A loud explosion echoed out from the wall, men began screaming and ducking for cover as yet another bombardment hit the walls of Bastion. I started cursing, that was Janus’ position. Grabbing a marine by the front of his armor I started screaming orders at him, not caring exactly who he was.

“Get five men and head over to Janus, reinforce his position!” I shoved him, emphasizing the order before turning to Granit who was just shouting ‘Get some!” over and over while firing his weapons into the increasing number of enemies.

It had all started out just fine about three hours ago. Fernando had departed to begin taking the lightly manned settlements while they sent their forces to attack us here at Bastion. Shit had gone sideways when a Confederate Dropship squadron, five or so, entered the space above Mar Sara outside of Chimera’s Rage range. They had to have been sent ahead of time, or on some form of advanced route, I had no clue.

All I knew is that it brought with it a slew of Marines, some Siege Tanks to hammer my walls, each in enough numbers it was making things frightening. My own defenders only numbered about one-hundred and ten or so, not including Medic’s, SCV’s, and Civilians I’d been forced to arm and put on the wall when the enemy went from a thousand Militia with a few Condors and Marines to over two-thousand, Primarily Marines with fucking Siege Tanks.

We had been on the wall an hour, dealing with a defensive fight while waiting for The Orion to break into our airspace from orbit and provide much-needed support. The problem with that I had no idea if the Confederates had sent any air support ahead either. If I were lucky, we could mop this hell up soon before I lost more men.

Another blast as a Siege Tank scored a direct hit on my wall, just shy of anyone living, though bits of the wall had been sent flying at everyone around the blast area, a few going down screaming. I growled out another curse and popped my head up, firing a three-round burst at Marines that were trying to scale my walls. One went down with a bullet in his head while another was hit in the shoulder and the third in a leg. I hadn’t really aimed. The resounding sound of bullets whizzing by where my head had been when I fired was the prime reason for that as well.

Granit had the armor to mostly shrug off the standard fire, but even he went for cover under the hail of bullets we were facing. A scream came from beside me, I turned to see a woman fall down, a number of bullets had found their home in her chest cavity. I scooted to her quickly, trying to put pressure on her chest without crushing her. “MEDIC!!” I screamed, looking at the woman, her breath catching, and stuttering while tears streamed from her eyes. The fear of dying so palpable you could almost touch it. “Shhh, shh, helps on the way. Hold on for me, yea? Keep looking at me. Don’t focus on anything else, just me.” I said, an endless stream of those useless words people always say to the dying, even knowing nothing could be done.

She had begun wheezing at this point, looking at me with eyes too wide to be good. “I...d-don’t..” whatever she was going to say was cut off by a sudden shuddering and final exhalation of breath. “No, no no…” The light had fled her eyes, another dead. Fuck this god damned difficulty! I knew that this happened only because of that fucking bullshit and should have thought of it ahead of time.

I closed her eyes, then hauled my happy ass up to fire over the wall again, coming face to face with a Marine that had managed to scale the wall some. I put a bullet between his fucking eyes and used his armored body as a shield while unloading round after round into the mass below me, using multiple Burst Rounds to ensure more than one casualty as I did.

“Pierce! I need you down here ASAP!” I screamed into the com before throwing my improvised shield from the wall and ducking for cover before I could get hammered again.

“Look up, Sir.” Came his calm reply. Frustrated as all hell, I looked up. There was The Orion, coming in hot...too hot, what the fuck? “Pierce! What in the bloody Hell are you doing!?” He never answered me, instead he dove at the mass of enemies in The Orion looking for all the world like he intended to suicide the army to death.

At the last moment though, The Orion glowing molten red from the quick entry, he had the ship pull up just a mile from the ground while it disgorged the Automated Wraiths in a wave of flying death. “Everything was under control, Sir. Where is Nova?” That...was a very good question. I was about to answer my lack of knowledge when one of the Siege Tanks went up in flames. The explosive sound reaching all the way here, shortly after another went up, then the third and final one.

“I’m doing your job for you, Boys. Now finish it up!” She sounded tired and hurt. When the hell had she left the wall to go do that? Goddamnit! “Trenton! Janus!” both responded a moment later and I started dishing out more orders while my Wraiths rained unholy death down upon the shocked enemy below. “Trenton, take the Imperial Guard and go retrieve Nova, use the Condors to clear the path! Janus, on me! I want you relaying orders to all Captains as I say them. I want the Marauders unloading their entire payloads into them now! We don’t need to worry about the tanks anymore.”

An hour later and we were all back at the Command Center, the enemy forces had pulled back with massive losses. The Condors had just run them all over while Trenton and the Imperial Guard that had grown in number cut down the stragglers. Wraiths had simply destroyed all enemies that looked even remotely capable or to be in charge, with their Snipe. It still wasn’t enough, I knew they only fell back for the day.

Nova had taken two bullets in her little stunt, one to the stomach and the other to her leg. She was currently in the med bay, with Green. Trenton, Granit, Janus, and Pierce were with me in our conference room, Swann was also sitting in for the time being.

“We dealt them a blow, Sir. We also sustained heavy casualties though.” Was Janus’ response to a report. I asked him to elaborate on our own losses. It wasn’t pretty. Of the one-hundred and ten Marines, we had lost thirty. Of the fifty Medics, we’d lost ten, we had lost over seventy-nine civilians to the assault as well. One Marauder had gone down due to a malfunction in his grenade launcher. I’d just told Swann to locate that issue and kill it or he could be in that same suit. Yea, I was a bit pissed at the amount we lost. Realistically we were roughly four-hundred against a little over two-thousand and had come away with relatively low losses compared to them losing nearly half their force, almost all of them having been Marines. These were my people though, and each loss was a blow that only grew harder to bear.

I took in a breath, promising myself I’d put all their names on the monument when this hell was over. Knowing there would be more. “Solutions?” I said after the report had been finished. I needed plans, something, and these were the best mind to do it with. Duke would have been my main one in the end, but I needed him actively in Orbit to take out anything coming from above us. A good thing as well, because apparently, those Dropships had originally been thirty.

“Sir.” began Pierce. “We need to take the Civilians away from the wall. They are messing up our formations.” I nodded, saying done. I had brought them to the wall because of a general outcry to defend their home. Had I known about the Dropships beforehand they never would have been put in the line of fire. Hindsight is always 20/20 I murmured to myself.

“Other than that, I recommend we actively use the Condors in the next assault. Send them out and have them mow down the infantry. The Orion will stay in the air to provide air support where we can, by all reports they intend to wait for another wave of reinforcements and surround us though. We should probably send a few of our Ghosts to cause a little chaos.”

I thought about that a moment, Janus and Granit remaining silent, likely agreeing with Pierce. “Send the Ghosts, squads of four. How many do we have right now?” - “Five acting squads” - “Send them all. The Condors won’t be active in the next assault though. They will hit us harder now and I want to make them pay for it. Activate the Spider Drones, all of them. When they move in I want nothing but a fucking Charnel field below that wall. Janus, thoughts?”

“It’s sound, but I feel we should wait until the third wave. We would lose more men...but they would commit harder if they thought we were on our last leg.”

I looked at Janus, thinking he was insane. I vetoed that idea, stating that any more loss of life we might sustain needed to be cut to its lowest number. He’d nodded his assent, though he seemed to dislike it. “Granit?”

“Well Boss, I ain’t got the mind for all this but I reckon we should go ahead and add a little more pain where we can. Load those Ghosts up with some of them Condor Grenades, place ‘em in their camp and watch the fireworks.”

I blinked at that, looking to Swann. “Do we have any to spare?” He grunted at me. “We do, but only a few. I want to keep the COndors stocked up in case they manage to make us use them sooner than you plan.”

“Alright, get each team two Grenades from the Condors.” I rubbed my eyes, feeling a bit tired. “Have the men on the wall enter resting shifts, get the Medic team on full activity though...Have Green start handing out Stimpacks as well. Her improved version. I have a feeling we are going to need them. Dismissed.”

No sooner had I dismissed my impromptu war council though than Duke came across the orbital com unit. His deep Southern drawl showing the urgency of the situation he was about to face.

“Sir, we have multiple incoming. My sensors count five Battlecruisers, ten squadrons of Wraiths, and a slew of Dropships. I need The Orion to provide cover from those Wraiths, their numbers are growing as well.” Mother fucker!

“Pierce, get up in the air and support Duke, send the Ghost teams out before you leave. MOVE!” He took off at a run before I whipped around toward Janus. “Spider Mines active, now! Granit, get all your Marauders on the wall and get ready. Trenton! I want the Imperial Guard patrolling the settlement in case any of these bastards land inside the walls. Martial Law enacted, all Civilians are to get indoors and stay there. After those mines are active I want you leading our forces on the wall, Janus. Condors are to be used as a last resort if the mines falter.”

I took a breath, watching them run off to do what they had to do. “Swann, I need you to do something before you start on the Marauder problem. I need you to rig up a projectile bomb, I need the yield to be about the same as a Nuke. We can’t afford to have our skies taken, and this will ensure it.”

“Are you insane Scooter?” I laughed a bit before responding. “Likely, but I want it as a backup, just in case. Duke has the Liberator so I can’t use it for our defense in the air. This is our ace, a bad one, but ours.”

When he left the room, I got moving as well. I needed to be on that wall and ready for anything that might come. I’d fucked up a bit, thinking it would be simple. I should have known better, I should have learned. I’d beat myself up for this shit alter though, for now...for now I had a battle to win.

System Announcement!

Congratulations Player! Your Hero Unit: Lieutenant Fernando has captured the Settlement, Vection, and placed it under your control. All resources have become yours, all Civilian personnel has changed allegiance from the Confederacy toward your own Faction.

Attention Player! With the conquest of a settlement, you have earned the right to form your own Faction within the Game Universe. Please name your Faction now.