The Rask Rebellion

"We'll be the tip of the spear," Sarif replied. "We can float over their defenses, our main gun can decimate their fortifications, and our sponsons can help to clear up their infantry. This vehicle was designed for situations not dissimilar from this one."

"I ask only that you give them the opportunity to surrender," the Admiral added. "What you call your enemy, I call my kin. Their nature is to obey authority, and they are being led astray. The sooner I can get into the palace and bring an end to this, the fewer Rask will perish as a result of the Matriarch's stubbornness."

"The UNN has very strict rules of engagement," Sarif replied. "Those who wish to surrender will be able to do so. Stick to our plan, Admiral," he continued. "The Coalition is fully prepared to back you as the new Matriarch, but this war ends today, even if you fail."

"I understand," she replied, her wavering hologram flickering out of existence as she disconnected.

"Get your companies ready," Sarif said, addressing the remaining commanders. "The assault on the East Gate begins shortly."

CHAPTER 23: THE EAST GATE

The Yagda's thrusters belched blue hydrogen flame as it cruised over the dunes, the engines stabilizing it in the wind, the sand whipping at its curved hull. Sarif stood on the bridge beside his table with his hands clasped neatly behind his back, his eyes scanning the many displays that surrounded him.

"I wish we could see a little further in this damned storm," he muttered under his breath, watching the icons that represented the different companies move across the three-dimensional map.

The crew were all manning their consoles, each responsible for a different system, half a dozen of them tapping at touch panels and talking into their helmets as they coordinated.

"How long?" he asked, the driver answering him.

"A few minutes until we reach the gate, sir."

"Full power to the main gun," Sarif snapped, waving his hand. "I want all sponsons firing at will, keep the Rask infantry off us. Elevate cruising height to three meters, and activate the plasma shield."

"Sir...the shield has never been tested under combat conditions," the Chief Engineer replied, swiveling in his chair to face him.

"Why do you think we're here?" Sarif shot back. "I want it powered up, and the point defense systems scanning for targets. Let's see what Mars' most talented engineers have been able to come up with."

"Yes, sir," the man replied as he turned back to his console.

As Sarif kept his eyes on the forward camera feeds, the hull of the vehicle sloping away in front of them, he caught a glimpse of the first of the tank traps. The Rask had scattered Czech hedgehogs around haphazardly, welded I-beams jutting from the sand. They posed no danger to the Yagda, the vehicle simply floating over them. Those that passed beneath it became momentary weightless as they were caught in the AG field, rising a few centimeters into the air before falling back into position.

There were long spools of razor wire here, too. Perhaps the Rask had expected the infantry to dismount when they encountered the impassable hedgehogs, but they were about to be sorely disappointed.

They sailed over a few hundred meters of traps, the first of the enemy trenches coming into sight through the haze. The Rask opened up with LMG nests, streams of tungsten slugs bouncing harmlessly off the armored hull like showers of glowing sparks, scarcely enough to scratch the paint. Louder reports soon rang out, the enemy firing AMRs, the higher-caliber slugs leaving craters in the armored hull like tiny meteorites. The shields wouldn't even kick in for something this trivial, the system would only react to projectiles with more mass and energy to save on power.

It looked like a scene from the first World War, a line of soldiers peeking out over the lip of their trench, the hastily-built fortifications reinforced with wood. Their long rifles were affixed with bayonets, the defenders firing in volleys.

"Hold!" Sarif commanded, the Yagda coasting to a stop. "Put a line through to the artillery company and have them shell the following coordinates."

He reached out and pressed his finger into the holographic representation of the terrain ahead of them, a red circle appearing around his digit, the system transmitting his selection to the comms officer. He waited, the bridge silent save for the whirring of the electronics, and then shells began to rain down on the trenches. Cracks of thunder rolled across the dunes as the projectiles impacted, hurling great plumes of sand into the sky, turning the terrain inside-out. Flashes of billowing explosions cast their orange glow through the haze of the sandstorm, as bright as daylight, silhouetting bunkers and scurrying figures. Sarif couldn't feel the ground shake, as the Yagda was floating a few meters off the sand, and he was surprised to find that he missed the sensation.

There were a series of larger impacts, the Rask battleship joining the ongoing bombardment, sending salvos of heavier shells downrange. The naval railguns pounded the enemy positions, digging deep craters that could be seen even from a distance, the wind carrying the clouds of airborne dust away. Sarif saw one of them strike a pillbox, the unlucky structure practically vaporizing as it was torn apart by the sheer kinetic energy. Pieces of shattered concrete and twisted rebar were sent whizzing through the air, turned into deadly projectiles, a few nearby figures thrown off their feet by the blast as they scurried for cover.

Sarif watched through his displays as the artillery company walked their fire away from the Yagda, each new volley impacting a little further West, blanketing the gate in flame and shrapnel. Over and over, the Avalanches pounded the Rask positions, the true extent of the damage hidden from view by the storm.
"Cease fire," Sarif ordered, one last salvo churning up the sand before the guns finally went silent. "Move in."

The Yagda began to coast forward, Sarif keeping one eye on the map, the icons that represented the rest of the battalion moving along in real-time. He turned to see one of the tank companies on the monitor directly behind him, the Kodiaks forming a column, the mechanized infantry taking up the rear in their IFVs. The Kodiaks had deployed their bulldozer prows and were pushing through the hedgehogs, clearing a path for the trailing troop transports, their progress slowed somewhat as they forced the heavy obstacles out of their way. Their tracks fought for purchase, churning up the loose sand, their armored side skirts rattling as their engines roared. With any luck, the Rask would focus their heaviest guns on the biggest target, and leave the smaller vehicles be.

The Yagda passed over what remained of the tank traps, nearing the first line of trenches. The six blister-like sponsons that ringed its hull began to fire on targets in the trenches, spitting streams of thirty-millimeter slugs, creating splashes where they impacted the sand. The enemy were ill-equipped to deal with the floating fortress, armed only with rifles, the projectiles skipping off the hull harmlessly. Their railgun nests opened up, but even concentrated fire from the machineguns couldn't scratch the five hundred ton behemoth. Its armor was so heavy that it could only move by defying the laws of physics.

Their fortifications provided no cover as the tank simply drifted over them, firing down into the trench from above, sending its occupants scrambling for cover. Those who were caught in its AG field as it passed over them lost their footing, their limbs flailing in confusion and alarm as they drifted through the air, trying to figure out what was happening to them. The defenders scattered for cover, the gunners abandoning their posts, but the sponsons tore through their ranks before they could reach safety. The molten slugs eviscerated the fleeing soldiers, the sheer force of the hypervelocity munitions dismembering them, blood and viscera painting the wooden walls of their trench. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

More thuds began to ring out, the rapid-firing MGL that was mounted above the main turret pounding more of the enemy positions. It was soon joined by those of the vehicles to their rear, high-explosive grenades raining down on the trenches, flushing the Rask from their hiding places.

There was a sudden flash of light, the Yagda rocking as something struck the hull with far greater force. Sarif glanced at the leftmost monitor, seeing a churning field of blue and green plasma, wavering arcs of what resembled electricity coursing through it. The point defense system had activated the plasma shield, brand new tech that had been reverse-engineered from captured Betelgeusian specimens. The system projected a directional magnetic field, then injected superheated gas into it, creating a wall of boiling plasma that would hopefully render incoming projectiles ineffective before they reached the hull. As he watched, the field dissipated, the plasma dispersing into the atmosphere.

"What was that?" Sarif demanded, leaning on his table as the tank's thrusters steadied the vehicle.

"Another naval gun, sir," one of the crewmen replied. He zoomed in on the source of the hit, a concrete pillbox at the limits of their visual range. A long, thin slot had been cut into the domed building's face, a beefy railgun barrel protruding from it. It looked like another weapon that had been sourced from a decommissioned UNN ship. "The shield did its job," the crewman continued. "It melted the slug as it passed through, enough that it was too soft to penetrate the armor."

Through the external cameras, Sarif could see the partially-melted shell. The heat of the plasma had softened it enough that it had crumpled against the forward armor, leaving a crater in the panel, but failing to get through. It had flash-welded to the hull, now resembling a melting marshmallow.

"Let's not give them a second chance," Sarif replied, waving his hand at the display. "Target that pillbox with the main gun."

The Yagda's turret swung to face the target, the ten-meter long, oval-shaped barrel tipped with a plasma compensator the size of a truck tire. The rails beneath its shroud charged with electricity, the hum audible even inside the bridge, the entire vehicle shuddering as the weapon fired. There was a crack like a thunderclap, the gun accelerating a 155mm sabot to speeds approaching five kilometers per second. It reached its target quicker than the flap of a hummingbird's wing, so fast that there was no perceptible delay. The pillbox was pulverized into a fine powder as the shell passed straight through it, barely slowing down, the projectile presumably continuing on into the jungle beyond. Its occupants were turned to red mist, the naval gun becoming a shower of molten metal that rained down on the surrounding sand, a cone of deadly debris spreading out in the sabot's wake.

"Target eliminated," the gunner announced, the calmness of his tone at odds with the destruction that had just been wrought.

"It's a good job they chose to fire at us and not at one of the Kodiaks," Sarif said, "those things could do a lot of damage. Put out an order to prioritize those bunkers."

From their right came a sudden, desperate charge, a group of maybe thirty Rask soldiers leaping out of their trench. They made their way through the tank traps and razor wire, using the hedgehogs for cover, making for the Yagda's rear. It seemed that they meant to attempt a boarding.

"Brave, but foolish," Sarif muttered as he watched the sponsons mow them down with overlapping fields of fire. If the aliens actually managed to get behind the Yagda, where the ramp was located, there were two blisters mounted directly above it that would defend it.

The Kodiaks were making good progress, rocking on their tracks as they fired their main guns at fortified positions and bunkers, return fire sparking against their bulldozer prows. The blisters mounted atop their turrets swiveled this way and that, firing off chains of grenades, or bursts of railgun fire. Each one seemed to have a different combination of weapons mounted on their hardpoints, glowing tracers bouncing off the sand as they chewed up Rask infantry, mortars creating showers of sand and torn bodies as they impacted inside the trenches. They waded through the tank traps, smashing the crudely-fashioned log ramps, and tearing up the spools of barbed wire. They were beginning to reach the lip of the first trench now, coming to a halt, providing covering fire as the eight-wheeled IFVs drove past them.

Bouncing on their suspension, the IFVs skidded to a halt, the troop ramps to their rear opening as their turrets spewed suppressive fire. Squads of black-armored Marines and towering Shock Troopers dismounted, fanning out to duck behind the deployable barriers that swung out from the flanks of their vehicles to provide cover. They fired their PDWs and automatic rifles over the low walls, catching a few of the Rask who dared to raise their heads above the sand. The same was happening all along the enemy line, the mechanized companies disgorging their troops as they prepared for a coordinated assault.

When the order came, designated teams charged into the trenches, leaping down into the maze of passageways as their companions continued to provide cover. Sarif switched some of the monitors to display views from their helmet cams, his eyes scanning the feeds.

The walls of the trenches were lined with wooden panels, raised platforms allowing the occupants to see over the lip, sandbags helping to reinforce the structure. They had been set up in a zigzag pattern to break up the lines of sight, almost making them look like rows of teeth from afar. They wouldn't have looked out of place on a First World War battlefield, if not for the total absence of any mud or water.

There were already shattered bodies lying limp on the ground where the Marines dropped down, some of them stumbling over the dead, their dark blood soaking into the sand. The survivors wasted no time engaging the attackers in combat, Sarif watching as one of the Marines was skewered by a bayonet, the Rask lifting him off his feet as he drove his XMR into him like a medieval pike. He was quickly cut down by a burst of PDW fire, a hail of slugs chewing through his ceramic armor like butter, shattering the chest plate that he wore beneath his leather jacket. The eight-foot feline slumped against one of the reinforced walls before sliding to the ground, leaving a smear of blood in his wake. The squad formed a perimeter around their wounded comrade, several of them working together to pass him up and out of the trench to safety.

More Rask came running around the bend, gunfire erupting as the two sides exchanged salvos, the fighting close and dirty. One of the aliens produced a serrated blade the size of a machete, swinging it into one of his human opponents. The weapon couldn't penetrate his armor, but the man was knocked to the ground by the force of the blow, the Rask raising the cruel implement for a second strike. As he lifted it above his head, the Marine reached for his sidearm, emptying the magazine into the feline's chest. The magnetic coils on its stubby barrel glowed with residual heat as the Rask crumpled, the Marine rolling clear of the falling body, his comrades rushing to help him to his feet.

Sarif had a dozen helmet cam feeds open at once in tiled windows, his eyes darting between them, focusing on the scenes of carnage. The squads were moving through the trenches, clearing out the Rask with deadly efficiency. The enemy were in fortified positions, but the artillery strikes and the constant rain of grenades and mortars had left them in disarray, their forces scattered and disorganized.

He watched as a pack of allied Shock Troopers came upon a bunker, the concrete structure joined to the trench network via a branching passage. He could make out the barrel of a railgun configured as an LMG protruding from a slot in the structure above them, its intermittent bursts of gunfire echoing across the desert. They stacked up beside the entrance, their hands resting on one another's shoulders, following their UNN training to a tee. The leader primed a grenade, then tossed it through the opening, Sarif watching a puff of sand and smoke billow into the trench as it exploded with a loud thud. The Troopers breached, swinging their oversized PDWs around the domed interior as their helmet-mounted flashlights cut through the swirling dust, finding that the trio of occupants had all been slain by the blast.

The Kodiaks were moving up to the next trench now, striking the pillboxes with their main guns as they went, the railguns pulverizing the concrete fortifications. One of the tanks from Foxtrot company on the far right flank suddenly started emitting a distress call, Sarif switching one of the feeds to a nearby vehicle. One of the more poorly reinforced trenches had collapsed beneath the weight of the Kodiak, sending it sliding down into the furrow, where it had become stuck. Its treads spun in the loose sand, but it couldn't find the purchase that it needed to free itself.

Seizing the opportunity, Rask flooded in from both directions like a swarm of angry ants, seeking to overwhelm the crew through sheer numbers. The main turret had no room to rotate, but the commander's blister remained unhindered, the thirty-mill unloading into the crowd with a series of deafening cracks. The Rask were knocked off their feet by the impacts, the three-inch tungsten spikes punching through their ranks, airborne particles of sand turning to glass and melting to the barrel as the coils burned red-hot under the sustained fire. A single projectile passed through three soldiers as Sarif watched, leaving a trail of glowing, molten slag that seemed to hang in the air for a moment like a bright afterimage. Another burst of cannon fire hit one of the Rask square in the chest, obliterating him, fragments of ceramic armor and bone turned to shrapnel as they tore through the soldiers behind him in a deadly cone. Their comrades climbed over the ruined bodies, undeterred, the turret swiveling as its operator struggled to cover both flanks.

They reached the hull, leaping up onto the Kodiak, jamming their bayonets between the armor plating and beneath hatches as they struggled to find a way inside. The blister spun, the barrel knocking some of the assailants off the turret, catching one of the Rask point-blank. The unfortunate feline was tossed clear by the blast, his blood staining the desert camouflage paintwork.

The Marines finally came to the rescue, taking the Rask by surprise as they appeared over the lip of the trench, firing down on the enemy. Their XMRs stood no chance of damaging the Kodiak, so they fired at will, the muzzle flashes reflected in their opaque visors. Their slugs sparked as they impacted the tank's armor, the whiz of ricochets audible even over the helmet cams, a dozen Rask crumpling to slide off the turret and tumble down the hull. An IFV took up the rear, jolting to a stop above the trench, its grenade launcher throwing dust into the air as it pounded the nearby positions.

The troops slid down the sides of the collapsed trench, creating a perimeter around the Kodiak, covering the crew as they began to clamber out of their vehicle. They had to exit via the hatches on the turret, as the troop ramp at the rear was blocked.

"Getting reports that the Rask have rallied on the left flank," the comms operator said, Sarif turning his attention away from the feed. He glanced at his map, noting that Bravo and Charlie seemed to be bogged down, lagging behind the rest of the companies.

"Get me a visual," Sarif said, more feeds opening in windows on the nearest monitor to display views from turret and helmet cams. One of the IFVs was smoldering, a large hole torn right through the engine compartment, dark smoke billowing from the breach. The troop bay had been hit, too, punctured in several places by something far heavier than an XMR. Marines were dragging the wounded down its ramp, one of the Kodiaks sidling up beside it to provide support, its guns blazing.