Samuel and Mag broke left while Patrick and Bianca broke right, each pair seeking to engage the defenders that held the container hardpoints. Samuel fired several rounds through the leg of a female Helion trooper who darted out and attempted to flank the marines and then Mag put a round through the woman’s faceplate.
Rushing up the staircase behind the container as Mag covered him from below, the marine stopped just before the top of the stairs and pitched a frag grenade over his head. As expected, a cry of surprise went up from the defenders and one of them attempted to rush down the stairs, only to be riddled with bullets and fall over the side of the stairs as Samuel squeezed the trigger. The grenade exploded and sent pieces of at least one more trooper flying in multiple directions.
He low crawled to the top of the stairs just to make sure there weren’t any troopers left. As he surveyed the grisly remains, he saw the wargir standing on the top of the next container over. The mercenary had slain the defenders and was hurling rail gun rounds into an alleyway that led into the colony. Return fire pinged off of his armor finally forcing him to leap off of the container to the ground. As Samuel watched the mercenary kept firing, charging into the alley and out of sight.
“Hyst, get back down here, we need to start taking and holding urban ground!” shouted Mag as she, Bianca, Patrick, and Ben converged on the alley that was nearest them. “We need to get in tight where we’re comfortable. Reapers aren’t meant for war on open ground.”
Samuel hurried back down the stairs and joined the squad as Mag led them into the colony. They emerged from the alley to see the mercenary gunning down several more Helion troopers before leaping back into cover. More troopers began firing on him from behind a barricade they’d built to bisect the small colony’s main street.
The barricade was made out of the burned out shells of what appeared to be civilian transport vehicles and irregular scraps of flak board that had been left from the primary wall construction. The marines emerged from the alley and began firing on the barricade. Mag hurled a frag grenade that rocked the barricade and displaced one of the vehicles enough that someone could fit through it.
The wargir had apparently noticed the gap because he began sprinting for it, much faster than humanely possible thanks to the servos in his dropsuit. The marines continued to give cover fire as the mercenary reached the gap and disappeared behind it. The whir of his rail gun could be heard as Mag gestured for Samuel and Bianca to back him up. The two marines leapt through the gap and saw that the mercenary had already shot down three of the troopers. His rail gun had finally gone dry, but instead of reloading, he slung it over his back and drew a pistol from his hip holster.
Bianca shouted and began firing at a trooper who was taking aim at Samuel from inside the window of a burned out hab-block, though before she could drill a hole in the trooper’s throat with her bullet, the attacker managed to get a clean shot at Samuel. The marine went down spinning as the round struck his helmet. The only reason it didn’t core his skull was that Bianca’s scream had made him turn at the last instant. Thanks to that, what would have been a direct kill shot had become a glancing blow. Samuel blacked out for a few seconds, but came to as he saw Bianca standing over him, continuing to fire at other targets. He could hear the bark of the wargir’s pistol and got shakily to his feet as the marine and the mercenary finished off the enemies in their immediate area.
“Let’s get some height! Samuel and Ben take that hab-block and get me eyes on the rest of this colony!” ordered Mag as she and the rest of the squad came through the gap. “Patrick and Bianca on me. We’re going to make sure nobody comes up behind our boys.”
Samuel and Ben rushed towards the hab-block only to be beaten there by the wargir, now carrying his freshly reloaded rail gun. The wargir took point and blasted a trooper who had been hiding in the ruins, apparently afraid to join in the fighting, but unable to escape.
Samuel was taken aback for a moment at how swiftly and effortlessly the mercenary had eliminated the man. It was likely any one of the mercenaries would have done the same. The speed at which the merc weighed the man’s life was astonishing. The wargir took more small arms fire as he reached the second floor, and with Samuel’s help the two of them gunned down another trooper who looked to have been attempting to assemble a mortar launcher.
The two marines and the elite managed to reach the top of the four-story building without any additional resistance. As they took up observation positions on the rooftop they were indeed able to see the unfolding battle as a complete tableau. The combat speeders still circled the colony, though they had, for the most part, ceased firing on the enemy positions, as they were now mostly overrun.
The Helion battle tank was a smoking wreck, apparently torn apart by a series of explosive devices placed across its side. There was some fighting in the streets as marines and elites moved through the colony, though not nearly as much resistance as Samuel would have thought. From the look on Ben’s face it seemed as if he agreed.
“Something is not right,” muttered the wargir as he tapped his com-bead, “This should have been a harder fight.”
Samuel could see the wreckage of one other combat speeder and wondered if it had disgorged its soldiers before being shot down. Through the smoke and dust it did seem as if the assault smashed the defenses and routed the enemy much more swiftly and with fewer casualties than he would have imagined. That was when Ben tapped on Samuel’s shoulder and pointed. The wargir and the marines looked out as explosions of sand and dust shot skyward across the valley floor. Helion elite troopers, positioned in portable launch tubes buried in the sand dunes surrounding the colony burst from their hiding places and began firing on the Grotto forces as they sailed through the air. As the elites arched towards the colony, groups of Helion troopers erupted from within several of the, as yet, uncontested buildings and began retaking the colony.
Because the Grotto forces were thinly spread out and still heavily engaged across the colony, the Helion forces superior numbers and firepower turned what had seemed like an easy victory into an all-out melee in a matter of moments.
The wargir shouted a battle cry and took up a firing position that allowed him to spray rail rounds into an advancing squad of Helion troopers, managing to put three on the ground before their return fire drove him back into cover.
Ben rushed to the far right side of the wargir’s position to open up on the squad, felling another as the last trooper was driven into the first floor of the very building the marines held. More shooting came from inside and Samuel was positive that Mag and the others had eliminated the last trooper.
Samuel could see that as the Helion elites used their gravity dampeners to make landfall, the Grotto elites moved to intercept them on the other side of the barricades. The elites ripped into each other like armored titans as they ignored the marines and troopers around them, the lesser soldiers suddenly insignificant compared to the epic conflict of the elites.
Samuel reloaded his spent magazine and watched as the elites warred against each other, one peerless warrior finally pitted against worthy opponent.
The troopers and marines steered clear of the elite engagements on open ground and found themselves being drawn into more conventional firefights in the tight confines of the colony.
Three Helion elites made landfall near the hab-block, one on the roof adjacent and the others in the street below. Samuel saw the wargir with the horned helmet standing out in the open on the main street firing his heavy gun and tearing apart one of the enemy elites who landed in the street before being fragged himself by fire from the elite on the rooftop.