A canopy of flames lit up the sky, blazes of light and the insane laughter of rifles chortled their machinations. Every step of the way was a moment of terror and madness, no reason, no rest, just hatred. Hatred and death. Eighteen cannons drowned out the roar of gunfire, and tore asunder the Plasteel and rockcrete battlements that laid before rocky crags, and behind it, steep uphill ways, lined with artificially crafted footpaths that only lead higher and closer to the Murder Ways that crisscross the climb up.
The battlements took the fire in stride, and returned their own hot rounds back. Shells pounded down into groups of uniformed soldiers. Men who took rounds, tore off force plates shattered by rounds, or scrapped off gel mixed with blood and dirt. Men lining the way up, missing limbs or deformed into hideous shadows of their former selves by gas bombs, filled with nanites that ate flesh, kept going aswell, firing or wielding wicked blades.
All matter of terrible weapons lay in the arsenal of the single objective around for miles. Thick fog blotted out everything but what lay uphill, higher than everything.
And yet more Murder Ways lay ahead, bunkers bristling with scattershots, men armed with rifles and flamethrowers. Particle beams and guided explosives filled the air from the offensive force, who tacked on more force plating when their next to last shattered. The green lights lit up faces in the dark, where occasional moments of absolute clarity were always followed by more shells and volleys of fire made all the more terrible. When at last the way clear was made apparent, a gaping hole in the defenses, torn loose from unceasing fire and unceasing advance. The melee had begun in full swing. Men battered each other with rifle butts, stabbed and hacked with machetes, knives, and hand axes. Grenades and more guided explosives disabled defense systems lining the way into the mighty fortress. Men who retreated from broken Murder Ways, into the relative safety of the Plasteel behemoth were mercilessly gunned down in a hail of particle beams and hand thrown explosives. Captured scatterguns turned squads of tough soldiers into a fine mist.
It took nary a moment for the assault parties to thunder away defenses in close quarters combat into the halls of the fierce defenders. Rounds pierced through men, force plating, gel and all. Hallways filled with flames from the wild maw of a 'thrower, charring all who dared enter through. Instant foam packages cleared the way as thermal paste cooled a path, and positions within the defense perimeter had been overwhelmed in the attack.
In hours, every last man had been shot, hacked, burned, or beaten into submission. The fortress burned just before the dawn, where the fog had cleared. Upon broken battlements, soldiers shared canteens and ration packs, while in the single yard below, men were executed in short order. One shot from a Particle Beam utterly disrupts the molecular structure of the target, all but rendering the impact area into an overenergized mess from high kinetic force.
O'er the forest and plains the fortress watched from above, lay the next target. The capital city of Walzner.
"Put 'em to death, the General says." I spat a wad of black paste onto a burn that marred my shoulder. Already I felt the instant relief it offered, and continued to listen to the Colonel. "Lord have mercy on their souls, for we won't come again the charge of the Iron Claws an' the Misty Eagles."
"Your going to kill them all? That wasn't the plan. We didn't come all this way to help you genocide them. The plan was to kill McKinsley, and free them." I took a step back when the Colonel's machete prodded me in my shoulder's force plate. "Lad, now you dun see it our way. Snake bastard or not, we'll have that city a burnin' by the end of month."
"I'll report back. Your general's a madman." The Colonel shrugged and turned back to the listening post set up just next to the charred remains of an Assault Vehicle, it's turret twisted and it's tracks melted into the ground. "Should have thought about that before coming down 'ere." I felt the end of a rifle press into my back. My rifle left my hands no sooner than they led me away, back through the wreckage.
"Send in the 186th. New front, more corpses."
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Topic: Don't Tread On Me (Read 723 times)