There was no silence to break but the sound of a carbine sliding between the heavy-duty tones of pounding artillery fire and barking orders. In a flash of a moment the crack of the compact weapon stabbed and cut through the disharmony plagueing the year as electromagnetic rounds slammed against the helmet of the towering armor. The first two rounds staggered him as the faint glow of its visor flickered amidst the sounds of whirring motors arguing against crackling electronics. A harsh garbled bark broke out before electronic vocal-filtration cut out and a rough voice boomed out:

"SCATTER, PERIMETER REPOSITIONING, GO!"

Redundant backup systems and hardened internal protective layers took the brunt of the blast but their limits were tested sorely by the well-placed rounds. The soldier sprinted back, footsteps crunching bramble and fallen branches, leaving deep imprints as he vanished behind a spray of wild retaliatory fire from the automata. He was fast but Alice's bullet was faster. Two near-invisible tungsten needles pierced nearly the exact same spot of both knees as the hefty trooper fell.

Not onto his armored face. He stumbled but moved fast enough to place his arms before him, breaking into a roll and half-suprpessing a pained grunt. The damage was agonizing but an augmented physiology combined with pain-suppressants and nano-repair capabilities was already kicking into overdrive, sealing the holes. Yet the effects of the wounds would stay unless properly treated, not only internally but forcing him into one of the cover of one of the larger trees.

At least, he would have tried if a spray of ulvath fire had not glanced his armor, his quick reflexes throwing him away into a roll. The gnarled bark erupted into a spray of shredded cloud as he fell onto his stomach, shoving and crawling across the ground as the CivSec tropers fired a series of bursts at the tarrhaidim's direction, spread out evenly among the large cargo crate like structures and the trees.

They did not stay static for long, taking measured potshots and it was clear they were meant to be personally guard their towering companion. That threat was positioned in the middle of a square formation. Yet while they focused on Ilshar, their robotic allies had broader aims.

Multiple LMG's opened up arrayed in a rapidly forming half-circle formation spraying off into the woods. Branches exploded into woodchips and fragments, leaves shredding into green mist and the airwaves flooded with the sound of crackling fury. It was hardly accurate in spite of the targeting capacities afforded but it did not need to be. With that many rounds they were bound to hit something; they were still trying to identify where the rest of the threats were and if unable, to keep their heads down with a deluge of fire.

Through the shimmer of the invisbility field, blurring as water ripples, multiple bullets pierced and flew then pinged with sparks against a large, formidable target. The dual-invisbility field of both voidhangers obscured the light of the sparks but only for so much. The advanced scanning capabilities of the automata when networked processed in mere blinks what trained soldiers might need a few seconds. It was not long afterwards that the four CivSec soldiers began falling back to hefty crates and reinforced structures in the area, sweeping their rifles as their scanners began to pick up thermal and electrical signatures with advanced vision modes.

Before any further information could be shared, the EMP grenade had already flown over the cacophonous fire. With its visor malfunctioning the power armored trooper had not seen it and its immediate subordinates were too busy taking pot shots at what they could make out from behind the blur of suppression fire. The casing of the grenade burst and with it a wave of semi-translucent purple-blue light washed out, engulfing four of the automata. The ocular lights blinked wildly as trigger fingers released, abruptly stopping most of the barrage and letting the smoke from their barrels hang over them - the entire left-end of their half-circle formation had been deactivated, the machines standing still or slumping to their knees as heads and arms twitched. Emergency reboot systems were in effect but they would take time to render them combat-ready once more.

One of the CivSec troopers, lining up a shot on the weakening invisibilty field abrutly dropped back into cover as the automata spared the EMP blast twisted their lower bodies, torsos facing the Envenomed as their legs walked back. Their fire came in bursts as they tightened their defences. The sound let-up enough that shouts and snapping volleys could be heard in the background; CivSec troopers moving between the trees further into the occupied area - one of them pausing for a moment, standing almost like the spitting image of a proper firing position from a training manual. A blink later and his upper body became a smoking mess, a u-pipe of melted meat and deformed metal bereft of the head, collarbone, and arms scattered around it and the blue afterglow of a rail-cannon's firing vector hanging in the air.

Bullets whistled then shrieked as they flew, slamming into occupation forces' armor, staggering some before punching clean through others. ZRF squad was advancing; slowly, cautiously, but for every volley sent their way a staccato riposte of single-shot bursts forced the scrambling UCL-backed forces into unfavorable positions.

"Let their flesh feed the Earth and our boots crush their bones!" A familiar, alien voice boomed over the coms as another rail-cannon discharge. At this short range, few things could withstand their raw power or the pain of a non-fatal shot. Someone screamed over the coms but it did not sound like one of the insurgents' own; too distant from the microphone-receiver and perfectly coordinated with the report of the banshee-scream cannon.

A far graver threat to the UCL allies remained, one that was amassing power in a hefty barrel. Yet whereas the distance between Echo and the scielto etherealist meant it could not detect the weapon charging up, this comparably shorter range engagement was another story. Mechanical heads buzzed and swiveled, correlating the visual report of bullets pinging off armor to target location as the active automata's sensors picked up distortions and build-up of energy in the air.

It was just in time for the power armor's HUD systems to regain most functionality.

A split second later, a lance of light slammed into where he had been hiding, disintegrating the crates before melting the reinforced exterior of the massive cargo container and hitting something vital within. The trooper sprinted away as a massive explosion rocked the battlefield, knocking over the front-most CivSec troopers and forcing the rear two to break cover, dodging flaming debris as they attempted to make their way to the power armored threat. One slung their rifle abruptly and broke from his squadmate towards one of the camo-netted tents. The other had tapped the power armored trooper, pointing towards the rapidly approaching unztadtlige.

In spite of the visible bluish-purple blood splattered on his knees and the last flickers of electronics self-repair on his helmet, the tallest of the enemy combatants immediately snapped to action. His surbordinate spread off to the right, obscuring himself from the sight of the whole squad as he dove behind one of the nearby tents. Echo's massive multi-legged bulk surged but nothing about the formidable supersoldier suggested the possibility of flinching. Falling into a crouched position, his carbine swing upwards and he flicked an switch. Already the platform's autocannons had torn and warped the torsos of two of the active automata, leaving them as burning wrecks.

While it left two immediately active, the other four were already beginning to reawaken for a total of six machine hostiles, metal limbs creaking as they began to run, their actions taking a new speed and aggression. A scan from those capable of it demonstrated that the power armored soldier was directly controlling them through some sort of neurocybernetic link yet he was clearly focusing on the biggest, most immediate, cyborg-coral threat. In the time it took for Echo to get into position, three rapid bursts of heavy duty AP -shells, the sort normally used for killing vrexul-level threats were spat out.

Encased in shells of low-light energy, they did not have quite the same violent impact as vrexul autocannon-rifle rounds. Yet they were easily the equivalent of anti-material rifle bullets, larger and retaining even more impact force. Upon collision with a target, the energy field and the internal battery that provided it would discharge forwards for additional explosive power, capable of deforming metal and dismembering meat beneath.

The first was aimed at the "head" of Echo, aiming to at least diminish or damage its vision with rounds that at these closer ranges could scar the armor of such alien threats. The second went a bit wild, hitting a few of the leg-joints on the platform's right side. Flashes of metal on metal and energy discharge marked successful hits but its third burst was cut short as a combination of on-board sensors and those of the linked automata alerted it to the fearsome weapon, firing another beam. It leapt out of the way into a roll but staggered as it recovered from it; the needle rounds that had gone through its legs had hampered its mobility, even if the enormous human was still far more manoeverable than his bulk suggested.

A smoking crater where he had been standing caused a nearby tree to tip over, nearly falling onto the League soldier before he quickly back-hopped, letting it slam down in front of him before staggering to steady himself. His weapon raised and he fired another burst of heavy duty rounds, this time fully automatic and aimed at Echo's "head" again.

"There are more reinforcements, I can see automata platforms activating deerp into the camp! There's signs of smaller gun-platforms activating! Force their commander back, we cannot hold them off for long!"

The careful, precise, almost deliberately spaced out single shot bursts and monstrous rail-cannon shrieks grew far more erratic and inconsistent. Sounds of multiple missile launch systems and rapid fire machine guns were beginning to fill the air. The ZRF forces were still forcing the rest of the artillery site's defenders to focus on them rather than their newfound allies but for how long was another issue.

He already knew things wouldn't go quite so smoothly against a power armor trooper, but that didn't make the entire situation any less annoying. At least their help finally found their balls. And it didn't even take having to fully incapcitate the biggest threat on the field first. Points to them for that, he supposed.

Salvator hunkered down behind cover to evade the return fire he was subjected to, occasionally popping back up to take shots at targets of opportunity. Eventually, his magazine of EMP rounds was used up and the veteran voidhanger quickly loaded in AP-EX before swapping to his heavy shotgun. At this rate, they'd need to put the bastard down as quickly as possible. EMP had done its job in putting him off balance, but he'd need better firepower to finish the job. A wave of his hand over the shotgun's tube coated every loaded slug with ethereal jacketing.

"Acknowledged!" Salvator cried in response to the insurgents on their shared tac-net before he scanned over the battlefield once, planning his vector of attack. "You heard them, squad, light that power armor up. Shifting to flank, watch your fire!"

He focused his power, and leapt through the void once more, blinking to a closer position on the power armor trooper's flank. Salvator rose above his newly chosen cover, aimed down the sights, and started firing ethereal-jacketed heavy slug after ethereal-jacketed heavy slug at the human. Pump. Shoot. Pump. Shoot. Pump. Shoot.

Perhaps it's time in covert ops, that favored rapid decisive strikes over pitched battle, or perhaps it was just the sheer length of time since it had been on a dedicated battlefield, but the Echo Platform found itself almost surprised by the amount of effective return fire it faced. Not to the point of causing the platform to rethink its tactic, but enough that it finally understood the stakes of the fight. After a long period of time of frankly, never getting hurt, the fact that something was now punching through it's vaunted armor caused a stir within its constituents. A mixture of fear, curiosity, and most of all excitement, as a general consensus began to ripple through its many organisms mimicking an effect almost equivalent to the effect adrenaline had on the human body.

The first burst from the enemy weapon tore into the head of the Warform, warped metal interfering with one of it's ocular sensors, though not entirely disabling it. The hit to the leg joint would be problematic later on, but at least for the moment, Echo had eschewed standard locomotion for the agility provided to it by its anti-grav drives. The power armored soldier was faster than Echo had anticipated, and more mobile than it's bulk suggested. Within moments it had closed in with Echo, in a move that was either incredibly foolhardy, or clever- perhaps both. At this range, Echo couldn't bring the power of its main cannon to bear without potential damage to itself or it's allies.

What Echo did have over the power armor trooper was bulk however. As the Power armor soldier leveled it's weapon towards the Warform's head, the top of its faceplate slid forward as Echo's Endoform leaped out of the Warform's "skull" and into the air, even as the Warform continued forward in an attempt to more or less ram through the trooper with its bulk.

Acknowledged. Engaging target. Echo's voice echoed through the comms as it's Endoform fell from the sky onto where the power armor trooper was, gravity maul raised over its head in both hands. "Alert. Applying banter. Nail, meet hammer." As it landed, Echo brought its weapon down with earth shattering force as it sought to bludgeon the power armor soldier to if not kill the thing outright, to at least stagger it for more follow up attacks from the rest of the squad.

The Warform itself brought itself back around as well, weapons still firing at other targets as it moved to interpose itself between the power armor trooper and the rest of his squad, seeking to isolate him from support.

Ilshar grunted as a volley of return fire tore through the brush, a fair few shots finding their mark in him. Several clanged on the chestplate of his armour, leaving pitted impact marks. Four struck in less protected points, burying themselves in exposed joints and, in one case, passing clean through his upper arm where the metal plates left it open, the rotting fungal mass more yielding than flesh and bone to its focused trajectory. He registered the wounds with clinical detachment, his deadened neural system and multitude of small internal watcher-organs reacting to them more like an old, hollow mouldering tree and its curious inhabitants than a body that had been struck. The penetrating shots could debilitate his limbs if not extracted, but there would be time for that; thanks to tarrhaidim sturdiness, right now getting distracted by them and suffering more accurate fire was much more dangerous than themselves.

His branching senses followed the unfolding of the ambush all the while, while an ear remained on the comms. Predictably, the power-armoured soldier was both the greatest danger to the attack and the lynchpin of the CivSec forces. The automata were likely controlled by either him or the lighter troopers, and the latter were difficult to focus as long as he was alive and fighting like a one-human platoon. Or was it really a human? The blood dripping from the cracked armour didn’t look like theirs, but maybe that was just a side-effect of genetic augmentation, which this monster was no doubt full of. Whatever it was, it was blunting the Envenomed’s momentum, and pressure was mounting on their allies. If he could take out both the power armour and the CivSec with it, or at least break any control they had over their automated weapons…

“Keep clear of them a moment! Echo, you’re good,” Ilshar barked over the comms as he let his gun fall to his hip and stretched out his arms, flexing and unfolding his fingers as he stirred the channels of his ether-implants. Channeling now that he was exposed and the enemy knew where he was seemed dangerous if not completely suicidal, but the barrage the two voidhangers were laying down and especially Echo’s charge should have been enough of a distraction.

He raised his hands, held in the familiar circular shape, and sent his focus inward through the pulsing web within his limbs. The air before him darkened, then appeared to ripple as if from intense heat, or if it were somehow reflecting flowing water. Moments later, a murky brown-bluish cloud of what looked like dense smoke coursed across it from emptiness. The clumps of Chasm-spores were carried by the impetus of the impalpable current towards the enemies’ position, spreading into finer clusters as they did. Their effect on anything organic they met would be virulent, turning flesh to suppurating rot in seconds. The titan of rock and metal that was Echo would be safe from their influence, but for the CivSec troops they could well be deadly, and now that the power-armoured soldier had several holes in his defenses, he was no less at risk.

𝙸𝚝 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚝.

𝚆𝚎𝚕𝚕, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚜𝚘 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚜𝚞𝚌𝚑 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙼𝚠𝚊𝚑, 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚊𝚜 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏𝚏 𝚓𝚘𝚕𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚋𝚘𝚕𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚔𝚔 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚑. 𝙲𝚊𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚘𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝟷𝟶𝚖𝚖 𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚊𝚜 𝙺𝚕𝚎𝚘 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚝 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚊 𝚌𝚘𝚣𝚢 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚖𝚊𝚗. 𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚍𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚓𝚘𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚠𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚜 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚕𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚔𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚔 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚕 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚑𝚒𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚐𝚘𝚍-𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚜𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚗 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚎𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚞𝚝.

𝙿𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚛𝚖𝚘𝚛, 𝚛𝚘𝚋𝚘𝚝𝚜, 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝚂' 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎. 𝙸𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚢, 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚍𝚒𝚎. 𝚄𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚞𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚊𝚍 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍-𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝙺𝚕𝚎𝚘, 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚔𝚒𝚍𝚗𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚖 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚙𝚜 𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚘𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚍𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚕 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙷𝚎𝚛 𝙾𝚡𝚕𝚎𝚢 𝙰𝚛𝚖𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚊𝚛𝚍, 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚛 𝚐𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚎𝚌𝚑𝚜 𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚍𝚒𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 (𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚕𝚎𝚏𝚝, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚕𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚞𝚜!) 𝚜𝚘 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚍 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 '𝚏𝚘𝚌𝚞𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚎' 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚍𝚘 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚏𝚏 𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚕 𝚐𝚞𝚗-𝚝𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚙𝚎𝚝 𝚛𝚘𝚋𝚘𝚝𝚜.

𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝚗𝚘𝚠, 𝚘𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚖𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚍 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚊 𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚙𝚒𝚎𝚌𝚎 - 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚊 𝚌𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎.

ɄⱤ₲Ɇ₦₮ⱠɎ.

A tubular protrusion poked out of the mouth of the tent, shaking from carnage rocking the perimeter of the UCL base, its barrel swinging to face the massive unztadtlige weapons platform as all six of the remaining automata began to spread out, focusing their fire on Echo in an attempt to further divide its attention. Deeper into the base, the meat of the enemy forces were engaged in an increasingly protracted battle between high power pot shots from the insurgents and colourful busts of energy-jacketed rounds from the League-backed security forces. For every handful of gun quadripedal gun-walkers staggered back and set ablaze and sputtering from precision rounds, cries rang out as biotech augmented bodies flared their integrated concussion-shield generators, flaring like glass barriers absorbing then reflecting light. Precision volleys of semi-automatic fire were drowned by vicious bursts of automatic fire, forcing the Intransigent back from cover to cover.

The attack was starting to hit its roadbumps and something needed to break sooner or later. The CivSec forces knew that. However they were not expecting the target-marker on their HUD's signifying where Salvatore was positioned to abruptly vanish. The surviving automata paused for a brief moment, scanners thrown off-centre by the abrupt vanishing of the signatures they were using for targeting. Eyes swept the surroundings but the crafty voidhanger was far from the frontline of their perimeter.

Focused on the biggest threat, the elite soldier's sensors picked up the ethereal incursion too late. The EMP rounds had dampened them enough that by the time he had swung around on shakey and struggling legs still bleeding slightly from the needle-rounds, the shotgun's trigger had already been pulled.

The reputation of vrexul weaponry, even when scaled down for usage by less gargantuan species, made itself known by a monstrous kick. Like a wild beast striking his shoulder the weapon howled and shrieked and growled; the sounds blended as one with the spike-burst flash of its barrel lit up the darkened forest hidden by overhead foliage and smoke from the valley. Two slugs slammed then sliced into his side, a chunk of not just his armour but ribs vanishing in fragment of smouldering, distorting ether-burn as bioslugs ripped him open. Charred meat squirting bluish-purple blood, scraped and degraded bone, and complex wiring were visible as the soldier's voice-coms blared white noise before silencing, staggering back as he stumble-dodged away from the voidhanger.

His rifle's grip was loose, spraying wildly as energy-jacketed rounds flew in a wild retaliatory spray at Salvatore. A few of them missed; six automata became five as one's entire torso erupted outwards in sparks and flames from the desperate burst. The trenches torn under his left arm sparked with electricity, regulatory fluids squirting outwards as whatever biosensation inhibitors and medical drugs did their best to diminish the loss. Soon, the rifle fell as his left arm jerked back and he stumbled stunned, feeling the overhwleming, piercing pain of needle rounds through his arm. This time, he needed to pause to seize his hand for a brief second, struggling to try and take out the large drum-mag weapon magnetically attached to his back

The five gun-automata themselves had paused again as the connection to the trooper was severed. They twitched and stuttered, conflicting command instructions struggling to sort themselves out as the five remaining awkwardly tried to retreat backwards. Wild sprays of gunfire shredded cover but glancing shots on the Envenomed would hardly stop their advance or initative. Even the relatively smaller calibre rounds of Alice could pick them off - bodies and heads jerked then sparked as precise needles tore through reinforced torso and skulls. Wires and vital cores were severed and ran through - five became two, barrels smoking and nearing overheat status as they struggled against the increasingly relentless attack.

Echo's lunge sent its bipedal form bounding out of its body, descending with a quip and a deadly bludgeon onto the unsuspecting soldier. Yet at that moment, the tubular protrusion revealed itself - an anti-tank rocket launcher, dumbfire and locally made, dated and hardly worthy of a contemporary interplanetary military.

The Endoform was well out of danger but at these close ranges, even the mighty warform's body was going to feel the hit. Gas hissed and blew out cans of rations and loose miscellanea out of the back of the tent as a shaped armor-piercing projectile shot forth in a blink of a moment. Before the Endoform landed, the missile slammed into the bulk of the Warform's side, erupting into a small blast as it tried to rip into its dense armor.

Barely a blink later, the hammer fell and with it, the head of the soldier practically burst. Reinforced armor crunched and compressed the bone and meat within before the boundaries of structure could no longer take the strain. Fragmenting metal and shredded padding were overtaken by gushing grey matter and cranial biomass, bone fragments and cartilage, meat and teeth, spraying outwards and leaving a twitching, staggering corpse stumbling back before it fell to the ground. The huge weapon he carried clattered first, falling not far from his carbine, both stained with fluid and viscera.

The initiative of the infantry faltered; pot-shots from concealed positions around the crates and cargo piles paused for a moment as their indomitable leader lay gushing and a few inches shorter on the ground. A cacophony of screams and silenced cries followed; the automata platforms they were controlling had also been rendered stunned as if by the shock of such a graphic end. The command link was severed and they too now struggled to change operational parameters.

The perfect prey for not only rail guns and battle rifles to pick off but something fouler and more arcane.

As the CivSec trooper who fired his launcher hastily broke out of the back of the tent, already weakened from the backblast, he scrambled to get behind cover. He shouted something at his comrades, indistinct if likely Dutch over the din of the battle, trying to ignore the gruesome sight as he peeked from around the tree; swearing that the other three dolts needed to lay down far more suppressing fire so they could try to regroup with the others and form a tighter defensive formation near the artillery canon.

In his attempts to load the missile, he felt the strange burning sensation on his foot a little too late, turning to see the biomesh beneath beginning to froth and bubble. Meat beneath soon felt the unearthly touch as semi-augmented meat laced with light cybenrnetics sent deluges of agony into his body. He stood for a brief second before the joints of his ankles collapsed under his weight, gargling as the rot climbed faster than he could crawl as gloved fingers turned into skeletal claws, leaving a half-dissolved mess of bone and drenched metal.

The reek alone broke another soldier out of his frantic potshots, pointing at the cloud as the three remaining soldiers sprinted wildly towards their allies deeper into the base. Faster still now that the ZRF allies were beginning to box the others in. Their numbers were depleted but the loss of the commanding officer and the ensuing stunning of the gun platforms on their spider-gorilla like bodies with single-turreted heavy prism-shape barrels and smaller auxiliary machine guns mounted atop, rendered them as easy pickings.

Perhaps they were the most mercifully treated. A spray of 10mm rounds slammed into their backs as they spun and staggered, armor cracking as one of them fired off a few desperate rounds at the lone pure human operative. It was not long before he slumped to his knees, then his face, joining the others in a bloodied pile not even halfway to their allies.

"THE SPIRIT OF THE SOLAR TYRANT SWIMS AMONG YOUR NUMBER!" The Gealtirocht leader's voice boomed over the coms as the path was now laid bare to join with his forces. While they had the initiative now, more and more infantry were popping from the woodwork, heavy machine gun fire spitting from behind them. They were cornered now, but given the amount of camo-cloaked bodies laying bisected upon the ground or reduced to charred husks on the ground, it was clear they were not going to give-up the area without a fight.

As the battle raged however, a flashing light trailing smoke broke through the treeline, darting between the bark and bramble, slamming behind a few of the large gealtirocht, swallowing them in flames. Another, a third, smashing through a tree trunk and detonating in the space bewteen the Envenomed and their allies and sending a ZRF recon trooper soaring through the air and into a pile on the ground.

As the smoke of the blast cleared, one of the scielto lay on the ground - armor cracked open and cauterized meat visible, his rail cannon sparking as it powered down next to him. A crescendo-hiss morphed into a rattling cry for revenge as the remaining three, battered and burned advanced, switching to pulse carbines and spraying down the ground forces as their humanoid allies now eight in total fired volley after volley-

Before a sound of mechanical droning buzz announced a beam of tracer rounds shredding foliage and three of their bodies into clouds of mist and sparking bioelectronics. Implant organisms fell to the ground, ruptured out of the shattered effigies of Intransigent humanity, struggling to find organs, veins, and cybernetics to maintain as they slowly bled out bathed in the inner remains of their once physically cohesive hosts.

Based on the high diagonal angle of the missiles and minigun fire, it wasn't ground forces they were facing now. Some sort of aircraft had been called in for League support - the one thing standing between the canon and hostile takeover.

"We are pinned! Find a way to get the gunship off of us, we cannot establish visual contact! There must be heavy weaponry scattered about but we cannnot target it from here!"

Salvator ducked down behind cover as the armored trooper began his salvo of return fire, reaching for his bandolier of bioslugs and quickly reloading. Alright, things were going well. The power armor was staggering, and the automata were disrupted. Time to finish the job. He prepared to pop back out to fire again, but the team's shared datanet reported the head of the power armor trooper bursting like a grape. Even better.

The ZRF troopers were at least adept enough to scythe through Civsec, and Salvator let them take point in cleaning up, only taking shots at obvious targets of opportunity as he swapped back to his carbine. He and the other Envenomed agents had already done the heavy lifting, anyways.

And then the gunship opened fire.

"Christ in the Void, it's one thing after another!" He groused out loud as he dashed for cover once again, letting the minigun barrage pass over his head while the ZRF called for support once again.

"Solid copy, we're on it! Keep your people's heads down!" Salvator responded over comms before swapping to the squad's internal channel.

"Right, people, you heard them. We're in the middle of an armed camp, they've got to have MANPADS lying around somewhere. Find them, and we'll blow that eyesore out of the sky. Echo, only engage with the Warform if it's not at risk of return fire, we can't risk losing it to the gunship!"

With that said, he started running an active scan with his armor's sensors, looking for any surface-to-air launchers to ping to the rest of the squad.

@Vietmyke

It could have been a trick of the mind, but he thought he was starting to feel the exhaustion. Probably just the heaviness of the qillatu absorption together with the bullets still embedded in his mouldering body. He was not so old that he’d be feeling stiff and dry in the limbs after a couple of firefights and some hurried marching, not yet. Ilshar shook off the familiar post-ethereal dizziness and focused his senses on the now much bloodier battlefield. Their side of the CivSec camp looked mostly clear now, automata and their controllers both reduced to inert masses; on the other end, the guerrillas seemed to have the situation mostly in hand - if it weren’t for the latest surprise the planetary government’s masters had sprung on them, of course.

“Got it,” he rasped into the squad’s comms, “I’ll search inside, tell me if the skimmer-worms start looking my way.”

Unlike some of his squadmates’ equipment, Ilshar’s armour was a simple thing, unpowered for the most part and with little in the way of functional add-ons. Even the helmet, where most of the electronics were, didn’t mount the sort of equipment that could sweep an area like that for something as specific as a certain make of weapon. He did, however, remember that the trooper who had been caught by the Chasm-spores had gone to retrieve a heavy launcher from one of the tents. While that weapon was useless given the height the aircraft was at, even without the risk of lingering contamination around it, odds were good that others were stored in the same place.

Hunching down to reduce his profile in case any surviving CivSec or their scielto allies did decide to turn in his direction, Ilshar sprinted across the blasted ground towards the camouflage tent. By the Nexus’ will, if he did make it he would be in a safer place than any of the others for the time being, but right then he was in the open. The prize had better be worth the risk.

𝙶𝚕𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚊𝚕𝚊𝚡𝚢 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚊. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚞 𝚠𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚕-𝚢𝚘𝚞-𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍-𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚏𝚛𝚊𝚞𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚢. 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚔𝚎𝚙𝚝 𝙺𝚕𝚎𝚘 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝, 𝚊 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚢 𝚄𝙲𝙻 𝚌𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚣𝚎𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚞𝚐. 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚏𝚎𝚍-𝚖𝚊𝚡 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚢𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚔 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚍𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘. 𝙸𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚊 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛, 𝚘𝚛 𝚖𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚍, 𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚞𝚖 𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚢-𝚖𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝙲𝙻. 𝙴𝚜𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍, 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚊 𝚏𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚑𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚏𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚊𝚝 𝟶𝟷𝟶𝟶 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚠𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚞𝚙 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑.

𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚒𝚝.

𝙺𝚕𝚎𝚘 𝚛𝚞𝚋𝚋𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚔 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚘𝚘 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎, 𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝙲𝙻 𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚐𝚘. 𝙼𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚊 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚜. 𝚃𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚘𝚘𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚜 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚊 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝙸𝚖𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚛. 𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚋𝚊𝚝 𝚐𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚊 𝚓𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚙𝚘𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚏𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚜. 𝙰 𝚐𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚔𝚞𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝙸𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗 𝚛𝚞𝚋𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜—𝚒𝚝 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚎, 𝚙𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚍, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗. 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝙺𝚕𝚎𝚘'𝚜 𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙽𝚘𝚠 𝚊 𝚄𝙲𝙻 𝙻𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚊 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚜 𝚙𝚎𝚛 𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚑. 𝚆𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚊𝚠𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚛𝚖𝚎𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚝 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 '𝚠𝚎𝚒𝚛𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚎,' 𝙺𝚕𝚎𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚝𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚖 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍, 𝚗𝚘𝚛 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖. 𝙻𝚘𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝙸𝚖𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚙𝚊𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚕𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚢𝚕𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚛.

𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚕𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚝 𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚗𝚒𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚜, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚗𝚞𝚐 𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚒𝚐𝚒𝚝𝚜 𝚊𝚜 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚝. 𝙸𝚝 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚌𝚞𝚝𝚎! 𝚆𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚍 𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚗, 𝚊 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚛 𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚔𝚢 𝚌𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚐𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚔𝚢. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚘 𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚎. 𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚙 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚠 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙴𝚖𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚎'𝚜 𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝, 𝚋𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚙𝚞𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚙 𝚞𝚙 𝚘𝚗 𝚊 𝚋𝚛𝚘𝚊𝚍𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚞𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗.

"𝙵𝚞𝚌𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙴𝚖𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚛..." 𝙺𝚕𝚎𝚘 𝚖𝚞𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚞𝚗𝚜 𝚋𝚛𝚘𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚋𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚛.


"...𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗." 𝙺𝚕𝚎𝚘 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚜𝚖𝚘𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚌𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚐𝚛𝚘𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚞𝚕𝚕 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎. 𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚕 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚐𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗, '𝙴𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚎𝚍,' 𝚘𝚛 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚞𝚙 𝚋𝚢 𝚌𝚘𝚜𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚖𝚊𝚐𝚒𝚌. 𝙸𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚖𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚞𝚙. 𝙰𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚖𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚎 𝙺𝚕𝚎𝚘 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚙𝚎𝚘𝚙𝚕𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚏𝚕𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚊 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚝. 𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚠𝚘 𝚗𝚒𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚕𝚎𝚐𝚜 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚋𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚞𝚝𝚎 𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚝.

𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚕𝚎𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚗 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚢. 𝙳𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚍, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎. 𝙰𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚝; 𝚄𝙲𝙻 𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚑 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚜𝚝. 𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚘 𝚙𝚒𝚕𝚘𝚝 𝚜𝚞𝚌𝚑 𝚊 𝚖𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚐𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍-𝚝𝚘-𝚊𝚒𝚛 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝙻𝚊 𝚜𝚊𝚞𝚟𝚎𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚍𝚞 𝙶𝚊𝚣𝚣𝚊𝚛𝚘? 𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚊 𝚃𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚗𝙺𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚐𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝙲𝙸𝚅𝚂𝙴𝙲 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚍 𝚙𝚒𝚎𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚘𝚌𝚔 𝚋𝚎𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜.

𝚂𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗, 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚊𝚒𝚖 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜 𝚞𝚙 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝚋𝚒𝚛𝚍. 𝙰 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚛 𝚋𝚞𝚣𝚣𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚍.

𝙾𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚍, 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛, 𝚙𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚟𝚢 𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚛.

𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎, 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚌𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎 𝚕𝚊𝚢 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚜𝚜.

𝚂𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚝 𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚝.

Report: Warform damage sustained. Damage to Anti-grav generator 3. Mobility compromised. Mobility at 60%. Overall integrity 85%. Beginning repairs.

Repairs was a slow process. Given the materials on hand, Echo could restore all of its sustained damage, but not in a time frame suitable to the mission. Instead, its Endoform began chucking hunks of metal and electronics suitable for repair material into its main hold for fixing later, as the Warform shifted to its legs for movement. Pausing, Echo lifted up the hefty gun and carbine the power armor trooper had been using- just as well, the trooper was practically the same size as the Endoform, meaning little adjustments had to be used in order to utilize the two new toys. The Endoform slid the weapons onto its back, kneeling down to appropriate the rest of the corpse's ammo before moving on.

There wasn't enough time to do much more however, as the enemy regrouped and began a counter assault, this time moving in with a gunship. Rasch commanded the squad to commandeer weapons to take out the flying craft, not wanting to risk the Warform to further damage- undoubtedly the mobility it provided the squad was too important to risk in what was ultimately a minor skirmish on the way to the objective.

Command acknowledged. Warform beginning defensive maneuvers.

The Warform, while now without the enhanced mobility of its anti-grav drives, was still mobile, at least enough to keep it out of the direct line of fire. It's legs began propelling it out of the immediate area, it's short range beam cannons stopped firing, retasking to shoot incoming explosives out of the sky instead of engaging ground targets. The relative low caliber of the gunship minigun was less of a threat to an armored target, but the Warform kept moving regardless to prevent significant damage. It's heavy beam cannon began to cycle it's charge once again, waiting for an opportune time to strike.

The Endoform was significantly smaller and quicker and thus sprang into action to commit to bringing down the gunship. As the rest of the squad brought repurposed rockets to bear, Echo placed the grav maul behind its back, changing out for its new acquisition. The platform had not fully analyzed the weapon just yet, but whatever it was, if it could put a dent in the Warform's heavy armor, it would certainly be able to deal with the comparatively lighter armor of the air frame.

Leveling the heavy carbine at the gunship, Echo aimed for its weapon racks, firing a series of quick bursts before relocating to another piece of cover and firing again.

As numbers dropped across the board, Security and Reclamation forces scrambled wildly into and out of cover. Branches and tent-mesh ignited or tore, spraying fragments and particles into the air. HUD targeting systems were starting to glitch and distort with digital ghost data and false positives; iron sights zeroed in shaky and uneven.

With a distant gunship far beyond the range of small arms raining down anti-personnel fire the advantage lay with the security forces; slowly more and more of them peaked over their crates and fallen trees, potshot snipes turning into full bursts of shredding fire. Intermittently the multi-barreled cyclic terror from above joined in as beams of near invisible bullets vaporized tree bark, reinforced metal, and the stomach area of a human body.

The upper torso slapped to the ground as the voice-suppression settings failed and a garbled patchwork of digitized scratching and inhaling gargling emerged from the half-person. A trail of bulb-like biosynthetic viscera, clearly not native to their body, twitched and squirted onto leaves and ashes as if signaling the the integrated armor backpack to split open across its seems. Contents spilled as four arachnoid limbs black and gleaming fresh dug splitting-tips into thick, blunt-toe-claw digits, draggint its body wounded and twitching across the ground. The rifle in its hand spat half brace against their shoulder, bumping against debris whether from the destruction of material or bodies. Volleys went wide but their ascending, diagonal pattern made them unexpected - a cybernetic human head splattered its contents out, chin to crown split open from a three-round burst revealing the wiring and digital-interfacing systems once concealed by meat and bone before crumpling to the ground.

The soldier's mind, even infused with stimulants and combat drugs, knew even such valiant efforts could not win the battle, not scattered and decimated like this. The voidhanger rummaging through tents and crates was a major target but in a rare blessing, the UCL strategy of saturating the air with fire superiority had a silver lining. As bullets big and small pelted off emplacements, crates, and disabled automata even someone like that could become very hard to spot. Not to the trained sense, distorted by the same chemical injections keeping its user alive, as the bisected scout. The now spider-like soldier crept closer, the trail of blood closing from clotting as internal maintenance parasites worked in overtime threatening to overheat and fall apart if they pushed themselves any further.

It was a surreal scene, the blurred and nonsense garble-speak of the insurgent punching the air with a free hand that threatened to slump over dead and useless. Salvator probably did not notice him, likely busy ducking behind cover as bullets and energy bolts competed with oxygen particles for dominance of the space between both forces. His scans indicated multiple tubular objects, 80% of them positively identified as anti-armor launcher systems but a disappointing 35% as possessing target-tracking capabilities rated for the range they were engaging at. The huge shipping crate diagonally sliced from the ensuing carnage, its top half having slid forth and digging trails into the ground, seemed to be where more than a few were located. A tempting target yet one exposed to the surviving security forces and for whom the tree cover was nonexistent.

The missiles whether detonating by choice or by Echo's active defence procedure had torn open the foliage above and revealed the bright sun above to glare on the piling bodies beneath. And the slanting half-cargo crate, big enough to fit a whole group of power armored UCL troopers, was precariously exposed to the air.

There were other launchers around - to the right of the encampment nearest the cliff and a steep tumble there was some sort of heavy duty mounted missile platform. Sparking and with a few of its launcher tubes half melted by stray energy bolt fire but mmostly operational if they could start up its firing mechanisms. Underneath one of the gun-platform infantry support walkers, laying flat on its belly like a large dead gorilla, some sort of portable system lay hidden, one of the more high tech ones. The only problem was that it was at the front of the cover where the enemy survivors were trying to hold off the onslaught... and there was no telling if that support walker was actually dead.

With their aggressively shortened stature, the bisected soldier waved their free arm towards Salvator, divided by an expanse of ground where one of the dead gealtirocht lay, corpse still smoking from fried systems punctured a thousandfold. A voice emerged from their helmet but the language was unintelligible; perhaps pained groans and alien tongue alike, too indistinct for translation software to un-distort. Yet the shaky hand with a raised index finger and the gealtirocht corpse it pointed at, one with a shoulder mounted rail cannon next to it, made clear its intent.

Those weapons were intended for powered armor... but if these dead gealtirocht were still sparking, perhaps they could be powered or aimed even. They had advanced targeting systems typically meant for ground targets but hyper-accelerated bolts, even if they took a while to charge up, flew far, far faster than missiles.

A plume of dust, the hiss of gas propulsion, and a thin trail of smoke that momentairly shrouded Kleo. Off in the distance, the gunship swung into view as it momentarily broke off. The missile was hot on its trail. Multiple auxiliary weapons spat death through the air, shredding off armor but the missile only twisted and spun as the vehicle grew further and further... before an orange fireball erupted in the air.

It remained an afterimage for a brief moment of relative peace... before smoke and residual flame spread and dispersed like fluid over an immaterial surface. The shape of the gunship, jet-cockpit, slightly bulky green body tinted with the blue of the UCL, short and almost stocky wings bearing multiple integrated launcher pads and under-slung cannons, all distorted in a shimmering dome of shielding. Oil-on-water colours warped across the zone of protection that comprised its shield, flaring across the left side with hundreds of little hexagonal shapes flaring up. An energy shield, one taxed by the blast but now it had learned its lesson.

Bullets were too good for these scum. Smoke hissed out of its "shoulder" missile pods to the sides of its cockpits. Two of the deadly guided projectiles shot out of one of the pods, twisting and streaking as they split - one following the trail of smoke back to the human operator who fired it. The other towards the large and unidentified walker further in the distance - a test shot, HE load meant to ignite the target, make it easier to track and target as well as to test how good the active protection system really was. It had destroyed a bunch of its smaller missiles but this was a larger, faster projectile.

It had not noticed the second anti-air missile being loaded by the other voidhanger.

Nor had it a very familiar weapon that went off just as its HE missiles slammed down - one detonating a mere five feet from the warform, bathing in flames and force, the other where the pilot had guided it to presumably where it last detected Kleo, a similar explosion ensuing at the location. It was not expecting a series of bolts to slam into its frontal shielding, hexagonal energy-field arrangements glowing and thickening as power expended itself to resist power itself.

Heavy duty armor piercing bolts considered the equivalent of crew-mounted heavy machine guns slammed with kinetic force capable of crushing light vehicle armor, digging into the immaterial protection like nails as the bolts spun and drilled, arcs of power flashing from the impact point. The field of energy that jacketed each bullet transmitted itself to the protective barrier; hexagon-segments flaring and solidfiying before shattering as four rounds made it in.

Before safety measures could fully activate, a cluster of missiles erupted and the sectioned shielding across the VTOL-gunjet's front flared and shattered like kaleidscopic glass. It dipped forward as the pilot struggled with the controls, one of its missile pods disabled forming a huge hole in its defences, coupled with the left side's shielding being weakened. It was not out of the fight but they had momentarily knocked it out of commission, if only for a few fleeting moments. Pod and nose mounted guns were likely on AI targeting as the pilot attempted to keep it steady, letting its automated systems to try and target Echo's Endoform.

The nose mounted chaingun fired wildly into the surrounding area, aiming for wide area suppression as two of its four rotary canons zeroed in on the endoform, whirring before a river of armour piercers descended the biped's way. It was halfway the distance it originally engaged from but its high powered heavy automatics were only somewhat less deadly.

As the firefight between ground and sky continued, the tent's flaps were opened and a tantalizing prize laid itself before Ilshar's eyes. A familiar one perhaps; the egg-shaped projectiles attached to a somewhat blocky, canister-like magazine that did not seem entirely congruous with the octagonal launcher with its strict geometric shapes and muzzled barrel. Large but not particularly long, League in origin and the hated foe of many guerillas flying modified spore-colony live-transport organisms, civilian biocraft heavily modified yet for whom the the so called "egg-peg" launcher (its real name a far duller and less amusing series of code-letters and numbers) took so many.

Someone once joked it resembled some malformed, clunky prosthetic limb one might see on a poor refugee camp dweller or those who stayed behind in old mycelial-networked hovel-towns. This was not the exact same as such but the it was hard to deny it was descended from the same bane as many a guerilla knew.

A clack from behind the crates, a stack knocked over, a sputtering form - one of the LMG automata from earlier. Ilshar's presence had triggered a proximity sensor and IFF had determined foe - its weapon swung horizotally, knocking out a hanging neon light with sparking flashes. It was in knife-fighting range and it was programmed to know that; augmented strength swung the barrel of its light machine gun (far from light at all for most) like a club at Ilshar's skull, the force capable of easily braining even a full grown human.

Of course the anti-insurgent gunship had energy shielding, of all things. Just once, he couldn't have gotten lucky with an occupying government choosing to cut corners instead of investing in overkill. Two missiles put a sizable dent in the shielding, but it was still active enough to blunt the impact of any anti-air weaponry fired at it. For at least one more shot, that was. They needed more options.

As Salvator surveyed the field, a gurgle from the side caught his attention. He snapped his gun up and damn near fired on the dying insurgent on instinct, but both the dying fighter's appearance and his pinging as green on his IFF prevented him from giving the poor bastard a mercy kill just yet. Instead, Salvator followed the soldier's pointer finger towards the sparking gealtirocht corpse and...the rail cannon. Well. That had possibilities.

The only thing Rasch could provide the dying man short of a quicker death was a respectful nod for doing his duty even in his last moments, and he did as such before void jumping straight to the railgun. No time to waste. His armor's systems wouldn't be enough to power the damn thing, but considering the corpse was still lit up, there was a chance that he could at least jump start the railgun to get a shot or two off.

"Power-sucking piece of shit!" He hissed under his breath as he placed his plated hands on the railgun, his armor syncing up with its systems upon manual contact. It was as he thought: one shot, maybe two if he was willing to risk draining all of his own armor's juice temporarily. Either way, it'd have to be quick. The powered armor's battery was draining fast from all the fire put into it.

"Wilco, providing covering fire. Hang tight, railgun's priming." Salvator managed to keep his voice calm as he responded to his fellow voidhanger. No sense in alarming the rest of the team with his own irritation. He had the power draw to fire. Now he just needed good aim. Salvator's uplink with the gun meant he didn't need to shoulder the thing to aim, instead treating it more like an artillery piece as he maneuvered it into place until his HUD's readouts gave him a green light.

"Energy charge complete, firing for effect!" The railgun crackled with a boom, and a bolt fired straight at the gunship. With any luck, it'd at least take out the energy shield so that someone else could finish the damn thing off.

It had been a while since the platform had been in such a pitched battle, it's time in the Envenomed had thus far consisted of mostly short lived skirmishes. It was heavy drawn out fights like this that Echo was originally oriented for, and found itself right at home despite the chaos. In fact, the platform's constituents registered a series of feelings and synapses that could roughly be translated to the human equivalent of enjoyment, or perhaps excitement.

The Endoform quickly dipped into cover as the gunship's nose mounted cannons turned on it. At this distance Echo wasn't too worried about being hit, but the suppressive fire from the cannons were likely doing exactly what they were meant to be doing. Keep its head down and prevent it from firing. Luckily for the Endoform, it didn't need to use it's own eyes to fire back. Interfacing with the rest of the squad's HUDs, including its parent Warform, Echo was able to peak the barrel out of cover to return fire, though the awkward angle hampered the humanoid form's ability to reduce recoil.

The Warform on the other hand was having a bit more trouble. It was hard for something so large to just take cover, so larger units like the Warform used mobility to protect itself along with hefty armor instead of bunkers and cover. Mobility that was currently hampered. Even as Echo's short range beam cannons shot down missile after missile, one got through its defensive net. An HE missile exploded nearby, scattering heat and dirt as the concussive force buffetted the heavy walker.

Minor damage report: .50 caliber crew mounted machine gun damaged. Ocular sensor 2 operating at 82% efficiency. Intrasegience paint damaged. Armor integrity holding.

Not everything was going well. Of course, not everything was going poorly either. Over the comms, Salvatore reported that he was preparing to fire a procured rail gun, seizing the opportunity, the Warform also leveled it's heavy beam cannon- now fully charged. As Salvatore fired, Echo fired a split second later, adding a high intensity energy beam to form a one-two combo.

Fire report: Main cannon recharging.

Two hundred steps away left, one hundred, fifty. Ilshar only dimly kept track of the staggered blasts coming from behind him, only parsing the comm chatter as deeply as he needed to be sure that nothing was aiming at him. His eyes closed and reformed at a quickened rate on all sides, tracking the fire that streaked down from the sky and the moment it would strike the ground, his foot ready to bear the quakes that followed it without missing its stride. Now that the aircraft’s guns were turned against the squad, even delaying slightly in the open would have been too much. If he knew anything about League vehicles, it was that they had enough sensors to catch an emission-dead commando at night, never mind a clear hostile between a few battered tents.

Arms of the Spiral, he had made it. He let his momentum carry him through the entrance flaps even as he took in the unmistakable shape sitting prominently among its contents. That damnable egg-spitter, may the Abyss devour it. Ilshar knew the likes of it well enough, more even than he would have liked it. He’d seen them time and again in the hands of dead Leaguers and their sponsored militias - easy to learn, easy to use, after all - more often than not after firefights erupted near crash sites. Occasionally he had been among those sifting through the wreckage of an improvised transport to see if any of the crew’s spore-sacs had survived. Grim work. It was eerie to see bodies lose their shape like that. But it had certainly taught him that this was the right weapon for such a moment.

whirr-

His inner eye briefly turned to the past, Ilshar’s rear-facing sensory organs barely caught the movement behind him in time. The machine was at least smart enough not to shoot among a munitions store, though this was of little consolation as he lurched into a crate in a desperate bid to avoid the automaton’s strike. A wet grunt escaped through his teeth as the bludgeon clipped him across the back, staggering him to the side. A little closer, and a piece of him would have been as liquefied as a crash victim.

Snarling, Ilshar turned on his foot, letting the strike’s push carry him along with his own strength, and reached for his own gun. The sharpened edges on his armour’s vambraces were useful weapons in close combat with an organic enemy, but they would do little to an automaton’s plated skin. Something bigger was needed. He brought up the Ulvath’s stock in a sideways swing at the machine’s head; it was sturdy enough to breach doors, and would survive putting a dent into metal. A moment later, he was reflexively following it up with a blow from his armoured forearm. It was unlikely to bring down the automaton for good, but all he needed was to damage its sensors enough to put it out of commission for the moment. The gunship outside remained the greater threat even with this more immediate one now showing itself; he couldn’t afford to get caught in a protracted fight with an untiring opponent right now.

The missile that Alice fired was old, probably older than the gunship she was firing it at, and its age was painfully clear. Lock-on systems slowly calculated the distance to the target and the particular design element to track, waiting for the all-clear sign of a pixelated missile to manifest before it would automatically deactivate the safety mechanism. It might have been considered a godsend for infantry in its heyday but even before the floundering gunship, its clunkiness in both physical design and targeting was far from ideal.

The payload however was promising, smoke trailing behind a pointed missile designed to pierce and obliterate a variety of targets airborne and ground-based.

The chin-mounted chaingun swivelled with a pause in firing as it began to spray wildly towards the direction of the missile. With on-board systems handling targeting the struggling pilot was able to notice the missile while battling the jerking, damaged aircraft. The hefty vessel jerked rightwards, staggering drunkenly as the curve the missile's trajectory sliced over the same side its still burning missile pods had been. Residual shielding flared a light rose-red, solidfying patterns of condensed energy almost threatening to shatter like glass from the mere pass of the projectile, signifying thier severely degraded state.

With the Envenomed focused on an airborne threat however, the remaining survivors of the League-run firebase made their move. Their infantry had been depleted - maybe just 11 left but they had one key advantage still.

Four key advantages on closer inspection



Shuddering from behind the smoke kicked up by the conflict, the units previously disabled by the armored trooper's cranial explosion shuddered back to life with flickers of blue LED's and the slow rising of power signature readings. They were vrexul in origin; their arachnoid appearance hinted that much, but they had been simplified from their original designs. Bioplating was externally absent, shielded in composite flexi-metals that stretched and bent to the shape of the reinforced organosynthetic mass beneath. It had only four legs rather than the six to ten often fielded by this platform, possibly combined into the meaty limbs dragging them into a steady march. A chin-mounted tri-barrel gatling swivelled left and right as if providing additional sight for the frontal eyes, armor tapering off towards their split vertical arrangement.

The main point of focus was the laser turret sitting tyrannically upon them, a cruel and pointed despot watching from a subtle camera between its dark bulk and the denser shoulders connecting to its frontal limbs. It was a darker shade than the faded grey-blue stripe pattern of the rest of the machine; it seemed they were recent arrivals to this world and were finally about to be used. They advanced in a reverse circular formation - the two furthest arms were the furthest up, the two in the middle deliberately lagging behind them, providing cover for the space of toppled trees and hole/corpse-ridden no-man's land between both opposing forces.

One of the remaining ZRF troopers spun out of cover, three bursts slamming not into metal but a field of spherical, rippling energy flaring a resolute blue. He spun back behind the bisected shipping crate Alice was running to but not fast enough. His rifle flew out of his hands as bolts of bright purple punched clean through the armour, splattering his arm into bone fragments and synthetic material. His chest and its armour erupted outwards next, silencing any cries as he fell face first to the ground. The sound of the automata's accusatory shimmer-crackle report echoed amidst the gunfire.

It had come from the right arm of the advance, the ape-spider-platform having gained a partial flanking shot on the guerilla before its chin-mounted weapon whirred and began spitting energy-shrouded bolts, tearing through a partially collapsed tree. Bark split as a stream of rifle-grade rounds flew right at the voidhanger. Even through the carnage she would be able to catch a glance of three infantry advancing behind it, aiming to close in and try to force back the ruthless onslaught to protect their only real chance of survival burning in the sky. Desperately they fired a spray of bullets her way, shredding the bits of fallen tree that remained obscuring their sight.

The bisected shoulder immediately tossed itself into cover next to Savlator and pulled a grenade from part of its armor-vest, smeared with its own fluids and primed it. It landed near the leftmost arm of the gun-platform backed advance and blew apart in a storm of needles, a small blizzard that caused the shielding of the gun-platform to flare an angry pinkish-blue. A few of the soldiers fell back, shrapnel biting through armor and into flesh. One slumped back only for their neck to disconnect and send the head rolling into blast-crater; he had been the closest to the storm of needles, unwillingly having shielded the remaining two, trading shots with the half-soldier. The gun-platform did not fire upon Salvator yet; it appeared its shielding was interfering with its targeting with all the interference just yet, even if it had a fairly clear shot from between a few partially defoliated trees at the voidhanger.

They had not arrived fast enough however to stop his appropriated rail-cannon from preparing to fire. The angular blade-characters of gealtirocht language manfiested on Salvator's screen as targeting reticles and data-feeds blurred into static before roughly solidifying and stabilizing. Multiple lines overlaid on his visual feed indicated the very straightforward travel path from projectile to target as the rising numbers hit 100%.

The weapon rocked, not quite a kick as much as a shove, as a flash of white-pink spiked out of its mouth. The gunship's chin flared white as sparks and flames erupted outwards; the mounted weapon vanished as did a concerning portion of its lower body, turned into a gutted, warped trench. The machine wobbled precariously as its stream of gunfire abruptly came to an end, the space around it distorting from the effect of the energized hyper-accelerated round turning its lower shielding array into a distorted blur of fragmented, rapidly dissolving mist around itself. Only pod-mounted autocannons remained, firing a wild if inaccurate salvo towards Salvator and his half-trooper ally, themselves hastily shoving in a new mag as he pointed furiously at the CivSec troopers and their gun-platform almost blasted by the AP/HE rounds slamming on their location.

A digital notification popped up on Echo's gestalt consciousness-computer-network. Target lock x2, missile launch, anti tank - two streaks swirling as they descended, attempting to slam into the endoform. A smaller target than they were typically used for; the missiles were wobbling somewhat as they adjusted their flight path but no less concerning.

Another lock - x3. A trio that this time flew in more deliberate arching patterns, locked onto the power spike detected from the warform charging its mighty cannon. The trails of smoke rapidly dissolving yet leading back to the smoking, sparking airborne wreck orbiting towards the direction of the now silent artillery cannon as it attempted to gain some distance. It was still closer to the ground than it was when they initially engaged it and given how one of its engines was sparking, it was likely having trouble maintaining consistent altitude. Its aggressive dodging manoevres were taxing it dearly.

A poor move.

Perhaps it was hoping the interference from the battle would interfere with Echo's sighting, or that its missile would be able to knock the cannon off course - it did not see which ones connected, likely at least two, but energy beams flew faster than even cutting edge homing missiles. A lance of light malevolent and judgemental cut across the length of the battlefield, through smoke and spiking readings on all HUD's and biointerface systems, through the belly of the aircraft, its tail-wings and as quickly as it had manifested, it vanished.

A gutted, flaming wreck began to descend, missiles and shell munitions either having detonated or been erased from being as it slammed through a now splintered tree, into the middle of the no-man's land, the force of its final flight dragging it across the ground and towards the staggered Kleo. Corpses were crushed or tossed aside, craters torn up, and for a few moments all infantry and even gun-platforms hunkered down as its sparking body spat fragmentation and sparks all across the battlefield. Kleo had likely heard it, maybe seen the streaking partially disembowelled burning meteor as it slid her way with enough force to knock over a tank, digging a massive trench across the middle of the battlefield as it went.

Such carnage did not distract the gun-automata in the least as it stomped forth and in the confines of the tent, blunt metal meeting back as crates, furniture, spare supplies, and all matter of debris scattered or broke under its relentless attack. There was neither vigour nor hatred in the strike; cold calculation of attack vectors and force of swing were all that mattered. Its camera eyes locked onto Ilshar's momtions as it strode forth, shooting out a hand to grasp his elbow to try and stop his swing. Its other hand released its grip on its own light machine gun, letting it clatter to the ground, connected to it still via its ammo belt leading into its back. It immediately swung its now free hand horizontally in a nasty chop aimed at Ilshar's neck, one that could easily break an unaugmented human one at the least.

Ilshar's fist intercepted its face, causing the head to swivel rightwards and its own fist to swing wildly; maintaining trajectory yet minus any course correction or additional accuracy. It was stunned for a moment but only a momnet. Gears complained as it shead moved back into position, its hand still gripping Ilshar's elbow as it raised that same free hand again aiming to bring it down like a hammer onto the tarrhaidim's skull! Fingers clenched, arm rigid, light machine gun swaying against the ground and bumping against crates and empty magazines - it almost seemed hateful.

Out of the fire, back into the void-damned frying pan, it seemed. He'd definitely need to check back in with the other squad once they were done here, because their timetable had been delayed heavily by all of this. Still, at least the gunship finally wasn't a problem anymore. If they'd had to deal with the power armor, the gunship, and the vrexul platforms all at once, the Envenomed squad likely would've been mulch by now. Thank Christ-in-the-void for shoddy reinforcement speed on the enemy's part.

On instinct, Salvator dove for cover as soon as the railgun fired, having saw rounds flying his way. The moment he was safely behind a fallen tree, the voidhanger ripped a canister of biofoam from his tactical belt and tossed it underhand towards the soldier missing an arm. He had enough to spare, and it didn't hurt to keep another warm body in the fight as long as possible.

"Keep me covered!" He yelled, pointing towards the accompanying soldiers. "I've got the walker!" He slung his appropriated shotgun back onto a spare mag-clamp and drew both his knife and a frag, one in each hand. A twitch of his armor activated his active camo cloak, and he peeked up just enough behind cover to draw an accurate sight line on the automata. One blink later, he was atop its back, aiming to carve enough of a hole into where the plating was thinnest so that he could prime his frag, stick it into the gap, and blink back to cover.