Augustus took five steps forward, closing the distance with the Sea Dragon soldiers. Reagan and the first two squads followed close behind.
By the ti the Sea Dragon soldiers sensed sothing was off, it was already too late. In just a few steps, Augustus had reached the squad leader who had spoken earlier. He raised his weapon and pulled the trigger—rounds tore into the matte faceplate of the man’s helt.
That was the signal.
The Marines behind Augustus surged forward. The platoon’s two Firebats led the charge.
The Firebat armor used during the Guild Wars was nowhere near as sturdy as the CMC-660 models developed more than a decade later. Still, the CMC-230XF’s armored plating was significantly thicker than the Mark 200 power armor Augustus was wearing, allowing Firebats to shrug off small-caliber bullets—and even grenades—with relative ease.
Blazing plasma poured from Harnack’s flathrower, instantly engulfing one of the Sea Dragon soldiers. His deep blue armor turned into a glowing frying pan.
Watching the man flail about in the flas, Harnack let out a wicked laugh. He knew the enemy would see him as so kind of fla demon—an infernal beast risen from the depths of hell—and that was exactly what he wanted.
At point-blank range, the Terran Marines and Sea Dragon Legion soldiers exchanged fire with electromagnetic rifles, their muzzles separated by only a few ters. But the Federation’s heavy gunners and Firebats had a clear edge in this kind of brutal close-quarters combat.
In Augustus’s squad, Dong-nyoung had taken over as the heavy gunner in place of Benjamin. While he wasn’t as tall, he was every bit as strong. As Dong-nyoung swept the battlefield with his Whisperer heavy machine gun, not even CMC power armor could withstand the barrage. In less than 15 seconds, he had already gunned down two enemy soldiers.
With a furious roar, the Sea Dragon squad leader charged through the hail of bullets from Augustus’s rifle like a raging bull, slamming into him and knocking him to the ground. Augustus might have been a new recruit, but he wasn’t exactly helpless in close combat. Still, he was no match for a seasoned Sea Dragon veteran.
The Sea Dragon Legion was a mountain warfare unit, highly trained for combat in rugged high-altitude terrain, including polar mountain ranges. Their fearso individual skill and unbreakable will were the very reasons they had earned their reputation across the Terran Confederacy.
But Augustus wasn’t alone.
Raynor, Max Zander, and Kulovsky imdiately ran toward their squad leader, but the first to arrive was Tychus. He kicked the enemy leader off Augustus, then pounced like a grizzly bear, pinning the man beneath his massive weight.
Augustus scrambled back to his feet and swung his Gauss rifle, smashing the buttstock down onto the Sea Dragon leader’s helt. The blow wasn’t enough to kill—the helt remained intact.
"Tychus, hold him down," Augustus muttered through clenched teeth. Dropping to one knee, he found the release button on the enemy’s helt and flipped open the faceplate.
The Sea Dragon’s eyes were wide with terror and despair.
Augustus raised the rifle again—and this ti, the blow struck ho. Blood sprayed.
"I gotta say, Sergeant," Tychus said as he stood, eyes wide in astonishnt. "Has no one ever told you you’re brutal as hell?"
"Not until I’ve cracked every enemy’s skull, I won’t sleep easy," Augustus replied, turning to the side. "Reagan, have you made contact with Warfield over the command channel?"
By now, all hostiles had been neutralized. Their bodies lay sprawled across the center of the road, which was still 900 ters from the helipad where the fighting continued.
"I heard his voice," Reagan said. "The captain used the hangar at the helipad to set up a defensive periter. He’s down to fewer than thirty n, but he confird that the Kel-Morian troops across from them number no more than a hundred."
"Did he ask how many reinforcents we brought?"
"Tell Warfield I’ve got a full battalion," Augustus said. "Tell him to hold out—we’re going to get him out of there."
...
It was nearing 03:00. Thick cumulonimbus clouds had blocked the light from all three moons of Turaxis II.
Most of Fort Howe had already lost power. The floodlights on the landing pad were all out. Other than the blazing tongues of concentrated Gauss rifle fire, the flashes of explosions, and the ice-blue bursts of electromagnetic grenades, Augustus could barely make out what was happening on the platform.
"Follow my original orders. First and Second Squads, with ," Augustus commanded. "We’ll disguise ourselves as a Kel-Morian squad rushing in for reinforcents. We’re to get as close to the enemy as possible without firing a single shot and then slip in among them. Once they realize ’friendly forces’ are firing at them, they’ll be thrown into chaos."
"Disable the color identification function in your HUDs," he added. "Switch to radio signature verification through your armor’s onboard computer."
"Reagan, relay our plan to Warfield. Tell them to prepare for a pincer attack."
Once he received confirmation, Augustus led the twenty-five n from the two squads jogging down the highway.
He and Reagan ran at the front, followed by the mbers of First Squad. They made no effort to hide themselves—instead, they switched on the spotlights on their power armor chest plates and marched directly onto the asphalt runway of the landing pad.
Along the way, Augustus passed two Kel-Morian soldiers carrying the wounded. The two groups brushed shoulders without exchanging a word. At this point, no one was bothering to ask which unit anyone belonged to.
More than one retreating Kel-Morian unit had crossed paths with them, but the exhausted soldiers had all automatically assud they were reinforcents.
All across the landing pad, the flashes of electromagnetic rifle fire lit up the darkness. The platform was vast, with several elevator lifts leading down to the underground hangars. Scattered around Augustus’s feet were the wrecks of destroyed aircraft.
There was only one surface-level hangar, originally used to temporarily house small and dium-sized near-orbit aircraft. It was located in the northeastern corner of the landing pad—and it was where the fighting was fiercest.
Augustus led his Marines straight toward the surface hangar. Along the way, they passed the bodies of hundreds of dead soldiers—both Federation and Kel-Morian. Most of the bodies were intact, helts undamaged, with no clear signs of how they had died.
Punching through power armor was no easy feat. But even a single spike or shard piercing the plating could prove fatal.
Many of the mangled, barely recognizable corpses belonged to non-combat personnel from the fortress. When the attack hit, they had grabbed rifles and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Marines in defense. Few of them had survived.
Augustus’s unit advanced at the fastest pace they could sustain. They quickly cleared the southern and central parts of the platform, and from there, they could clearly make out the flattened rectangular silhouette of the surface hangar—along with the three concentric circular defense periters that Warfield’s troops had ford using heavy armored vehicles and transports.
By the ti Augustus reached the hangar, a Kel-Morian assault team—down to fewer than fifty n—had already taken the outer two periters and was now leaping from cover in a fierce push toward the final line of defense.
Warfield’s Federation troops were holding them off with heavy machine guns and flathrowers. But their ammunition was clearly running low—the gaps between bursts were growing longer and longer.
anwhile, the Kel-Morian soldiers had already seized Fort Howe’s armory. Ammunition was no concern for them. It was obvious that Warfield’s defeat was only a matter of ti.
"Follow ," Augustus ordered, leaping onto the side of an overturned armored vehicle and into the space between the first and second defense lines. Several wounded Kel-Morian soldiers were slumped against trucks and transports being used as cover at the second line, waiting for soone to carry them off the battlefield.
"You finally made it," one injured man, missing a leg, said weakly. "Forget about us—just kill those Federation bastards."
"For the Sea Dragon!" In response, Augustus raised a clenched fist and shouted the legion’s slogan. The wounded soldiers instantly took it as a sign that victory was within reach—and began to cheer.
"Captain Oleg, our reinforcents have arrived!" one of the wounded said excitedly through the comms channel.
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