With his head stuck, he couldn’t see anything behind him, but his armor’s sensors told him that the enemy was firing into his back. The weapons fire did little damage, but Dstrat knew that his battle armor—weakened from the explosion—wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer. He raised both of his arms and slammed the turrets there into the wall, breaking it and freeing his head. He turned and was met with another form flying towards his head. Instinctively, he pointed his plasma turret and fired, blowing a hole in the main body of the creature. Then he tried to shake off the one on his back, but because of the constraints of his armor, he couldn’t do anything.
As the tool-soldier kept firing its energy weapon into his back, Dstrat could see his armor’s integrity falling, the nanites furiously trying to repair the damage and failing as it accumulated. More shapes started entering the room from the hole he’d made in the wall when he’d crashed through. Not seeing any way out, he slammed his back into the wall, hoping to at least pin the enemy on his back and prevent it from firing. Then he pointed his turrets at the incoming enemies and started firing. Plasma bolts burned through them whenever they hit, just as the enemies fired their own energy weapons from the turrets mounted on their backs.
Eventually, the enemy on his back managed to free two of its seven limbs and wrap them around his right-hand turret. With ungodly strength, it pulled his damaged arm and moved his turret off his targets. Dstrat kept firing with his left, but it wasn’t enough to halt the tide that was crashing on him. Two new tool-soldiers entered the room, moving incredibly fast and wearing heavier suits than the rest. They came straight at him, evading his plasma bolts and slamming into him with such force that he could feel his armor crush and kill the tool-soldier on his back. They gripped and immobilized him with the metallic claw-like attachments on four of their limbs. Then one of them raised two of its limbs, and the sharpened spike endings on them started glowing red.
Dstrat barely had the chance to notice the sensors on his HUD register the increase of heat from them as they came down on his chest, biting into the armor. Completely disarmed and at their mercy, Dstrat could only watch in horror as the enemy started ripping his armor open.
As they reached his flesh, he could feel the heat on his body. But the enemy had stopped his attack. Dstrat watched in confusion, wondering what was happening, when he noticed another shape entering the room. It was tall, and walked/slithered on three tentacle-like legs. It had three arms, with the two placed similarly as those of humans or Nel, but the third one hung above its elongated head that was encased in a helmet. Immediately, Dstrat recognized the shape of his true enemy, the ones who had been moving through the shadows for centuries—the Sowir. It was wearing a suit, so he couldn’t see its eyes, but he felt it studying him.
The Sowir looked at him for a moment, and then it turned around and left. Then he felt the scorching heat and pain as the limb plunged downwards through the hole it had made in the layers of his armor and pierced through his heart, then nothing.
Mira raised her left turret and fired even as her mech staggered under the massive explosion from the building on her right. A hail of bullets shredded through the approaching enemy troops. Her mech smashed with its side into the roof of the building on her left, but Mira managed to right herself and regain balance. She targeted the enemy with her shoulder-mounted laser and unleashed a devastating storm of heat and light, burning scores of the enemy troops in seconds.
The enemy was firing with their energy weapons, choosing to focus on the front of her formation. Their energy beams hit her tanks, with varying degrees of success, as a few of the tanks had had their field integrity compromised by the debris from the building that had exploded. But quickly they recovered, and the enemy fire became ineffective again.
Her tanks returned fire with their turrets, destroying buildings and the enemy positions with ease. Seeing that their attack had failed, the enemy quickly retreated, a clear indication that there was a Sowir present. Quickly, Mira issued orders for her force’s lighter units—battle armors and heavy infantry—to follow, find, and eliminate the Sowir that was guiding this force.
Then her comms and battle map started flashing, with reports of a Sowir counterattack. They had lost contact with three squads, and seven others were reporting casualties and injured. The reports were indicating massive Sowir tool-soldiers numbers that threatened to overwhelm her troops. Mira glanced to her battle map and the location of the Sowir anti-orbital weapons. She ordered the majority of her troops to find defensible positions and to hunker down, and then ordered her small force forward towards the anti-orbitals.
Her tanks and mechs moved quickly through the streets, ignoring any attempt by the Sowir to ambush them and draw them into a fight. Her tanks cleared barricades placed in front of them and fired in passing on any Sowir troop positions in their way. As they drew near their target, the number of Sowir troops increased, but still they didn’t have anything that could seriously threaten Mira’s force. The Sowir, like all of the other races of the Consortium, had never really had a land war where they fought against someone that was their equal. They’d never had the need to develop technology and weapons for anything more than police force. And the Sowir had defeated the other races in the Consortium by using overwhelming numbers and treachery.
Mira targeted the Sowir tool-soldiers between her force and the anti-orbital facilities, firing her laser into their barricades, melting the defenses and killing the enemy. Her other mechs pushed forward and destroyed the gates of the facilities allowing her tanks inside. Seven anti-orbital turrets were placed at the corners of the large wall-enclosed facility. She ordered her force to proceed and destroy them, just as she settled her mech and targeted one closest to her. Bolts slammed from her mech’s legs into the ground anchoring her as the Gauss cannon from her back rose and settled over her shoulder. As it powered up, she targeted the base of the turret, and then fired. The night turned to day as a white streak of fire and metal erupted out of the electromagnetic coils of her mech’s turret. The projectile hit its target and blew a hole through it.
A few moments later, an explosion rocked the turret and sent it into the air in a cloud of red. She was about to turn and target the next one when something entered the courtyard from the other side. It was a vehicle of some kind, with turrets mounted on it. It fired as it moved, its energy beams bathing Mira’s mech and dissipating as they were met with its shimmering field. Mira turned her right arm and fired with her 30mm rotary cannon, and watched as the bullets shredded its armor. A few moments later, it stopped dead, its weapons no longer firing.
Mira looked around and saw fire and destruction; dead Sowir tool-soldiers lay down on the ground in hordes. The remaining anti-orbital cannons were crumbling under the combined fire of her mechs and tanks. Seeing the last one fall, Mira opened a channel to the base.
“The anti-orbital weapons are down. Requesting immediate reinforcements,” Mira said.
“The reinforcements are on their way, ETA twenty-four minutes,” Force Commander Mao said over the comm.
Mira glanced at her battle map, seeing the numbers her people were relaying back at her. The Sowir were pushing hard, and there had been reports of them taking to field and controlling their tool-soldiers directly. And her troops were taking casualties, even though they were now defending.
Mira started giving orders for her force to reinforce their defensive positions inside the courtyard as they waited for the reinforcements.
There were a lot more Sowir tool-soldiers than they had anticipated, certainly more than what had been in the troop ships. Either they had a lot more troops available to them than the Empire had previously believed, or they had pulled some of their underground troops to the surface. But ultimately, their numbers would mean nothing belowground in the tunnels of Guxaxac, where most of the fighting would take place. The Empire’s superior technology would prevail, as now the Sowir didn’t have near unlimited troops to draw on. The rest of their Dominion would be far too busy to send reinforcements.