Sector 47, Combat Zone 5:
A n u r i a
Fleet:
44th Fleet of Karlsland
Unit:
509th Mechanized Truppe
2nd Platoon, Krauft Company
Campaign Objective:
The seizure of the strategic native city of "Kol'Kora"
The light and medium dropships gracefully came to a stop over the streets of the suburbs. The dark green gas still lingered around the soldiers as they all disembarked. The troops all formed a defensive circle as the transports lifted off, but the streets were eerily silent. The only sound came from the quiet hiss as a gas bomb near by finished its release of the deadly toxin. The squads began to slowly move through the suburbs towards the outer limit of the city to establish their first line. Ana scanned the roofs of the compact buildings just in case, but the gas had done its job. Bodies littered the streets, ranging from the city's national guard to even some Unguon advance teams that had been scouting the place out. None, it seemed, were prepared for the deadly agent. Ana stared at on particular scene. It was two opposing barricades, the left being made up of a wrecked Unguon tank with its dead crew and the other a checkpoint of Kora human soldiers. Both sides had apparently been in the middle of a fire fight when the gas hit.
"Come on Gefreiter Helzts, they aren't a threat anymore." Her sergeant said ahead of her. She turned and nodded, but before continuing on, she gave the scene on final glance.
"It's as if that could sum up what's going right now all over the city.... The Empire has come to crush both enemies.... Their own conflicts now vastly futile in comparison to the one ahead of them..... Strange...." she thought to herself as she finally looked away and continued on with the rest of the squad.
The squad reached their objective, a small market square that was situated just outside of the contaminated zones. There were sandbag fortifications scattered about, in windows and in front of doorways. The squad cautiously swept the area, but found it abandoned. Despite this area being just outside the gas zone, it seemed the outpost was evacuated anyway, understandably, from the national guard. About an hour later the squad was dug in an a supply APC began rolling up to the place, carrying engineers and equipment when suddenly an immensely loud crack could be heard, followed by a loud explosion. Ana looked up from the road she was covering to see one of the tall buildings in the center explode at its base then start to collapse. "What the hell?" Her sergeant suddenly yelled, jogging up next to her. "An orbital strike? I thought the enemy had deployed jammers all over the god damn place to negate any accurate strike! How the hell did the fleet do that!?"
-2 hours earlier-
"OH SHIT! THEY'RE HERE! ENEMIES WITHIN THE PERIMETER, I REPEAT, ENEMIES WITHIN TH-" the transmission went silent as the transmitter slumped over his station, a gaping whole now in his head. Vernichtung truppe Martz Ralfein shoved the dead soldier over and quickly began to try to operate it as the rest of his squad covered him. They were in the city center, though not intentionally. The orbital drop had accidentally diverted when enemy AA opened up on them.
"Come on, come on you shitty Unguon tech.... Why the fuck aren't wor-" he suddenly noticed the whole in the machine. "GOD DAMMIT KLAUS! I SPECIFICALLY SAID KILL THE CREATURE, NOT THE MACHINE!" A heavily armed power armored Vernichtung simply shrugged and fired his energy lance down the hallway, vaporizing the Unguon who were supposed to be guarding this forward operating base. "Great! Our comms are busted, we're surrounded, how the hell are we gonna get out now sir?" he said to another Vernichtung soldier. Their leader was actually quite average, even below average. Nothing was too spectacular, he wore standard power armor an carried a rail gun rifle, not even an experimental energy weapon. However he was Lawrence Hollfeur, one of the longest surviving Vernichtung truppe of the Anuria Campaign. He stood their, thinking in silence, before suddenly an idea began to form. A crazy one, no, an insane one that not only kept him and his squad alive for a little longer, but could possibly be incredibly detrimental to the enemy.
"Hansel, this is one the enemies FOBs, correct?"
"Err, yea sir, I would assume since we had to fight our way through tha"
"Right then, you still have that target designator?"
"Sir?"
"Karve, Adrian, Javeo, how much fuel you have left in your jump jets?"
"About 80%"
"40%"
"73% Sir."
"Right then, listen up Hollfenfueir squad, we're are going to bound our way to the top of this building, staying in the center of the structure so any enemy gunships will have a harder time targeting us as well as snipers. Once we're at the top, Hansel, I want you to plant that designator. We are gonna drop all of our gear except our side arms and rations. Yes Klaus, even you. Karve, Adrian, Javeo, we're counting on you to saftely make it across to the nearest building to connect the fly wire. When the strike comes in, everyone jump on that wire and ride it out, hopefully we'll make it through this." Not a single question asked, not a single hint of hesitation was given. Every man and woman in the squad knew this might be their only option.
Thus, the squad began to slowly make there way up the massive structure, constantly fighting, holding, repeat. Thankfully, as they were only one squad, the enemies did not dispatch to many to take care of them. Soon they were on the roof, and Hansel was planting the charge. The Unguon squads in the various stairways thought they had finally cornered the petty xenomorphs and were preparing to charge. With a heroic yell the Unguon charged up onto the roof the building opening fire on the-
CRACK
A sound that one could say resembled the sky itself shattering was heard above them. They looked up to see the very last thing of their short lived lives. The slug from an orbiting Agriff class ship barreling towards them. The round went straight down the building, and for a brief moment, a perfectly clean, smoldering hole appeared at the center of the tower, before the structure began to collapse in on itself.
---
Sector 64, Combat Zone 2:
S a n d S t r a i t s o f A k ' A r i a
Fleet:
82nd Fleet of Aveleo
Unit:
10th Mechanized Truppe
1st Platoon
Campaign Objective:
Hold out until further reinforcements are sent to seize the territory.
The unforgivable hot sun burned away at the sandy rocks of the small ridge line. Two men wearing old, sand colored Höllefeuer armor laid prone in the sand, observing the enemy lines. Jalaryian trenchline they had been scouting received a brutal bombardment from the Hegemony's artillery. One the soldiers, who wore a cloth face wrap instead of a helmet sighed and put away his rangefinders before sliding down the ridge to the bottom, followed by the other. "Well what now sir? Shall we strike while their still recovering from that salvo?" Asked the other soldier who wore a more standard form of desert gear, but the covered man just shook his head.
"No, the Hegemony could be preparing for an assault and I don't want Fox Company to get caught in that crossfire. We'll leave them be fore now, besides, that resource pod that landed yesterday is enough for the coming weeks." he said as they began to make their way to a concealed vehicle. It was a Hegonomy Volptruck with Höllefeuer markings. One the captured vehicles the Infantry division that was holding out had acquired over the years. As they climbed into it, the spotter shrugged.
"Yeah, its nice to see that they still care. What was the order that came with it? 'Hold on, help is coming'? Yeah, just like the other that dropped two months ago..." They started the vehicle and set off for the rest of the force.
"It does mean that someone cares, Walter... A ship had to run enemy lines in space just to get that thing to us. The real question is... who?"
They arrived at a camp in a small canyon that offered some protection from the blazing sun. More importantly, they were better concealed here than out in the open desert. As they arrived the soldiers hailed them. "Ahh so the Fox is done snooping out his prey eh? So what's the deal sir, we gonna test their guards tonight? See if they can spot us before its too late?" one WK-67 tank commander said as the face wrapped soldier climbed out. He shook his head.
"No, we aren't to strike tonight. The Hegonomy is probably gonna attack soon, so we're gonna wait to afterwards before a standard bag and grab." The ground slightly shook as an old AK-90 Mobile platform walked over to the infamous "Desert Fox" and leaned in so his intimidating mechanical face was at the Fox's. "The Butcher of Ak'Aria, I see you're back from your scouting mission. Does your intel confirm the Hegonomy are on the move to attack?" The Desert Fox said, unflinching. Everyone was still, holding their breath.
You see, the mobile frames were part machine, part organic. Once a suitable candidate was chosen, he or she was physically bonded to the mobile frame and becoming the brains of the machine so to speak. This was to improve the combat effectiveness of the mobile frames, but one of the many costs was that the users would slowly go insane after too long in the older versions. It was only until recently did the frames have new mental augmenters installed to rid the problem. The feared Butcher of Ak'Aria has been operating for over twelve years in the Sand Straits and was a V2 version, one of the earliest versions. Despite being very well passed his... expiration date, the Butcher still operates to a deadly level of precision, yet, he only answers to one man.
"Wolkier Helzts.... the infamous.... Desert Fox of the Sand Straits..." The Butcher slowly said before backing away and nodding. "Yes... They are on the move... a rarity... indeed." the last patchy comment earned a chuckle from Wolkier.
"Right then, power down Butcher and charge your batteries. That goes for everyone, prep for tomorrow and get some rest. We're gonna move out and take positions nearby so we can watch the coming battle. I want to be ready to take advantage of any situation as the battle evolves, understood?"
"Yes sir!"
