06-20-2014, 05:47 PM
Legionnaires' Sanna and Smit were the last of their squad. They had been on the convoy's western flank, and had been prevented from crossing the highway and onto the airport grounds with the others when they had found themselves pressed too heavily. The insurgents had sought to catch the convoy crossing the open highway and sought to sweep around the Legion's flanks, and so they had dug in their heels and refused to budge.
The two South African men were both wounded; Sanna had lost fingers on his left hand to a lucky bullet that had wrecked his rifle, while Smit's neck was swaddled in bloody bandages.
They darted through an alley, Sanna's last hand grenade lobbed in their wake. Three of the extremist fools gave chase; teenage boys at most, eager to prove themselves and lost to the adrenaline of their first real fight, they ignored the warnings of their elders and leapt over the bullet-riddled car the two Legionnaires had been using as cover.
Their sandled feet hit the ground and they bore their AK74s at the hip, but none got a shot off as the grenade detonated. Their wrecked bodies were tossed aside, and others soon followed.
"This way, brother!"
Sanna shouldered open the door to a closed shop, and Smit staggered through, his rifle tucked into his shoulder gingerly, trying not to disturb the bloody bandages around his neck. The bleeding had stopped, at least for the moment, but he had no delusions that it would stay that way.
Sanna paused in the open doorway to look back the way they had come, his pistol clutched in tired fingers. A man, then another, ran into the open street from the alley. Neither spotted Sanna as he eased the door shut, and he and Smit made their way deeper into the building.
The pair glanced north, and saw markers on their Landwarriors, the widening line that signaled the final stand of their brothers there. Barely five hundred meters away, and unreachable.
"Roof?"
Smit nodded towards the stairs that would lead up to the second floor. From there, there was certain to be some sort of roof access. These sorts of places loved roof top gardens and break areas.
"Roof."
Sanna lead the way, his pistol at the ready, and Smit kept his rifle trained on the door just in case. Minutes later they pushed open the storm door at the top of another staircase, and stepped into the night air.
VTOLs could be seen landing to the north; they had a near unobstructed view of the airport from where they stood. And then all hell broke loose...explosions tore apart the highway and crushed the enemy as they surged into the open, eager to catch the Legion before it could fully dig in.
"Artillery!"
The pair dropped to the rooftop.
-----
Caporal Novax, an Angolan man, ran with two other Legionnaires, carrying a dismantled .50 machinegun towards one of the newly opened craters. They would hold the east-most flank, and be the first tasked to cover the approach of the CCD convoy coming from the east. The occasional puff of dust and bounce of dirt marked the sporadic fire they were receiving from the buildings to the south; the enemy was starting to arrive.
They slid down into the crater amidst their exhausted brothers of the assault group, and shouted a few eager greetings as they laboured the heavy machinegun up the other side of the pit, where two of their brothers worked with entrenching tools, reading a lip for them to fire from.
"RPG!"
One of the exhausted men barked a warning and they all glanced towards the direction he indicated. Then, as one, they let out black-humoured laughs. Fired from over a kilometer away, the warhead self-detonated hundreds of meters shy of the Legion line.
"Get that gun ready!"
Caporal Novax stepped back as his team set the weapon up, surveying their position and their fields of fire. It was almost perfect, save for the guard rail and abandoned vehicles on the highway, of course. His gaze soon levelled on a man walking towards the center of their line, a few CCD soldiers lingering nearby. "What the hell is that fool..."
And then all hell broke loose. The earth tore and rippled as the man raised his arms. Snakes of fire traced from the man's hand, like a steady stream of tracer fire being walked across a target, and they lashed at the building faces and through a group of extremists that had sought to hit the Legion line before it was fully set.
"Artillery!"
The same Legionnaire barked the warning, but Novak didn't move, and as the others caught on to where he was looking, the others too paused in their actions, watching the horrors a lone man seemed to be unleashing. "Magic...?"
-----
Capitaine Hennings, an Egyptian man of British heritage, and commander of the assault group, stood in the open at the center of the forming line. His hands were clasped lightly behind his back as he observed the movement of his men, and he stood unflinching as the cratering charges opened up the earth, giving them the fighting positions they would need in the coming engagement.
The bus arrived with his heavy weapon teams, and he offered them a bold grin as they pounded earth towards their positions, "Last to the fight lads? Glad to have you."
His tone was teasing, but they all were of the same understanding; none would be leaving, and the men of the fire-base team had volunteered to join their brothers in this task.
The men laughed and ran faster to their positions; it was readily evident that they were going to be under heavy pressure in very short order, and the faster those .50s were set, the better they would fare in the coming hours.
Hennings ignored a few puffs of earth that landed near him; the enemy weren't actually firing at him. They could barely see him in the dark. Those rounds had been meant for the men gathering at the craters, and had been aimed too high.
His gaze settled on a man walking towards the center of the Legion line, a few CCD soldiers straggling a distance behind him. They seemed uncertain. It took a moment for Hennings to recognize the man; one of the VIPs from the hospital. He moved to bark an order to the CCD soldiers to collect their officer and get him off the field, when all hell broke loose.
The man, Vellas wasn't it? raised his arms and lances of flame shot forth. The earth buckled as if great snakes burrowed beneath the surface, and explosions tore through the abandoned cars on the highway. A group of enemies were cut short by one of those streamers of fire, their screams barely heard over the roar of tearing earth.
-----
The convoy of APCs and vehicles from the prison rolled through the explosions and fires that Michael unleashed. They knew nothing of the devastation's origin, and their minds sought the most likely of answers; artillery, was the only thing that could have caused so much damage. Perhaps the situation was not as bad as their officers had made them seem?
They rumbled through the breach the Legionnaires had opened, filled in now by Michael's workings, and soon rolled through the Legion line. The men of the CCD convoy understood nothing of the Legion's goal, dug in as they were, and spared the mercenaries little heed as they rumbled past. It was no longer a suicide mission if they had artillery cover, after all.
The last vehicle was flagged down by some dismounted CCD soldiers, and soon Michael was ushered within and carried towards the waiting VTOLs. The artillery fire had ended after a sudden, terrifying crescendo, and yet the enemy still surged forwards, once confident the horror was done.
Those moments of silence were quickly filled by the bark of Legion guns. The .50s opened up as the enemy surged forwards.
-----
Caporal Novax knelt at the grips of his .50. One of his men fed a belt of ammo into the firing mechanism as the Caporal calmly walked the withering hail of fire across the face of a building that still stood across the highway.
His third man lay dead at the bottom of the crater, much of his face gone to a sniper's bullet, the .50's spare barrel laying somewhere down there with him.
Other Legionnaires lay at the lip of the crater, their rifles trained on the enemy as they ran and staggered across the torn earth. So long as their ammo held out, the Legion would hold.
-----
Capitaine Hennings stood now in the center-most crater, just far enough it's edge to over-see the battle. His pistol was still holstered at his side, and he leaned forward on one knee to keep a low profile. He wore a white kepi rather then a helmet, which helped him stand out among his men. It meant little in a tactical sense, but the visual of their officer in the thick of things with them bolstered the men's resolve. Not that it needed it.
VTOLs were lifting off in the background, and status updates from the CEO and his command team indicated things were going well there. Another hour, and it would be over.
He glanced down at one of his men as the man slid down from the lip and onto his back, fighting out a mag from one of his pouches. "How many left, lad?"
"Hoping no more then 30, Sar! All I've got left."
He slapped in what was revealed to be his last magazine, then crawled back up to the lip of the crater, and resumed firing.
-----
Sanna and Smit still held their roof top. The pair had taken a moment to address their wounds, using the artillery barrage to their advantage. Freshly bandaged, the last of their water drank and their weapons taken stock of, they crawled to the edge of the roof and peered over.
Hundreds of enemy fighters were rushing through the torn field that had been a highway, and into the hail of fire their brothers lashed against them.
Their Landwarriors flashed warning markers; suspected sniper positions in the buildings flanking their position. One was strikingly close; a building immediately adjacent the roof they occupied. A few floors taller. .50 fire and tracers slammed into the building in a short burst to further mark the suspected position.
"Capitaine Henning! Legionnaire Premier Classe Sanna and Smit. Quatrieme Peletoon, Cinquième equipe! We are in position to alleviate you of those snipers. Moving now."
The pair shared a glance, grinned, then charged the offending building.
They leaped the narrow alley and crashed through a pair of windows, finding themselves in another office room, empty and dark. Above could be heart the tell-tale bark of high-calibre rifles. Individual, determined shots, and the constant inane babble of heretics and extremists praising a god they had no understanding of.
The two men moved to the hallway, and quickly found the stairwell leading further up the building, but were paused along the way by the sound of sandled feet on the stairs approaching from below.
They slunk back into the shadows, and Smit calmly seated his bayonet on his rifle while Sanna holstered his pistol and drew his combat knife. From the sounds of it, there were only two...maybe three men running up the steps.
A few moments later and they were greeted with the sight of three young men rounding the landing and running up to the floor Sanna and Smit were hiding on. They carried a man-portable anti-air launcher, and an old ammo-can of rounds for the snipers above. The two Legionnaires moved as one, unified thanks to their Landwarriors.
They came out of the darkness, knives flashing, and the lead two men died quickly. The third let out a terrified scream, revealing himself to be no more then an older boy; twelve, maybe thirteen years. But the boy dropped the heavy metal can of bullets and staggered back on the steps, struggling to get the AK74 slung on his back into his hands.
Sanna stepped towards the boy quickly, but the lad let out another scream and stumbled on the steps, falling back. He hit the concrete steps hard, the barrel of his rifle digging into the back of his head, and the screaming ended with an awkwardly splayed body at the lower landing.
The pair shared a glance and grabbed the MPAD before continuing up the steps.
-----
The situation was turning grim quickly. Ammo was running short, and the enemy drew steadily closer. Capitaine Hennings knelt now closer to the lip of the crater, pistol extended and taking careful, deliberate shots at the enemy. They were close enough now that he was able to reliably land his shots. Very grim.
The handful of Legionnaires with him in the crater had fixed bayonets and dolled out what last few magazines of rifle ammo they had left. One man stood suddenly, and expended three rounds in quick succession on a pair of hostiles. Then his bolt slammed forwards on an empty chamber and he threw his weapon down before clambering out of the crater and towards the enemy at a low, lumbering run.
"Soldier! What are you...!"
Hennings had grabbed for the man's ankle but missed him, then just shook his head and resumed firing. The lone Legionnaire dove to a crawl and moved forwards a bit further, unnoticed by the enemy at least for the moment.
The man's intent quickly became clear, as he reached the nearest of the dead enemy, and began pawing over the men's bodies, pulling away their rifles, emptying pockets for magazines. And then he came crawling back like a mad man, tossing the weapons and ammo the last few meters before an enemy sniper spelled his end.
Legionnaires with no rounds left grabbed the AK74s and banana-clips, and quickly resumed firing. It wasn't much, but at least it was something.
-----
Novax dragged the .50 down from the lip of the crater. The last of the ammo had been expended, and now it was just in their way. He slid down the edge of the crater a bit as he threw the weapon out of his way, and in that moment an RPG struck the earth near where he had been. His loader let out a scream of pain and fell past Novak, his face a wreck of blood and bone as he fell amidst the dead already at the bottom of the hole.
Novax dropped the rest of the way to his comrade, "Calm lad, calm!"
The young Legionnaire grabbed at Novax' hands desperately, but could only answer with a gurgling rumble. His jaw had been shattered, and blood pumped freely from the wound. One of his hands let go of Novax and patted around his chest, going for his magazine pouches where two full mags still rested.
"I see them lad, I see them."
He pulled them free as the man spasmed one last time and went limp. The magazines were tossed up to the men still manning the edge of the crater.
-----
Sanna and Smit reached the top floor and the source of the sniper fire, drawn by the steady bark of the Dragunovs. They burst into a north-facing room and were met by the sight of two old men laying on the floor and firing through broken windows at the Legionnaires below. Their movements were practiced and calm, especially as the Legion's .50s fell silent below.
Neither glanced back as the two Legionnaires came into the room, and a quick glance revealed that the old fighters were alone. The two dropped the MPAD on a table and walked forward. Two pistol shots ended the pair, and one of their rifles were tossed from the window.
They dragged the MPAD forward and aimed it to the ground below, at the throng of enemy fighters rushing the Legion line, and fired the missile straight down, and grinned as the missile detonated. Such weapons were designed to draw near a target then detonate in a cloud of fast moving shrapnel, and it did it's job well, sending a score of rebels to their deaths.
Smit knelt on one of the Dragunovs then, and began firing into the backs of the enemy as they ran at the Legion line, which was visibly buckling under the enemy's pressure.
Smit and Sanna were dead minutes later. More enemies rushed up the building once it became obvious the sniper nest had been taken.
-----
"Frag out!"
Novax and the few remaining Legionnaires threw their frag grenades out from the lip of the crater. The enemy was nearly on them; close enough that the hand grenades would find their mark, and without any ammo left, it was just a matter of time now.
The grenades detonated, and then more extremists surged through. A molotov splashed across the back of the crater, thrown too far by the charging enemy, and then the fastest runners were impaled on Legion bayonets. Their bodies were flung to the side by practiced motions, and the next in met the same fate.
And then it turned back into a shooting fight; the enemy stopped short and raised their rifles to fire, and the Legionnaires ran forward with a defiant roar. Weapons fired, men screamed and died, and the east-most crater was lost.
-----
The last of the VTOLs had taken off minutes ago, but the CEO's jet was still taxi'ing on the runway, readying to take off. The grey marker that indicated Legionnaire Sanna fell from the seventh floor of a building, and Henning spared the lost pair a moment's remembrance before turning back to the task at hand.
The enemy were like an explosion; they followed the path of least resistance, and as the east flank fell they began to shift their attention that way, eager to sweep around the Legion line and reach the runway, hoping to find easier prey there.
The battle was over. There was nothing left for them to do but to die well now. Hennings flashed an aggressive smile and stepped out of the crater, pistol and bayonet in hand, "Fix bayonets! Charge!"
The command was relayed to all the remaining Legionnaires. They would go out in one last push.
Hennings held his pistol to the fore in one hand, knife hand in the small of his back. The old whistle his grandfather had given him now rested between gritted teeth and he gave it a great blow, and saw his men grin in bitter humour as they surged forward.
His pistol barked twice more, the last of his ammo expended, and then he was running forward with them. Many were cut down before they reached the surprised rebels fore-most line. And then the blood flowed.
The Legionnaires were far better skilled in fighting then the extremist shits. They were civilians turned holy warriors. Even exhausted as they were, the Legionnaires still had reserves of determination to pull on. It took a special kind of mind to make a good soldier, and that separated them from the common civilians.
But numbers won the day. The Legionnaires' charge soon faltered, and came to a stop. They died to weapons fire, or were dragged down by pairs of groups of rebels. Capitaine Hennings was a dervish on the field; his pistol cracked the jaw of one of the heretics. His bayonet opened another's throat. He shouldered a third to the earth, stomping on the man's crotch before lunging forward to drive his bayonet into a fourth's gut.
Then his leg gave out and he dropped to his knees. Pain exploded across the side of his face as an enemy kicked him. A moment of clarity allowed him to grab that man's leg before he could pull away, and Henning's bayonet found it's mark in the bastards' thigh, opening an artery.
Another gunshot and Hennings finally dropped.
Rebels surged across the broken Legion line towards the airport to find themselves robbed. Fires raged across the field of taxi'd planes that would never take off again. The abandoned vehicles burned too. Anything they sought to salvage was destroyed, and they found none alive. Hundreds of CCD civilians and soldiers had escaped from right under their noses.
The two South African men were both wounded; Sanna had lost fingers on his left hand to a lucky bullet that had wrecked his rifle, while Smit's neck was swaddled in bloody bandages.
They darted through an alley, Sanna's last hand grenade lobbed in their wake. Three of the extremist fools gave chase; teenage boys at most, eager to prove themselves and lost to the adrenaline of their first real fight, they ignored the warnings of their elders and leapt over the bullet-riddled car the two Legionnaires had been using as cover.
Their sandled feet hit the ground and they bore their AK74s at the hip, but none got a shot off as the grenade detonated. Their wrecked bodies were tossed aside, and others soon followed.
"This way, brother!"
Sanna shouldered open the door to a closed shop, and Smit staggered through, his rifle tucked into his shoulder gingerly, trying not to disturb the bloody bandages around his neck. The bleeding had stopped, at least for the moment, but he had no delusions that it would stay that way.
Sanna paused in the open doorway to look back the way they had come, his pistol clutched in tired fingers. A man, then another, ran into the open street from the alley. Neither spotted Sanna as he eased the door shut, and he and Smit made their way deeper into the building.
The pair glanced north, and saw markers on their Landwarriors, the widening line that signaled the final stand of their brothers there. Barely five hundred meters away, and unreachable.
"Roof?"
Smit nodded towards the stairs that would lead up to the second floor. From there, there was certain to be some sort of roof access. These sorts of places loved roof top gardens and break areas.
"Roof."
Sanna lead the way, his pistol at the ready, and Smit kept his rifle trained on the door just in case. Minutes later they pushed open the storm door at the top of another staircase, and stepped into the night air.
VTOLs could be seen landing to the north; they had a near unobstructed view of the airport from where they stood. And then all hell broke loose...explosions tore apart the highway and crushed the enemy as they surged into the open, eager to catch the Legion before it could fully dig in.
"Artillery!"
The pair dropped to the rooftop.
-----
Caporal Novax, an Angolan man, ran with two other Legionnaires, carrying a dismantled .50 machinegun towards one of the newly opened craters. They would hold the east-most flank, and be the first tasked to cover the approach of the CCD convoy coming from the east. The occasional puff of dust and bounce of dirt marked the sporadic fire they were receiving from the buildings to the south; the enemy was starting to arrive.
They slid down into the crater amidst their exhausted brothers of the assault group, and shouted a few eager greetings as they laboured the heavy machinegun up the other side of the pit, where two of their brothers worked with entrenching tools, reading a lip for them to fire from.
"RPG!"
One of the exhausted men barked a warning and they all glanced towards the direction he indicated. Then, as one, they let out black-humoured laughs. Fired from over a kilometer away, the warhead self-detonated hundreds of meters shy of the Legion line.
"Get that gun ready!"
Caporal Novax stepped back as his team set the weapon up, surveying their position and their fields of fire. It was almost perfect, save for the guard rail and abandoned vehicles on the highway, of course. His gaze soon levelled on a man walking towards the center of their line, a few CCD soldiers lingering nearby. "What the hell is that fool..."
And then all hell broke loose. The earth tore and rippled as the man raised his arms. Snakes of fire traced from the man's hand, like a steady stream of tracer fire being walked across a target, and they lashed at the building faces and through a group of extremists that had sought to hit the Legion line before it was fully set.
"Artillery!"
The same Legionnaire barked the warning, but Novak didn't move, and as the others caught on to where he was looking, the others too paused in their actions, watching the horrors a lone man seemed to be unleashing. "Magic...?"
-----
Capitaine Hennings, an Egyptian man of British heritage, and commander of the assault group, stood in the open at the center of the forming line. His hands were clasped lightly behind his back as he observed the movement of his men, and he stood unflinching as the cratering charges opened up the earth, giving them the fighting positions they would need in the coming engagement.
The bus arrived with his heavy weapon teams, and he offered them a bold grin as they pounded earth towards their positions, "Last to the fight lads? Glad to have you."
His tone was teasing, but they all were of the same understanding; none would be leaving, and the men of the fire-base team had volunteered to join their brothers in this task.
The men laughed and ran faster to their positions; it was readily evident that they were going to be under heavy pressure in very short order, and the faster those .50s were set, the better they would fare in the coming hours.
Hennings ignored a few puffs of earth that landed near him; the enemy weren't actually firing at him. They could barely see him in the dark. Those rounds had been meant for the men gathering at the craters, and had been aimed too high.
His gaze settled on a man walking towards the center of the Legion line, a few CCD soldiers straggling a distance behind him. They seemed uncertain. It took a moment for Hennings to recognize the man; one of the VIPs from the hospital. He moved to bark an order to the CCD soldiers to collect their officer and get him off the field, when all hell broke loose.
The man, Vellas wasn't it? raised his arms and lances of flame shot forth. The earth buckled as if great snakes burrowed beneath the surface, and explosions tore through the abandoned cars on the highway. A group of enemies were cut short by one of those streamers of fire, their screams barely heard over the roar of tearing earth.
-----
The convoy of APCs and vehicles from the prison rolled through the explosions and fires that Michael unleashed. They knew nothing of the devastation's origin, and their minds sought the most likely of answers; artillery, was the only thing that could have caused so much damage. Perhaps the situation was not as bad as their officers had made them seem?
They rumbled through the breach the Legionnaires had opened, filled in now by Michael's workings, and soon rolled through the Legion line. The men of the CCD convoy understood nothing of the Legion's goal, dug in as they were, and spared the mercenaries little heed as they rumbled past. It was no longer a suicide mission if they had artillery cover, after all.
The last vehicle was flagged down by some dismounted CCD soldiers, and soon Michael was ushered within and carried towards the waiting VTOLs. The artillery fire had ended after a sudden, terrifying crescendo, and yet the enemy still surged forwards, once confident the horror was done.
Those moments of silence were quickly filled by the bark of Legion guns. The .50s opened up as the enemy surged forwards.
-----
Caporal Novax knelt at the grips of his .50. One of his men fed a belt of ammo into the firing mechanism as the Caporal calmly walked the withering hail of fire across the face of a building that still stood across the highway.
His third man lay dead at the bottom of the crater, much of his face gone to a sniper's bullet, the .50's spare barrel laying somewhere down there with him.
Other Legionnaires lay at the lip of the crater, their rifles trained on the enemy as they ran and staggered across the torn earth. So long as their ammo held out, the Legion would hold.
-----
Capitaine Hennings stood now in the center-most crater, just far enough it's edge to over-see the battle. His pistol was still holstered at his side, and he leaned forward on one knee to keep a low profile. He wore a white kepi rather then a helmet, which helped him stand out among his men. It meant little in a tactical sense, but the visual of their officer in the thick of things with them bolstered the men's resolve. Not that it needed it.
VTOLs were lifting off in the background, and status updates from the CEO and his command team indicated things were going well there. Another hour, and it would be over.
He glanced down at one of his men as the man slid down from the lip and onto his back, fighting out a mag from one of his pouches. "How many left, lad?"
"Hoping no more then 30, Sar! All I've got left."
He slapped in what was revealed to be his last magazine, then crawled back up to the lip of the crater, and resumed firing.
-----
Sanna and Smit still held their roof top. The pair had taken a moment to address their wounds, using the artillery barrage to their advantage. Freshly bandaged, the last of their water drank and their weapons taken stock of, they crawled to the edge of the roof and peered over.
Hundreds of enemy fighters were rushing through the torn field that had been a highway, and into the hail of fire their brothers lashed against them.
Their Landwarriors flashed warning markers; suspected sniper positions in the buildings flanking their position. One was strikingly close; a building immediately adjacent the roof they occupied. A few floors taller. .50 fire and tracers slammed into the building in a short burst to further mark the suspected position.
"Capitaine Henning! Legionnaire Premier Classe Sanna and Smit. Quatrieme Peletoon, Cinquième equipe! We are in position to alleviate you of those snipers. Moving now."
The pair shared a glance, grinned, then charged the offending building.
They leaped the narrow alley and crashed through a pair of windows, finding themselves in another office room, empty and dark. Above could be heart the tell-tale bark of high-calibre rifles. Individual, determined shots, and the constant inane babble of heretics and extremists praising a god they had no understanding of.
The two men moved to the hallway, and quickly found the stairwell leading further up the building, but were paused along the way by the sound of sandled feet on the stairs approaching from below.
They slunk back into the shadows, and Smit calmly seated his bayonet on his rifle while Sanna holstered his pistol and drew his combat knife. From the sounds of it, there were only two...maybe three men running up the steps.
A few moments later and they were greeted with the sight of three young men rounding the landing and running up to the floor Sanna and Smit were hiding on. They carried a man-portable anti-air launcher, and an old ammo-can of rounds for the snipers above. The two Legionnaires moved as one, unified thanks to their Landwarriors.
They came out of the darkness, knives flashing, and the lead two men died quickly. The third let out a terrified scream, revealing himself to be no more then an older boy; twelve, maybe thirteen years. But the boy dropped the heavy metal can of bullets and staggered back on the steps, struggling to get the AK74 slung on his back into his hands.
Sanna stepped towards the boy quickly, but the lad let out another scream and stumbled on the steps, falling back. He hit the concrete steps hard, the barrel of his rifle digging into the back of his head, and the screaming ended with an awkwardly splayed body at the lower landing.
The pair shared a glance and grabbed the MPAD before continuing up the steps.
-----
The situation was turning grim quickly. Ammo was running short, and the enemy drew steadily closer. Capitaine Hennings knelt now closer to the lip of the crater, pistol extended and taking careful, deliberate shots at the enemy. They were close enough now that he was able to reliably land his shots. Very grim.
The handful of Legionnaires with him in the crater had fixed bayonets and dolled out what last few magazines of rifle ammo they had left. One man stood suddenly, and expended three rounds in quick succession on a pair of hostiles. Then his bolt slammed forwards on an empty chamber and he threw his weapon down before clambering out of the crater and towards the enemy at a low, lumbering run.
"Soldier! What are you...!"
Hennings had grabbed for the man's ankle but missed him, then just shook his head and resumed firing. The lone Legionnaire dove to a crawl and moved forwards a bit further, unnoticed by the enemy at least for the moment.
The man's intent quickly became clear, as he reached the nearest of the dead enemy, and began pawing over the men's bodies, pulling away their rifles, emptying pockets for magazines. And then he came crawling back like a mad man, tossing the weapons and ammo the last few meters before an enemy sniper spelled his end.
Legionnaires with no rounds left grabbed the AK74s and banana-clips, and quickly resumed firing. It wasn't much, but at least it was something.
-----
Novax dragged the .50 down from the lip of the crater. The last of the ammo had been expended, and now it was just in their way. He slid down the edge of the crater a bit as he threw the weapon out of his way, and in that moment an RPG struck the earth near where he had been. His loader let out a scream of pain and fell past Novak, his face a wreck of blood and bone as he fell amidst the dead already at the bottom of the hole.
Novax dropped the rest of the way to his comrade, "Calm lad, calm!"
The young Legionnaire grabbed at Novax' hands desperately, but could only answer with a gurgling rumble. His jaw had been shattered, and blood pumped freely from the wound. One of his hands let go of Novax and patted around his chest, going for his magazine pouches where two full mags still rested.
"I see them lad, I see them."
He pulled them free as the man spasmed one last time and went limp. The magazines were tossed up to the men still manning the edge of the crater.
-----
Sanna and Smit reached the top floor and the source of the sniper fire, drawn by the steady bark of the Dragunovs. They burst into a north-facing room and were met by the sight of two old men laying on the floor and firing through broken windows at the Legionnaires below. Their movements were practiced and calm, especially as the Legion's .50s fell silent below.
Neither glanced back as the two Legionnaires came into the room, and a quick glance revealed that the old fighters were alone. The two dropped the MPAD on a table and walked forward. Two pistol shots ended the pair, and one of their rifles were tossed from the window.
They dragged the MPAD forward and aimed it to the ground below, at the throng of enemy fighters rushing the Legion line, and fired the missile straight down, and grinned as the missile detonated. Such weapons were designed to draw near a target then detonate in a cloud of fast moving shrapnel, and it did it's job well, sending a score of rebels to their deaths.
Smit knelt on one of the Dragunovs then, and began firing into the backs of the enemy as they ran at the Legion line, which was visibly buckling under the enemy's pressure.
Smit and Sanna were dead minutes later. More enemies rushed up the building once it became obvious the sniper nest had been taken.
-----
"Frag out!"
Novax and the few remaining Legionnaires threw their frag grenades out from the lip of the crater. The enemy was nearly on them; close enough that the hand grenades would find their mark, and without any ammo left, it was just a matter of time now.
The grenades detonated, and then more extremists surged through. A molotov splashed across the back of the crater, thrown too far by the charging enemy, and then the fastest runners were impaled on Legion bayonets. Their bodies were flung to the side by practiced motions, and the next in met the same fate.
And then it turned back into a shooting fight; the enemy stopped short and raised their rifles to fire, and the Legionnaires ran forward with a defiant roar. Weapons fired, men screamed and died, and the east-most crater was lost.
-----
The last of the VTOLs had taken off minutes ago, but the CEO's jet was still taxi'ing on the runway, readying to take off. The grey marker that indicated Legionnaire Sanna fell from the seventh floor of a building, and Henning spared the lost pair a moment's remembrance before turning back to the task at hand.
The enemy were like an explosion; they followed the path of least resistance, and as the east flank fell they began to shift their attention that way, eager to sweep around the Legion line and reach the runway, hoping to find easier prey there.
The battle was over. There was nothing left for them to do but to die well now. Hennings flashed an aggressive smile and stepped out of the crater, pistol and bayonet in hand, "Fix bayonets! Charge!"
The command was relayed to all the remaining Legionnaires. They would go out in one last push.
Hennings held his pistol to the fore in one hand, knife hand in the small of his back. The old whistle his grandfather had given him now rested between gritted teeth and he gave it a great blow, and saw his men grin in bitter humour as they surged forward.
His pistol barked twice more, the last of his ammo expended, and then he was running forward with them. Many were cut down before they reached the surprised rebels fore-most line. And then the blood flowed.
The Legionnaires were far better skilled in fighting then the extremist shits. They were civilians turned holy warriors. Even exhausted as they were, the Legionnaires still had reserves of determination to pull on. It took a special kind of mind to make a good soldier, and that separated them from the common civilians.
But numbers won the day. The Legionnaires' charge soon faltered, and came to a stop. They died to weapons fire, or were dragged down by pairs of groups of rebels. Capitaine Hennings was a dervish on the field; his pistol cracked the jaw of one of the heretics. His bayonet opened another's throat. He shouldered a third to the earth, stomping on the man's crotch before lunging forward to drive his bayonet into a fourth's gut.
Then his leg gave out and he dropped to his knees. Pain exploded across the side of his face as an enemy kicked him. A moment of clarity allowed him to grab that man's leg before he could pull away, and Henning's bayonet found it's mark in the bastards' thigh, opening an artery.
Another gunshot and Hennings finally dropped.
Rebels surged across the broken Legion line towards the airport to find themselves robbed. Fires raged across the field of taxi'd planes that would never take off again. The abandoned vehicles burned too. Anything they sought to salvage was destroyed, and they found none alive. Hundreds of CCD civilians and soldiers had escaped from right under their noses.