Chapter 6 Part 5

Chapter 6: Victory, you say?

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Part 5

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in the vicinity of Victory Bay

Kronus

Sinister green lighting tore through the air aiming at the wildly maneuvering Tau. Everything it touched, withered, disintegrating within mere moments. The best armour the Tau had could resist the less powerful blasts, yet it couldn't stop them – they stripped layers upon layers of advanced alloys that would have given pause to even the most potent of human weapons. What those terrible weapons did to tanks and APCs was bad enough. Their effect on mere flesh was one of the most terrible things Commander Kais had ever seen. A blast stripped the armour off a Crisis suit braced to provide fire support, the second hit burned away the armoured suit of the pilot before searing away skin, flesh and bone until there wasn't even a skeleton left within the cored vehicle.

Railgun slugs lashed back at the green machines moving in to cut off the Tau armoured formation, missiles and plasma joined them, slamming into the unrelenting tide of metal. The unknown enemy kept coming, taking hits in stride and replying in kind. Hover tanks raced to flank the enemy, combat suits braced to provide direct fire support and heavy infantry spilled out of APCs and deployed, bringing additional firepower to bear, yet it simply wasn't enough. Plasma washed over green armour until it glowed, slugs tore through the weakened alloy, yet more often than not the mechanical tide merely slowed down. Often, the grotesque amalgamation between humanoid skeletons and hover vehicles didn't cease its murderous advance until they were literally shot to pieces.

Commander Kais knew that this new enemy could be destroyed, they were far from invincible, however the metal tide was simply too numerous, too tough for him to prevail. If he had to face them alone, then perhaps he could have leveraged the superior mobility of his armoured formations to win the day. However, the humans were behind him, and they were no longer content to stay on the defense. Their remaining armour roared out of well dug in positions, curtains of artillery fire fell from the sky screening their advance and they fell upon his doomed rear guard with murderous fury. If that wasn't bad enough, sensor feed from his drones confirmed that he would be receiving no meaningful aid from his supposed allies, the Eldar. The knife-ears had walked into an ambush as well and if anything, fared even worse after striking the human super-soldiers head-on.

Kais spat a curse and kept firing as fast as new targets appeared on his HUD. He never stood in a single position any longer than it took his rocket pack's capacitor to recharge from his armour's reactor, and even that and state of the art ECM only kept him alive thanks to sheer luck. Ten times emerald lighting shot in his direction trying to strike him with its devouring touch, and he ran ducking and weaving as much as his armour allowed, barely avoiding agonizing death. Kais returned the favour, doing his best to suppress enemy vehicles with plasma and missiles until his pods ran dry and his repeater overheated leaving him with only the railgun and few remaining drones.

With every passing moment, more and more good Tau vanished from the data-net, their vehicles turned to little more than molten slag that rained upon this world's cursed soil.

"All heavy units, pin the enemy down! APCs and IFVs, break left! Tanks, AT infantry and combat suits, screen them until they achieve a breakthrough, then scatter!" Kais ordered.

The Commander knew he just signed the death sentence to everyone who wouldn't be fast enough, including all suit operators, like himself, which was fitting. In the end, this debacle was as much his fault as anyone else's – he did sign up on the plan, which as far as he knew, had more than reasonable odds of working. If it wasn't for those green machines… There was no to second guess himself now. He was already dead after all.

"Combat suits, form on me. We're going straight down their throats." Kais declared. The enemy's armour was tough, very tough indeed. That merely meant the Tau needed to get closer in order to make their weaponry more effective. The fact that doing so would be a very bloody affair indeed, well that was merely the price of doing business, especially once you've already walked into a trap.

Just over a hundred combat suits bounced forward following a wedge of heavy hover tanks, which kept on advancing and firing until the enemy turned them into slag. Kais' heavy units did their job regardless – they focused the machines' attention upon their weapon bristling frames, managed to even stall their advance for a few brief moments, and most importantly, allowed the combat suits to advance to almost point-blank range without being picked up at range.

"Hit them with everything you've got!" Kais roared and opened fire with his railgun and plasma repeater.

The heavier weapons of Crisis suits thundered behind him, while the handful of Broadswords he had under his command advanced in a thin ragged line around him. Heavy Rail Rifles shook the ground, their discharges producing deafening thunderclaps. At this range, smaller enemy hover vehicles simply halted when struck, the heavy slugs tearing large chunks of their frames. Yet, the mechanical menace remained undaunted, the enemy simply finished off the last remaining Swordfish and began to methodically dismantle the combat suits and the heavy infantry advancing in their wake.

Solid torrents of emerald lighting washed over the battlefield, while the Tau stubbornly held their ground. One after another, combat suits fell, some cored through and through, with their pilots turned into ash, others got eviscerated by lighting strikes that left little more than a pair of smoking legs drenched in slagged armour, while others fell torn to shreds by the green disintegrating rays.

"It worked..." Kais hissed through clenched teeth. His command suit burned, half his helmet was gone, however the last thing he saw before his HUD flaked off in green fire was a large number of APCs and IFVs slipping through the encirclement while a full third of his remaining hover tanks screened them. Those vehicles hammered the enemy for all they were worth, yet there simply wasn't enough of them to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

"All units, scatter!" Kais mumbled. Emerald lighting washed over him and all he knew was pain.