Operation: Phoenix, Battle of the TRES HQ, Part 4

        by CyberPyro  (cybrpyro@iac.net)

        Cheers of victory echoed up and down the TRES lines.  A good portion
of the first spongin wave lay at their feet in steaming chunks, and the enemy
had been routed from their resistance point.
        The rising sun disappeared behind the lowering line of clouds as the
first flakes of a really big blizzard began to fall.  The flakes rapidly
changed into clumps, their numbers increasing geometrically with the size of
the flakes.
        "Listen up people," snapped CP, his voice slicing through the chatter
and quieting everyone.  "Our traps have been sprung, our Aces  played out.
We..."
        "Sir!!" interrupted Lt. Jaina, the snow falling so heavily now the
granite sides of the canyon were no longer visible, "we're getting seismic
readings."
        "Confirmed," stated the Ensign next to her, his scanners beeping
wildly.
        "Holy crap!  They're all around us!" exclaimed Ensign Raeth.
        "All personnel: we've got company," yelled CP.  Geysers of snow,
frozen dirt, and fragments of bedrock erupted into the air in and around the
company of TRES Marines.  A few unlucky souls were caught at ground zero, the
stream of debris carrying them up into the air and crushing them to pulp 
before they landed.
        Across the battlefield, lavender colored machines the size of a large
house emerged from the Earth, completely destroying many of the barricades
erected by the Jihaddi.  A spiked drill completely covered the front of each
vehicle, spraying rocks and dirt in a wide area as the massive cone continued
turning.
        Jihaddi scattered, discipline momentarily forgotten, as the machines
rolled out of their tunnels and took some sort of position.  Armored plates
quickly slid back, weapons emerging from the depths of the huge, lavender
machines.
        "Retreat, now.  Vector: 0,0, -10," ordered CP, fighting to give the
shocked TRES Marines a direction before indecision killed them.  "ALL
PERSONNEL: RETREAT!  VECTOR: 0,0,-10!!!"
        The Marines, the voice of their usually calm CO ripping into their
ear, responded on instinct.  The first S'mole opened fire, its tracer cannon
nearly slicing a Light BattleArmored Marine in half.  Soon, the air was
filled with bright tracer rounds, lasers, incinderary grenades, plasma bolts,
and machine gun fire.
        The TRES Marines, their ranks being thinned as they retreated, opened
fire with the last rounds of their WRifles[tm] and the uncarriage weapons.
The webs impacted on b'harniium armor, embedding at long distances and sliced
into delicate internals at close range.
        The S'moles, their numbers still plentiful, rumbled across the Earth
in purposeful patterns.  The northern most group, facing the retreating
Jihaddi, began to disgorge armored spongin soldiers.  The spongin promptly
began firing with everything they had, walking in time with the advancing
S'moles.
        "They're trying to drive us back into the main army," observed CP.
"All personnel: concentrate all fire power on the northern S'moles.  Ignore
ammo restrictions, it won't do us a damn bit of good if can't get out of
here."
        Streams of plasma, heavy grenades, high intensity lasers, and showers
of armor-piercing rounds erupted from the TRES Marines.  Dozens of XRifle[tm]
plasma streams concentrated on the lead northern S'mole, vaporizing large
segments of its drill and armor.  A scattering of armor piercing, high
explosive grenades from the XRifle[tm] undercarriages blasted off sections of
armor, or punched through weak areas and exploded.
        CP aimed his ZRifle-A[tm], drawing a bead with the undercarriage PAW.
His BattleArmored arms twitched four times as rounds flew from the barrel
with a loud thumping noise.  The cyborg's lead shell smashed through a weak
section of the seconds S'mole's armor, its three brother shell using the hole
made by the first.
        The lead S'mole, heavily damaged from TRES fire, shuddered violently
as multiple grenades destroyed its internal structure, vaporized its engine,
and killed its crew.  The second one, its hull intact except for a hole made
by CP, shivered, its left side bulging sharply outwards.
        The seams melted and gave way, erupting onto nearby spongin troops
with a deadly boom, as the white-hot, molten internals of the lower left-hand
deck sprayed out onto the earth.  A third S'mole, next to the first, exploded
skywards as dozens of PAW shells punched through its armor from behind.
        "We are here to assist," clipped Hiroshi, her tone low and deadly
efficient, as she guided her elite group of 500 BattleArmored TRES Marines
into the fray.  Trapped between two groups of converging Jihaddi, the
northern sponge soldiers opted to flee East and West, hoping to find solace
in the remaining S'moles.

...

        [It appears your quarry will escape, again.] thought X'huurrj'qx.
        "The skirmish is far from over, as is the war," calmly replied
Wheri'El.
        [We shall see.]

...

        The S'moles, realizing their quarry may escape, disgorged all their
armored troops and made an attempt to re-encircled the rapidly moving
Jihaddi.  Half of the armored spongin sprinted towards the Jihaddi while the
other half laid down covering fire, the S'moles lumbering up behind them.
        "Well, Hiroshi, looks like they want to play up close and personal,"
said CP with a vicious grin as his Owsenite Great Sword slid from its
scabbard on the Wrath of Arioch BattleArmor.
        "Indeed," she said with a wry smile, drawing her armor's katana and
wakazushi combo.  Her elite forces followed suit, katanas glittering and
flashing in the refracted light of the blizzard.
        "Iota, Theta, Chi, Lambda, and Mu squadrons," addressed CP, "return
fire on the spongin and get rid of those S'moles.  Eta, Epsilon, Tau, and
Gamma Squads, you're with me and Hiroshi.  Remember: We want out here, not to
stay and fight."
        The metallic, lavender squads of spongin continued to run forwards,
pursuing their enemies, as a small group of Jihaddi detached from the main
body and ran back towards them.  The larger group of Jihaddi, still intent of
retreating, fired mercilessly at the S'moles as they fled.
        An unholy din of screeching metal, human screams, explosions, and
blaster fire rent the air of the battlefield, the two groups of BattleArmored
foes engaging in hand to hand combat.

...

        [An interesting tactic] thought X'huurrj'qx.  [Fighting with armor
suits as though they were not a consideration.]
        "We will wear them down and crush them with the Wyrm Bots," said
Wheri'El.

...

        A sponge soldier gasped in horror, her partner neatly chopped in half
by the Owsenite sword of a Jihaddi.  She hit the controls to attack the
aggressor, but simply watched as the bulky battle suit moved with inhuman,
cat-like grace and dodged the attack.  A split second later, she left the
world of the living.
        Hiroshi and her fellows, trained in the Samurai tradition, found
little trouble making short work of the inarticulate, clod-like sword
wielding spongin.  What had been an attempt by the spongin to stop the
Jihad's retreat had become a slaughtering field.

...

        [Apparently, you play with your prey like the X'd'hiix'qj of my home
world] thought  X'huurrj'qx.
        "Pah!" snarled Wheri'El as he issued more orders to his underlings.

...

        The spongin marched through the blasted canyon, their footsteps
muffled by the fresh layer of snow pouring form the sky.  On every side of
them lay the smoldering remains of the S'moles, sending up huge clouds of
steam as the snow failed to lay a claim to them.
        Scattered around the S'moles were hundreds of amorphous lumps, the
vast majority lavender tinted and ringed in rose colored powder as Sky
conspired to cover up the carnage it had witnessed.  The sponge soldiers
feared more and more every step they took.  They'd entered the debris field
several minutes ago and as far as their limited vision could see, they saw
only the slagged remains of their comrades.
        Terror continued to grow, its voice mounting from a dull, inaudible
whisper to a raging siren.  They'd first charged the meany Jihaddi at their
barricade, only to watch their fellows diced up from flying death webs.
Fleeing to the company of the mighty Wyrn Bots, they'd only met flaming
plasma death and stern orders to attack again or be incinerated.
        With horrific death behind and in front of them, the spongin chose to
try and kill the nasty Jihaddi who hated their super-dee-duper b'harnii
friend.  They were sure b'harnii didn't know of what cruel treatment they
were receiving, and would fix it if he knew.

...

        "Tanaka!" spoke Hani with a low hiss.  His fellow Samurai stirred
from his meditation, trying to adjust  his mind to the wounds his body had
suffered.
        "Yes?" he asked.
        "They are coming," Hani stated, loading his PAW Rifle and checking
the ammo load.
        "I am ready," spoke Tanaka, cocking his XRifle[tm] and loading the
grenade launcher.  Both Samarai had been seriously wounded in the fight with
the S'moles and, rather than slow down their fellows, had opted to remain
behind and face death from the oncoming army.
        "May our actions honor TRES Corps," spoke the Samurai in unison,
moving to take position for the coming battle.

                                                                        CP

Copyright, Pyrokinetic Productions, Inc. (1996)