Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Six: Fire in the Night Sky

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Six: Fire in the Night Sky

November 27th, 3032

Mathis and his Fireteam crept along, checking every corner and making sure that no DEST teams were lying in wait using one of their suits of stealthed power armor. Their objective was to destroy the artillery guns that were keeping the rest of their forces at bay.

Holding up his fist in the motion that signaled "stop" to his forces, they came to the wall and took cover so that they could use a fiber optic snake to peer around the corner. Double checking that the path was clear, the fireteam continued through the buildings until they reached an overlook of where the artillery was.

"Clear visual on the artillery." Mathis whispered to his team. "They left the ammo trucks right next to the guns. Sloppy work if you ask me." He shook his head. "Prep the SRMs and Anti-Material rifles, we're only going to get one shot at this."

Reaching behind him, Mathis unslung a BFG and unfolded the bipod, linking the scope to his HUD and laying down his position being mirrored by the rest of the two companies of Elite infantry. "We fire on my mark, rifles first, and then SRMs with Inferno gel."

"Copy." The entire company broke comms silence.

"Mark." Mathis ordered as he pulled the trigger, the kick being eased by the powerful Mithril. His first shot broke the glass of the massive building and tore a small part out of the artillery piece that he was targeting, but the real damage came when the Inferno Gel SRMs began to launch from the buildings that surrounded the park that the enemy artillery was parked in. The Gel covered the enemy artillery and caused the stored ammunition beside it to cook off as well.

"Time to get out of here." Mathis ordered as he picked up his anti-material rifle. "Let's get to the roof." The various platoons of the two companies of infantry had a series of ways to be picked up by the Stings that were hanging out in the area just above the AA envelope.

"We're all set Major." A lieutenant said as he distributed out the packs. "We just need to make sure that we're all strapped in properly or we'll have some major injuries to account for."

"Copy." Mathis replied as he fastened his own harness to his Mithril. "Send up the flares."

Three sets of flares lit up the dark of the night, causing some of the people battling the flames of the inferno gel below to lose their lives as the sudden brightness blinded them. Then, after the flares had fallen below the buildings, just out of sight of the ground a series of small balloons went up, all of said balloons were attached to tethers and had cable that went to the infantry below.

The trio of Stings immediately began their approach, opening their bomb bays and extending the experimental hook out to catch the cables and snatch their people off of the ground.

"Ugh, we've got to work on improving that." Mathis muttered to himself as he violently pulled into the air. "That hurts like a motherfucker."

"The original prototype for these were built in the 20th century." A tech Sergeant spoke up. "The reason they failed the first time was because humans are too squishy to survive those kinds of maneuvers for long periods of time."

"Well, we're still squishy even if our Mithrilisn't. So let's not have R&D claim this as a success just yet." Mathis groaned.

"Detaching pickups in two Mikes." Foehammer told the platoons attached to her Sting gunship. "We'll be over friendly ground, so make sure your IFFs are up and running."

"Understood Foehammer." Mathis responded. "Preparing to detach."

After the two minutes had passed, the series of tethers detached and the Mithrilclad infantry began to fall to the ground below.

"Remember to trigger your jump jets at the right time, otherwise you'll be paste cleaned up off of the ground." Mathis reminded his infantry.

The two companies of infantry, nearly a hundred people in all lit up their jump jets at the same time, slowing their speed and lighting up the HQ for a split second.

"Nailed it." Mathis laughed at himself as he rolled when he hit the ground. "I want a headcount." He said as he came up with everything still intact on his body.

"Roberts and Smith didn't make it, those are the only two missing." Came the report after the platoon leaders did their headcounts.

"I'll get the report later." Mathis replied. "We all need to report to the medbay just in case the extraction caused any injuries." Mathis looked around at the two companies. "I want you all to get at least six hours of rack time, Debrief is in eight, I expect your reports by then as well."

"Yessir!" The two companies replied before filing away to go and report to the medtechs.

"How did they get behind our lines in order to accomplish this?" Tai-Sa Joseph Izuzu asked the assembled officers. "Tai-Sa deLetereau and myself have managed to hold off the advance of the Davions, but that Artillery was the only thing preventing them from moving into the city proper."

"Sir, we found two dead DEST teams in the buildings that they fired their SRMs from." A Sho-Sa spoke up. "We believe that they used the river and infiltrated as close as possible before moving through the city." The Sho-Sa sighed. "We also found many civilian families tied up and gagged. They reported the incident as soon as they freed themselves, but by then the damage had already been done.."

"We shall see how long our reserves will last." Tai-Sa deLetereau spoke up. "Then we may need to make an attempt at surrendering or retreat." The woman spoke after thinking about it. "We know that the Coordinator is dead, but the rest of the Combine may need us and our forces intact so as to ensure the survival of our nation."

"Three days." Izuzu said. "We have to hold out for three days and then leave with everything that we can take with us from the hovercraft stores."

Author's note: A bit short, but it felt like I should end the chapter here. Turns out the problem with burnout was to simply write a different kind of story. So this will be back on the update list.