***
The battle began as most ground attacks do, with an air strike by a squadron of Avengers, followed by an artillery barrage from a dozen siege tanks. The shells rumbled ominously as they passed over south Polk’s Pride to pound enemy held territory. And as the Confederate guns opened up, their crews immediately came under counterfire from the Kel-Morian side of the river.
Then, as the early morning darkness was torn asunder by flashes of light and the roll of artificial thunder, the real bloodletting began.
The first challenge Colonel Vanderspool faced was to get his troops across the river, a task two other officers had failed to accomplish. An attempt to use boats had been a complete failure. By the time the bargelike watercraft were launched, Kel-Morian artillery batteries had their range and cut them to pieces. It was said that the Paddick ran red with blood, as a battalion of bodies floated downstream, and thousands of rot birds swooped in to feast.
A plan to launch sections of a pontoon bridge upriver, ride them down, and hook them together at the last moment had proven to be equally disastrous when one of the modules ran afoul of a sunken bridge, and rendered the rest useless. It was a colossal screw-up that left hundreds of Confed troops milling around waiting to be slaughtered by enemy air strikes and artillery fire.
So Vanderspool had come up with a third alternative. Something that had never been tried before. A strategy that was calculated to take advantage of the fact that the Paddick River was much shallower than usual.
The first person to witness Vanderspool’s genius was a lowly Kel-Morian taskmaster named Evers who, along with his squad of outriders, was on a routine patrol when the air attacks and the artillery barrage began. So there he was, inside the gutted remains of a waterfront warehouse, waiting for the ground to stop shaking under his boots when a pair of softly glowing forms materialized from the ruins on the other side of the Paddick.
Evers thought their size, as well as the amount of heat they were generating, was consistent with that produced by Confederate goliaths, and his HUD confirmed the hypothesis. Okay, the taskmaster thought to himself, all they can do is strut back and forth along the riverfront and take occasional potshots at us. What a waste. Our artillery will pound them flat in no time at all.
Had it been daylight Evers would have known better, but it wasn’t until the first goliaths entered the river that he realized the specially modified walkers were carrying something between them, and understood what the Confederates were up to. The goliaths were carrying sections of a pontoon bridge between them, and because of their height, would be able to wade across the Paddick!
Then, having created a span over which regular troops could cross, the combat walkers would switch to an offensive role and open fire on anyone who opposed them, thereby establishing a beachhead that would be very difficult to dislodge. That was important stuff, and Evers was just about to tell his superiors all about it when a Kel-Morian artillery shell fell short and landed directly on top of his position. He and his squad were decimated.
The resulting flash of light strobed the surface of the river, and two walkers could be seen, both almost fully submerged as they towed a section of bridge between them. Three minutes later they were ashore where they secured the section designated as “span one” to pre-selected anchor points. With that accomplished, they scanned the ruins for targets and began to kill everything warm enough to produce a heat signature. Meanwhile, the next pair of goliaths was hooking span two to span one.
That was when the Kel-Morian overseer in charge of north Polk’s Pride was awoken from a deep sleep and given the news: The Confederates had thrown a bridge across the Paddick and walkers were already coming ashore. He swore, wondered how such a thing was possible, and whom he could blame.
Other than the goliath pilots and Max Speer, who insisted on dashing across first in order to get a shot of their arrival, a resoc named Sergeant Trent and his squad were the first people to cross the newly created bridge. Sanchez, Raynor, Tychus, Harnack, Kydd, Ward, Zander, and Doc followed immediately behind, just ahead of a full company of resocialized marines. They were to be followed by the rest of the ranger battalion, plus various auxiliary units, including a platoon of SCVs.
The comsat station and the repository were straight ahead. So even though the street that would take them there was heavily defended and preregistered by half a dozen sloths, Trent and his resocialized marines went right up the middle. Shells exploded all around them, two men fell within a matter of seconds, and the only reason the rest were able to continue forward was because the artillery barrage stopped suddenly and a squad of rippers threw themselves into the fray.
It was a desperate move. One that was intended to stall the invaders long enough to bring reinforcements up to block their advance. Raynor felt a rising sense of anger as the rippers killed Trent and the rest of his marines within a matter of seconds. Vanderspool had known, damn him—and sacrificed the resocs like pawns in a chess game.
Revenge came swiftly as a couple of goliaths came forward to destroy the rippers. Ward unleashed four of his eight heat-seeking missiles, and a series of eye-searing explosions strobed the surrounding buildings. “Follow me!” Sanchez yelled over the platoon frequency, as she led her troops forward.
Even as the Devils stepped over dead marines and plodded up the street firing as they went, more resocialized marines were surging forward, seemingly eager to enter the meat grinder up ahead. Raynor felt a surge of adrenaline as a ripper lurched out of a side street. Raynor brought the gauss rifle up and opened fire, knowing full well that the ensuing engagement would be more a matter of luck than skill since the two of them were evenly matched.
And Raynor was correct, because the 8mm spike that killed the Kel-Morian wasn’t fired by Raynor. It was a ricochet that hit the plascrete in front of the enemy soldier, bounced upward, and punched its way through a weak spot in the jury-rigged armor into his helmet.
Raynor stepped over the armored body and followed Sanchez up the blood-splashed street. Resocialized marines were all around them as a Kel-Morian goliath emerged from a parking garage to confront them. But the towering machine was transformed into bloody sleet as Ward fired the rest of his missiles at the walker and it exploded.
Raynor felt pieces of the monster’s neosteel skin rattle against the back of his hardskin as the Devils followed Sanchez into what had been a department store. They walked parallel to the sidewalk. The front of the building gave the Devils some momentary cover as two squads of marines charged straight up the middle of the street and were cut to bloody ribbons.
Raynor caught only glimpses of the slaughter through the store’s blown-out windows, but the sight of it made him feel sick to his stomach. It had become clear that if it weren’t for the resocs’ mindless self-sacrifice, the assault would have stalled by then. The resocs were like robots who would take chances that regular troops wouldn’t, charge no matter what the odds against them were, and die without complaint.
It was a moment he would never forget as the Devils were forced to leave the relative safety of the store through a window and reenter the street in front of a barricade. The KMs had made use of overturned vehicles, ribbon wire, and anything else they could lay their hands on to block the entire width of the street. About two dozen Kel-Morian regulars were concealed behind the obstacle, hosing the street with automatic fire, as both the marines and the Devils pounded their fortification.
But there were gaps between the cars, and holes in between the sheets of metal that bridged them, so Sanchez called Harnack forward. “See that gap?” she demanded. “The one next to the bus? Light ’em up.”