, he watched the bloodied Brute, half its head and an arm gone, turn to bellow at him. He raised his rifle and it charged him, using its shield arm as a shield as it came for him. He leapt under the awkward swipe and, off balance, the abomination fell over itself behind the ODST as he rushed away to make space. Turning, he saw it rising again, and raised his Lancer to pepper it in fire as it came again, light rounds plinking off its armor and metallic skin.
Until a missile arced down into its back and blew it in half.
Turning, John watched a Mako rolled by, giving him a wide berth while a Tomkah rolled up and came to a stop.
"Human!" The Turian that opened the door on the second-wave assault truck waved him in, "Get in! We're taking the hill!"
Nodding, he grabbed the alien's hand and let it pull him in as the tank continued on, Krogan along the hill pulling themselves out of the rubble as they went.
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