I again want to thank you all for the response and support for this fic, the positive response has been overwhelmingly, and again I want to thank yall for all the reviews and feedback.

Im so sorry for the delay.

IMPORTANT NOTE! I've decided to make certain members of the ODSTs older than they appear in cannon and changed their date of birth to fit into the timeline.

ALSO- For the UNSC Grizzly II Tank, imagine it based off of the Linear Tank from Gundam Wing.

UNSC Spirit of Fire

General Kitts blinked several times to make sure that he was seeing everything correctly on the V3D display in front of him as the recording cut off.

"Is this right?" he asked the man next to him, the long time captain of the two mile long gargantuan vessel, James Cutter.

Cutter's brow and mustache rose as he sighed, just as the Avatar of the Spirit of Fire's enigmatic Artificial Intelligence, known as Serena, flashed into existence in the nearest holo table in the expansive Combat Information Center buried deep within the bowels of the Marine Assault Ship.

"It is sir. The Everest and our fleet all received the message approximately ten minutes ago." The AI replied in a matter of fact tone.

Kitts muttered a curse as he clenched his fists.

"So that Imperial general, that bitch…..what was her name…"

"Ivani." Serena interjected.

Kitts nodded, "Yes, her. She has ten thousand civilians hostage along with a group of Marines, under this energy dome of hers."

Kitts paused as officers ran to and from their stations, shouting reports and coordinating their efforts as the Spirit of Fire along with the fellow Assault Ship Proxima's Blaze began their deceleration burn to place them in a high geostationary orbit around Harvest.

"What is the layout and disposition of the enemy forces and readings on that energy dome?"

The viewscreens morphed, and instantly the familiar surroundings of the CIC were replaced as the V3D screens kicked on as the forty three year old veteran General and his captain found themselves looking at a high altitude overlay of the metropolitan area of Utgard.

Serena cleared her throat unnecessarily.

"The energy barrier uses an unknown form of energy waves and magnetic manipulation. The diameter of the dome is approximately twenty miles and at its apex is more than six miles tall. Big Eye UAV and orbital Charon Spy drones deployed from the fleet have picked up energy readings to suggest that this thing could withstand enough punishment that anything we hit it with that could punch through it like our MACs would obliterate the surrounding area and cause even further devastation to the region."

Several animations and a series of readouts played out on the side of his field of vision as Cutter cleared his throat.

Kitts nodded, "Can we see anything inside the dome?"

The AI shook her head.

"We can visibly see what are likely surface to orbit batteries, the general skyline and what might be another starship beneath the dome, but none of our sensors can see through it. The lack of an overly strong Electro magnetic signature means that this is likely a completely different form of shielding like their capitol ships."

"So not like our own Tesla Domes and Atmospheric Plasma Barriers?" Cutter asked as he paced, taking a closer look at the image within his vision path, pinching the image with his hands to zoom in.

Cutter was referring to the UNSC's last line of defense for significant planetary installations that were under threat of orbital bombardment, the Tesla Dome, named for the legendary Nikola Tesla who theorized them and even filed a patent for them with the United States Patent office. Sometimes referred to as a Tesla Shield, it was a spherical or hemispherical barrier of intense electromagnetic energy which could be scaled to be large enough to cover a small city. The spherical field of highly charged energy was such that any kind of object such as a missile encountering it is instantly destroyed or had its electronics fried. In the case of the common triple layer domes not even radiation could get across the EM barrier while a MAC strike would cause irreparable damage to a planet's entire region. The invention and deployment of Tesla Domes alongside surface to orbit batteries of electron beam weaponry and Mass Drivers had been what forced a revitalization and reemergence of armored mechanized warfare and large formations of heavily armed ground forces in the 25th century during the Insurrection and Rebellion war.

"No, not at all. From the few scans we can get of enemy troop movements they are able to either selectively drop portions of the shield or friendly forces can simply pass through."

Kitts shook his head and changed the overlay of the entire region, as icons went to highlight the areas where Imperial movements had been identified from orbit.

"They have already knocked out a few of our low flying Big Eyes" he muttered in reference to the five meter long saucer shaped high altitude recon drones that could remain on station for five days in the high stratosphere.

Serena cut in as yet more readouts and icons populated the screen, along with a red shaded zone that extended nearly fifty kilometers in a roughly spherical perimeter around Utgard.

"Imperial ground formations and vehicles have been seen securing the general perimeter. However outside of some trace readings and some visible sightings we have very limited data on the forces the Imperials have. Our sensor readings, even LIDAR, are being distorted. All we have is visual."

"So active jamming. Any idea where they are?" Kitts asked as the room morphed and various spectro scopic readouts appeared on the side of the screen.

"A general idea sir. Our micro sats have been able to pick up areas where the jamming appears to be at its apex, where all of our sensors are completely blacked out." Serena replied as the areas where the Imperial jammers were located, as indicated by blackened circles on the map.

Kitts looked closer as he cross referenced the locations.

"So the former Newton Armory, the Utgard Spaceport and the Harvest Reactor Complex." Kitts thought aloud.

"We shouldn't get our ships within the horizon line of the city." Cutter cut in as he continued.

"They have to have some serious surface to orbit batteries beneath that dome and mobile ones outside it. So providing any orbital support would put our ships in too much danger. Especially after the losses the fleet took."

Kitts cringed.

In his thirty years of service he had never seen the fleet take such losses, especially in its heavy hitting Cruisers. Looking on the viewscreens beforehand at the wreckage that now littered the space around Harvest's gravity well gave him pause for the difficulty of the battle at hand.

He put those thoughts to the side as he swept the holographic screen to the side and brought up the men and the material that each monstrous assault ship carried within along with each Division of Marines.

"What are your orders?" Serena asked pensively as her Avatar crossed its arms.

"Full scale Armored assault. A staged Three dimensional full level envelopment. The ODSTs are gonna hit those jammers first and hit them hard so we can see the bastards. Sub-orbital space jumps are the only way for them to get in." Kitts spoke as the animation played out on the viewscreen.

"At the same time our F-99 Wombats will hit them with full scale airstrikes on any targets of opportunity supported by squadrons of Longswords to give them air cover and draw fire from them as our Vultures will provide fire support with their Slyver-Laval Cruise Missiles and Micro MACs on general locations of Imperial positions when we can see them or when the Jammers are knocked out. However I'm expecting their Air defenses to be tight, so with non-line of sight targeting the Fleet can fire a salvo of Archers to pass over the enemy air defenses before the ODSTs hit dirt to draw even more fire off them and maybe get one through on a concentration of enemies."

Cutter and the other officers present nodded in understanding as Kitts finished.

"At the same time I want our Pod Heavy Lift Landing Ships and Pelicans to de-orbit out of their line of fire on the other side of Harvest and fly in from two directions, one from the Northern pole and the other from the Eastern hemisphere and offload our full contingent of Armored forces….Grizzly II's, Rhino's, Tarantulas, Wolverines…all of them, and all of our Marines to launch a ground assault on the Imperial forces from two directions…" The general spoke as the simulation played out as if it were in real time before them.

"…The force from the North is to help capture and secure the Newton Armory and the Eastern Assault will be based along the Bifrost Super Highway and the Bifrost Plains. Both will move simultaneously and pincer the bastards. If the ODSTs' assaults go well we will be able to direct fire to cover them from our platforms and offloaded Rhino's and allow them to exfil on Pelican Gunships to our advancing ground forces."

Kitts finished as he looked up, taking in the controlled emotions of the crew and his officers, some no doubt masking emotions with doses from their spinal inserts.

UNSC Proxima's Blaze

Main Launch Deck

Lance Corporal Edward Buck followed the line of Marines heading towards the armory and their assigned weapons locker, almost thoughtlessly remaining in step with his fellow squadmates as they made their way from the lockers with their reaction suit which all Marines wore under their armor.

"Man I can't believe the losses the fleet took." grumbled his fellow squad member Dutch, better known as Taylor Miles as they went to the expansive armory which was filled with Marines putting on their reactive fiber suits and their armor.

Buck simply grunted in reply.

Buck, a now 23 year old from the Inner Colony world of Draco III in the Beta Durandal system, had originally joined the Colonial Guard to both pay for college and for the fact that he like many other men and women his age that grew up in the later half of the insurrection, the Cold War and the Rebellion war had developed a sense of nationalism for their respective colony worlds who were aligned with the UNSC. He had wanted to after he was done with his five years, two of which he completed, to finish college and be done with the Colonial Guard.

However after nearly two years of putting down various riots and shooting protestors on former URF Worlds with the usual K-Volts and working the Guard's usual policing duties he had only actually even been armed with the Guard's rarely used and archaic MA37 Airbursting munitions Rifle once in an emergency situation on the former URF Rebel Capitol world of Sirius. Thus, he began to crave real action.

Buck had originally intended to join the UNSC Army, which, unlike the Marines, were primarily a light mechanized infantry force that primarily operated drones. However after going through the initial screening process Wit had found he was eligible to enter the Marine Corps, a chance that he leapt at after only a half hour's contemplation at a local pub.

The UNSC Marine Corps had always been the most hard charging and militarized of the services, but compared to their humble former Pre-Rebellion and Colonization Era selves where humanity became peaceful and complacent, they were a military class that approached the militarization of ancient warrior cultures with just enough blending with the post colonization age Professional Soldier.

After another year of the most grueling training, military grade spinal inserts and limited physical augmentation, Buck had emerged at the top of his graduating class, eligible for the most prestigious and daunting training of all time, Orbital Drop Shock Trooper training.

As he and the other members of his squad continued their march to the Armor Fitting Machines he reminisced about the two more years of Space Jump Insertion training, Hot Orbital HEV Drop school and Special operations he had gone through before emerging six months ago as a certified ODST.

And now he would get to use his hard earned skills in combat, but unlike a few of his fellow ODSTs and Marines, he was more than apprehensive about the upcoming op, especially after they emerged from briefing.

He was going up against an unknown enemy, with unknown capabilities, and with limited intel, intel which would be his and his fellow ODST's mission to make available.

Making their way into the armor fitting room Buck, and the others made the difficult transition into their Carbon Nano-Suits which formed and contorted to each soldiers' form as the artificial synthetic muscles flexed and expanded, greatly amplifying his strength and endurance while providing an almost impervious barrier against nearly all projectile weapons save for mil-spec, just as the robotic armatures that the ODSTs and Marines stood under began securing the two inch thick composite outer armor plating shell of Titanium A fused with a thin layer of depleted uranium, starting with the double fisted Hydrogen boosted Nanite Mitochondrian Power Reaction Pack.

For the ODSTs, their Power Suits, which were for all intensive purposes the same as those worn by the regular Marines, were distinguished by their black digital camo finish and the ODST insignia on their chest plates.

The helmet finally slide over his head as the as the HUD came to life, showing the helmet's built in Radar, Motion tracker, IFF, targeting systems and a video feed of the outside world as he walked to one of the expansive weapons racks.

"How long do you reckon this war is gonna last?" Another of his squadmates, a Luna born known as Mickey whom had originally joined the military as part of the mandatory program for foster children, grabbed his standard issue 4mm Mattok Gauss Rifle as he was one of the Squad's three Marksman.

Buck shook his head in muted response as he grabbed his assigned MA6B and its ammunition, eight ammunition strips, four of which were attached to his hip plates and three on his lower back under his reactor hump, while the eighth was loaded into his rifle.

Finally he slid three 40 mm stacked programmable airburst grenades into weapon's underbarrel launcher before each ODST attached a small box attachment to the right forearms of their armor as the attachments synched with their armor.

The voice of his suit's dumb Combat Intelligence chimed in as icons streamed across his HUD before Buck blinked them away.

"M-22 Dagger Micro Missile system online. Four projectiles ready and synched to neural targeting."

Himself, Dutch, Mickey and the others finished and walked over to the other eight members of his squad assembled amongst the dozens of others.

The leader of his squad, a fiery woman from the Inner Colonies of African descent, Sergeant Reyona Ludmilla or "Ludee" ,waved them over to their assigned Pelicans that were making their finally preps before being loaded into their launch decks.

Buck stole a glance past the dozens of other Pelicans loading up with ODSTs and into the cavernous main hangar deck that was teeming with activity as Marines, Drones, crew and their vehicles were prepped and loaded up into their respective Pelicans, Heavy Lift Drop Vehicles or launch tubes.

A fact that was underscored as the deck seemed to vibrate under his feet as the intimidating and looming form of a M-1000 Grizzly II Main Battle Tank slowly cruised past, making its way to its assigned HLV Drop Ship, its four tracks slightly squealing against the deck as one of its two crew stood on top of the turret making final checks on the magnetic rails of the tank's single massive 130mm Gauss Cannon, making sure the MBT's main weapon was ready to accelerate a tungsten dart to 4.8 kilometers per second.

"Alright boys and girls lets load up!" Ludmilla shouted as the ODSTs did a final check on their gear before jogging up the loading ramp of the Pelican.

Buck was quiet as the doors sealed and secured the ODSTs in, choosing to merely make his way over to the rack of secured equipment that he and the others would soon be strapping onto their backs.

The Jet Wings, better known as wingsuits, were the secondary way for ODSTs to insert themselves from orbit and onto a target.

Jumping from a Pelican in the high Magnetosphere of a planet, the ODSTs would each dive down through the atmosphere before extending the folded wings and igniting the small jet engines embedded in their wings, maneuvering through any hostile weapons fire and landing onto their target.

This would be his first Orbital space jump.

Space jumps were even more dangerous to the ODST than the traditional HEV drop pod, however if an opponent had modern anti air defenses HEVs, burning through the atmosphere like they did, yet still slower than a hypersonic missile, were just easy to pick out and shoot down.

The Pelican vibrated under his feet and accelerated away from the blazing sun.

"Five minutes to jump!" Ludmilla shouted.

"Great." Dutch moaned as he hefted on the wingsuit as Buck did the same, waiting for the computers to synch with his suit as altimeter information and diagnostics ran down the HUD to be blinked away.

"Remember. Our target is the Newton Armory. The Wombat's are launching their attacks now in concert for our jump. The priority is to knock out any air to air batteries and the jamming devices the Imperials are using." Ludmilla barked as Buck and the other ODSTs nodded.

"We will be fighting an entrenched opponent with Technology likely on par or greater than our own. We have little intel on them but that is what our mission is. We need to give the fleet a better look at the enemy as we assault them so they don't go in blind. Only we do."

The woman paused as she looked up each and every ODST in the troop bay, taking in their movements underneath their layers of sealed armor and carbon nano tube.

"But that is why we are ODSTs! We will do what the other pussies cant and we will go feet first into hell!" she shouted.

Roars of approval met her speech as Buck nodded, going over the briefing in his mind before the green light at the rear of the troop compartment lit up with a resounding alarm.

"Nearing drop altitude. Skirting edge of atmosphere. Operation Homeland Shield is commencing." The automated CI voice of the pilot-less Pelican announced.

The air in the compartment began to pumped out as the ODSTs readied themselves and lined up in order of their jump.

Buck was the first to go.

"Opening Bay doors."

The bay door dropped open…and Buck found himself staring our at the expanse of stars, with Harvest spinning underneath him miles below, allowing him to make out the scars and craters left by the Imperial's bombardment. In the distance he could see the flickering forms of three dozen more Pelicans loaded with ODSTs about to do the same thing that he was. Eleven more Pelicans worth of ODSTs squads (Twelve men apiece) would be joining him and his squad in their assault on the Newton Armory.

"On my mark!" Ludmilla announced as Buck swallowed, trying not to look down and reminding himself that the M-55 powered assault armor was rated for atmospheric re-entry at shallow angles within the magnetosphere.

He could hear his heart humping in his chest as he tried to clear his mind and focus on the mission, only being partially successful as he gave up and allowed a small dose of drugs with a blink onto his HUD from his spinal inserts to pour into his blood stream and focus his mind.

"Mark!"

Buck leapt from the Pelican, straightened his form, and dove towards the planet below, the first of over a Hundred ODST to plunge through the atmosphere of Harvest.

Imperial Command Center

"So you are saying that these three "Marines" very nearly killed us all with a …thermonuclear device?" Field Marshal Ivani blinked as the holographic form of one of her officers nodded.

"Yes ma'am. It was a device the size of a large oversized thermal detonator. Not very powerful but I believe they planned on using our own shield to multiply its destructive power by detonating it within the shield dome."

Ivani sighed.

They had been lucky to capture those rats when they did, but now she had a battle to fight, and its beginning stages were starting to unfold.

"Affirmative. Ivani out." She replied and waived away the holoscreen and turned to the main holographic tactical displays and the officers gathered around them giving out reports.

She had been wondering how the UNSC would respond to her communication to them about her hostages, wondering if the revelation would change their resolve or at the least keep them from simply vaping her from orbit along with the entire region.

No it looked like they were going to attack none-the less.

However to her, this attack looked like nothing she had seen any opponent do against her, only having studied them in officers school.

They were going to attempt a full envelopment attack.

Starting with a massive aerial assault, and waves of missiles.

Ivani clenched her fist.

"Shoot them down!"
Her XO nodded, "Yes maam our TIEs are moving to intercept, however sensors detecting a number of very high altitude gunships de-orbiting and…..Wait! I've got hundreds of more contacts that are almost too faint to detect appearing on and off our sensors coming down from high orbit."

The senior officers all seemed to try and spurt out a wave of information all at once, forcing Ivani to hold up her hand and silence them.

"I want our TIEs to focus on all enemy fighters and our AT-AA's, XR-85 Tank Droids, and deployed Anti Air Turrets to establish an air defense perimeter and take out any missiles heading our way."

The men nodded and began shouting orders to their subcommanders as she took note of the situation as the controlled chaos went on around her.

The UNSC was probably going to hit her jamming towers that she had set up at the three key points outside and around the city, however with what. She had no idea.

Likely they would be trying to soften up their defenses before dropships would come in and hit the jammers, which she didn't doubt they could locate, as already UNSC droids had been shot down getting too close to their position.

Her XO, Matien Kal was at her side.

"What about our main forces of AT-ATs….and the Hells Hammers?"

The 112th Repulsor Lift Armored Regiment, and their fearsome Commander, Colonel Zel Johans, were the ace up her sleeve.

Having proved themselves dozens of times against the Rebels and other opponents in the Outer Rim, the 112th and their rather raucous commander, were one of the more elite armored units in the entire Imperial Armed forces. And as soon as she knew where the UNSC would launch its assault from, she would send them outside of the city's shield, along with 2M fighter tanks, and half of her reserve force of AT-AAs and Tank Droids and supporting units to meet the UNSC's advance.

She wanted to hold her most powerful forces, the AT-ATs, back until she knew for sure that the UNSC wouldn't attempt a pincer attack, which she was expecting.

If necessary she could split them into two wings to establish a line to meet the UNSC from two directions, with the AT-ATs powerful weapons and anti air and infantry support to meet a UNSC advance.

If that were the case though she would have to be sure to use them more as a counter offensive force and hold them within the defenses of her anti air units and remaining fighters, most likely in the urbanized outskirts where she could maximize her Stormtroopers and allow the 112th with its far quicker and deadly S-1 FireHawke Heavy Repulsortanks, 2-M Fighter Tanks and X-85 Tank droids to do battle on the much more open plains from the north.

She would hold her artillery close to the city, and was not going to release her Lancet Gunships until the threat of those UNSC fighters remained.

"Ma'am! Enemy Droid Airspeeders have made contact with our CAP TIE Intercepters! They are coming in at over 5,000 kilometers per hour!" an officer shouted as she turned to the holoscreens to watch the chaos unfold.

A flash of concern appeared on Ivani's face.

5,000 km per hour in atmosphere? These UNSC types didn't have deflector shields, and for the most part those energy walls on their capitol warships were the only thing she had seen that was close.

A TIE or even X-Wing was limited to 1,500 km per hour in an atmosphere, although the X-wings or starfighters with shields could use them to travel up to 2,000 km per hour in low atmosphere, gaining speed and achieving orbit the higher up in the atmosphere of a planet they went.

Surely they would have to slow down.

…...

F-99 Wombats had built up a reputation in their nearly one-hundred and twenty years of service. One of speed, maneuverability, agility.

Their hybrid air breathing rocket SABRE engines allowed the drones, all two hundred that were baring down on the Imperial TIE fighters in the initial wave, to tear towards them as they completed their de-orbit burns at Mach seven, the leading edge of their composite frames burning orange from the air friction.

Their onboard intelligence selected their weapons load outs and their targets as their enemies hurtled towards them, and their phased array radars locked onto their perspective targets.

Just as the two forces closed to within 80 miles of each other, with one last hypersonic boom, anti air Anvil III missile tore away from their internal launch bays of the arrowhead shaped craft, and streaked towards their targets on trails of fire from their small Scramjet engines.

As with any battle, the first realm where battle was engaged was in the spectra of electronic countermeasures.

TIE Pilots immediately reacted, throwing their ECM suites to full power to try and throw off the missiles.

Dozens of UNSC missiles tumbled out of formation, only to tear themselves apart with the sudden structural stress from Mach 6.

However as soon as the onboard computers on the remaining missiles detected the targeting interference, the seeker warheads switched to their LIDAR and Thermal detection systems, ignoring the Imperial ECM.

The Imperial TIE immediately threw their fighters into wild maneuvers to try and avoid the missiles as they closed the distance, while others, managing to achieve locks with their Blaster Cannons, fired at the Drones before spinning away.

The surviving UNSC missiles, half a minute after they were fired, tore into the ranks of the TIEs…..

…

Imperial Command Center

"Pull those TIE's back to the defensive perimeter of our anti air batteries!" Ivani half shouted as the attacking TIEs were reduced by a quarter of their number, many of them simply turned into expanding and tumbling clouds of fireballs and shrapnel as under a tenth of the Droid Airspeeders were knocked from the skies by energy blasts.

"Yes maam." The officer replied as the chaos continued to unfold and the shouting of status updates became even more constant and deafening.

The TIEs were speeding back to the airspace protected by the Imperial ground batteries as the range between the two forces closed, and dogfighting ensued, the pilotless UNSC Drone fighters using superior maneuverability to counter the TIE's superior weaponry, as craft from both sides tore contrails across the skies and explosions and buffs of dark oily fireballs signaled the defeat of one opponent and the victory of another.

Ivani clenched her fist ever so tighter as yet more TIE's fell from the skies, overwhelmed by shockingly hyper maneuverable UNSC droid fighters before the first high velocity bolts of energy flak from AT-AAs began to provide covering fire for her fighters.

The enemy fighters found themselves enveloped by a wall of violently expanding energy spheres and the successive shockwaves of violently displaced atmosphere, leaving many to be blow out of the skies or forced to break off their attacks to attempt to survive.

The skies of the early dawn were lit up with hundreds of brief and tiny suns flashing in and out of existence in an oversized fireworks show per the energy flak of AT-AAs, buying most of the TIE fighter reprieve as the Wombats Combat Intelligences made the logical defensive maneuver to dive for the surface, managing to take out several more TIE's with brief missile locks or the occasional burst of cannon fire just before a dozen more unmanned UNSC Fighters met their fiery ends from precision laser fire from X-85 Droid Tanks as motes of energy speared through their fragile frames, leaving the now supersonic debris to shatter to pieces before tumbling to a remaining piece of Harvest un-glassed landscape…

…Just as the first wave of Vulture launched Slyver-Laval Hypersonic Cruise Missiles and screening Archer Missiles fired from the Fleet came screaming into the Imperial airspace, spearing through the air like comets and leaving expanding shockwaves in their wake.

Ivani meanwhile screamed at the her pilots to knock down the high altitude Archers as several droid tanks and ground batteries disappeared from the screen, victim to the remaining UNSC fighters that slipped in amongst her airspace and began to cause havoc with gun runs and missile strikes.

Not noticed by her however were some three hundred barely detectable contacts falling through the atmosphere from orbit…

…...

AC-220 Vulture Gunship

"Cyclone 4"

Flight Lieutenant David McGregor felt like his balls had crawled up past his stomach and into his ribcage, a feeling that only disappeared once the Vulture leveled out at 30,000 feet, some twenty thousand feet below where it had been seconds ago.

"Enemy missile averted." The pilot, Barry Divolis , nearly shouted through the comms, almost betraying his own terror.

McGregor looked past the viewscreen and the streaking landscape of Harvest, most of it burned with large black impact craters, at the V3D display of the battlespace.

It was nearly incomprehensible chaos as thousands of angry red icons dominated the area of the display's map that was the area around the occupied city of Utgard, appearing more like an angry , fifty kilometer in diameter circle with a donut like hole in the center…the energy dome that no sensors could penetrate.

Although the fleeting targeting data they got on the enemy outside the dome wasn't much better, even with his sensors data-linked into those of the Big Eye drones, low orbit Charon Micro Sats and the few Wombats that had managed to penetrate the Imperial's air space.

McGregor saw brief images of strange two legged armored walkers, beetle like quadruped vehicles with what had to be those energy flak weapons that had effectively turned the surrounding atmosphere into a nearly impenetrable energy storm, some sort of hover tank and dozens of other enemy emplacements that disappeared off the screen as soon as they appeared.

Circling briefly inside the sphere of enemy icons were the wildly maneuvering blue icons of the Wombat Drone Fighters, as surrounding the red sphere was a circle of blue icons fast moving to strike from every direction.

"Set our missiles to self seeking mode, targets to be any of opportunity. Maybe we can get lucky and hit a jammer or AAA site before the ODSTs hit dirt." Divolis replied as McGregor input the proper firing codes to the primary armament of the venerable AC-220 Vulture, its sixteen Tanix Defense Systems Slyver-Laval Multipurpose Hypersonic Cruise Missiles.

"Weapons hot!" McGregor shouted as the holographic screens flashed by his helmet field of vision as he blinked through the systems check as the craft's CI read the system's check aloud.

"Magnetic Acceleration Cannon online. Single One-Five-Five millimeter projectile loaded. Capacitors charged."

"Twin linked GUA-23/AW/Linkless Feed Autocannons, 40 mm, ready."

"Argent V Anti-Air Missile Pods. Ready."

"Slyver-Laval Hypersonic Scram Missiles. Ready"

McGregor turned and nodded to his co-pilot, just as the Vulture dipped past a few more thousand feet while its complex radar and ECM suite forced an Imperial concussion missile to strike a sensor ghost miles away.

"Missile trajectories set. Four from high altitude, four set to terrain hugging mode."

The Vulture's CI gave a shrill warning. "Level One weapons authority authorized."

McGregor paused for only a moment, this was his first time to fire Slyvers in a combat op…..

"Firing!"

Hexagonal micro silo caps on the Vulture's fuselage's flanks, as the CI released the launch codes and attack vectors for an offensive attack run.

The Missiles, hardly resembling anything akin to their ancient Tomahawk forbears, rocketed away on a pillars of flame on their secondary boost phase rockets, arced, and separated away as the boosters separated…and the main Scramjets ignited.

Burning without a perceptible exhaust, the missiles accelerated to Mach 2…4…6…then 8, leaving the supersonic diving Vulture looking like it was sitting still as the missiles separated to begin their attack runs….

Eight among nearly three hundred launched from the UNSC's 40 Vultures, all of them swarming in from every direction as the skies lit up with thunderous motes of energy flak while dozens of lancing streaks of fireballs hailed the converging strike of Archer missiles curving around Harvest's atmosphere.

…...

The Slyver-Laval Multi-role Attack Combat Fusion Mace Munitions Missiles fired from Cyclone 8, usually known to UNSC personnel as a Scram Missile for short, was simply an upgraded version of a weapon system introduced by the United States for use on wet Navy Missile Destroyers during the Sino-American Wars of the 2030s and the Euro-Russian War of 2038.

However just because it was a multi-century old weapon system did not mean that it was still not one of the most deadly non-orbital, non-nuclear, non-magnetically accelerated weapon systems of the 25th century military of a star striding humanity.

After reaching the speed necessary to activate their Scramjets, the missiles soon dumped their boost phase rockets, and split onto their attack vectors.

Four of the missiles maintained their arching high altitude vectors, while the other four streaked down to within a hundred feet of the planets earth on a low level terrain hugging strike.

These missiles furiously swept the surrounding terrain with their CI run sensors as the missiles kept a tight laser link between themselves, relaying any information that they received amongst each other.

All the while as they maneuvered a mere fifty feet above the landscape of Harvest at Mach 8, their shockwaves splintering trees and creating a wake of debris thrown into the air while maneuvering fins adjusted their course hundreds of times a second with minute corrections to keep them from careening into the ground or a hill.

As the Missiles closed the Imperial anti air batteries, already firing at full tilt at F-99 Drones that survived just long enough to create chaos among the Imperial's lines, swiveled and detected the much more dangerous threat of the Scram Missiles and the de-orbiting Archer Missiles.

The Imperials found themselves facing a classic four layer aerial assault. Whereby the 1st layer was the surviving waves of Wombat fighters fighting for control above their airspace and making strikes on targets of opportunity , the second layer was the high altitude Archer missiles coming in from a near vertical attack angle, packing a much more potent punch and playing the role of forcing the enemy to direct much needed anti air weapons on them. This would allow the much more maneuverable Scram Missiles attacking from above, the third layer, to have a much greater chance of success while their more visible sensor views of the enemy thanks to their angle would allow them to identify targets much more easily than the low level Scram Missiles. These missiles, with the use of data and laser links with orbiting drones , would forward more updated targeting information to the fourth layer of the assault; the low altitude Scram Missiles who would be screaming in low enough to avoid detection until the last minute.

Lines of laser bolts, streaking anti-missile missiles and furious strobes of energy flak permeated the skies, while TIE fighters boosted to their maximum atmospheric speeds to intercept the Archer Missiles, which began to fall by the dozen from strobes of laser cannon fire from the Imperial fighters and the pin point targeting of Tank Droid main guns.

Imperial electronic counter measures, aided by the Jamming towers, scrambled about half of the high altitude Slyver-Lavals, sending some spiraling out of control, either to break apart or to slam into the ground, while others switched to active tracking modes….

…These radar emissions got many of them targeted by Imperial AT-AAs, and their mission ended within a brief miniature sun of exploding plasma and energy.

The others managed to get brief target locks on Imperial positions, some being AT-AA sites, a grouping of Imperial walkers or the thermal capture of a large number of enemy soldiers hidden in a skyscraper outside of the shield dome, and angled their attack vector and targeting locks to them before a wave of electronic interference blocked them from targeting locks.

Anti missile fire from the Imperials reached fever pitch, striking missile left and right as the high and low Slyvers streaked into the outskirts of Utgard, and the low flying cruise missiles got their final targeting data from orbiting drones and the missiles that sacrificed themselves.

Flaps on their stubby wings purred to and fro …dodging hostile anti air fire for some, others failing and being speared by energy.

For others it was simply making final course corrections with the economy of movement required at Mach 8.

The Missiles thundered through the hellishly accurate storm of Imperial anti air fire, and those that survived speared towards their final mission…

An Archer Missile, one of the few that survived drawing off the Imperial's fire from the Slyvers, detonated three hundred meters above the shield dome…sending a two megaton jet of plasma into a wing of TIE Interceptors and briefly blotting out the now rising sun of Epsilon Indi.

An F-99 Wombat, trailing smoke from a scorching near hit, turned its engines to full military thrust and maneuvered above a pack of low flying cruise missiles, escorting them in and drawing fire from several distant AT-AAs and Imperial laser batteries.

The little black drone executed a series of radical evasive maneuvers so tight that any human pilot would have been crushed immediately, dodging a flurry of energy bolts and sending a missile tearing away at a group of AT-STs.

The hypersonic guided dart speared through one of the Imperial war machines in a blinding explosion just as the Drone's luck ran out, and a flurry of high energy explosive flak bursts vaporized most of the fighters mass in an instant.

However , despite all of the Imperial firepower being brought to bear, the distraction of shooting down the Archers, the assailing Wombats, and wiping out most of the high level Scram Missiles, proved more than enough to help overwhelm the Imperial defenses.

As one, the remaining Missiles dove in on their targets.

Again, several of the Slyver-Laval hypersonic missiles found themselves completely overwhelmed by Imperial jamming, particularly from the jamming towers, and careened out of control.

Some struck abandoned buildings, coring through them as their warheads didn't activate, and some hit the ground and detonated their warheads in the process, digging titanic craters in the process.

However most of the surviving Scram Missiles didn't.

The low level terrain hugging missiles screamed in at Mach 8, their titanium hammerhead nose burning red hot as layers of air compressed behind it.

Grass, concrete, abandoned cars, Imperial troopers and even damaged buildings were flattened or blown over as they flew overhead.

Just before each missile reached their target, the Combat Intelligences, using the warheads own sensors, uploaded targeting data and data links from drones, selected multiple targets of opportunity to strike before detonating the main warhead in conjunction with its remaining fuel.

As the first Scram Missile of the pack reached its target, the Utgard Spaceport just outside the shield dome, a very small, controlled fusion reaction superheated two hundred tungsten slugs and spat them out of their containment cells with enough kinetic energy in each to destroy an armored fighting vehicle completely.

Most of the load punched through a group of AT-STs, anti air turrets and a lone AT-AA spitting fire from their main weapons in a vain attempt to defend themselves from their impending demise.

The kinetic and thermal shock instantly vaporized a significant portion of the targets' mass as the expanding gas, a molecule mix of human tissue, steel and superheated air blew the rest of the Imperial warmachines to Hell and beyond.

The Missile, its objective only partially complete, tore across the runways of the occupied spaceport in an instant, spitting out the rest of its load onto a group of occupied buildings, shredding them in the process, and a large group of unlucky Stormtroopers caught out in the open.

There was nothing left of their bodies to tell that they had even existed in the first place.

Avoiding a laser beam from a tank droid a kilometer away that vaporized a second UNSC Scram Missile inbound on the space port, the lucky missile detonated its main warhead.

A starburst of white light flashed into existence in the center of the Utgard City Spaceport, a mere hundred meters away from one of the UNSC's objectives…

..One of the three Imperial jamming towers.

The sun like nova bloomed to consume a 500 meter radius, atomizing anything it touched in a fusion based explosion, before the ball of hell and fury collapsed in upon itself, releasing a shockwave of displace air that leveled nearby buildings including the spaceports primary control tower, and threw Imperial vehicles and machines dozens of yards.

The process was repeated nearly two dozen times as the surviving Slyver-Laval cruise missiles unleashed their payloads on doomed Imperial targets.

Harvest Atmosphere

Buck saw the sky and earth flashing in rapid succession before his faceplate.

Decades of training took over.

This was just like a parasail drop ... except this time there was no chute….only a pair of wings and a set of tiny jet engine boosters strapped onto his armor that were folded closed.

He forced his arms and legs to stay closed and resisted the primal urge to uselessly claw at the sky.

The HUD and small movements of his body controlled fall while a readout of the altitude and his velocity displayed on the far corner of his vision.

He and the other ODSTs nearest him shot through the clouds like a bullet, the black armored forms of men and women holding their arms back and diving through the atmosphere just as the sun peaked on the horizon.

Buck could see the curvature of the planet in all directions….and he was streaking from space rocketing to the ground and approaching…..

A brief jolt signaled that he had just gone supersonic…

He activated his motion sensors, boosting the range to maxi-mum. His squad appeared as blips on his heads-up display. With a sigh of relief he saw that all 12 of them were present and pulling into a loose wedge formation as the other eight teams in the assault on the Newton Armory did the same.

"30,000 feet and dropping." His Armor's CI said as a countdown timer to deploy his wingsuit popped up.

A trajectory came up on his HUD, displaying the course he and the other ODSTs would fly after deploying their wingsuits and jet engines.

They would pull up with a mere 1,000 feet to go and dive to the deck, flying low for just a few moments before landing right on top or their objective.

…Hopefully right after it was softened up by airstrikes or the Scram Missiles.

"Imperial ground forces could be tracking us," Ludmilla told them over the COM. "Expect AA fire."

A lump formed in Buck's stomach.

The ODSTs rocketed to the planet below, hitting 20,000 feet and dropping fast.

To the southwest Buck could now see the outline of Utgard, looking strangely serine and beautiful, before Buck caught sight of the towering florescent blue energy dome that enveloped much of the city's core.

It looked strangely like a Tesla Dome, but was easily double the size of the military grade scalar fields the UNSC fielded.

"I can see the Archers coming in now!" Dutch called out as the altimeter ticked past 15,000.

Buck risked a sidelong glance and spotted the Archers.

They looked like lances of fire as they tore through the atmosphere well past Mach 10, leaving violent shockwaves in their wake as green strobes of light stitched lines across the sky towards them.

Imperial anti missile fire began to knock several of them down.

"Get ready to go evasive and deploy your suits!" Ludmilla barked over the com as affirmative light winked on in acknowledgement as the ODSTs continued to fall.

10,000 feet.

Buck could see that the airspace around the city was completely covered in a dazzling display of violent green balls of explosions….

Energy flak?

….and hundreds of bursts of energy bolts a second that looked like dozens of water sprinklers spitting water on a front lawn, except these were bolts of energy weapons that were knocking down UNSC Missiles and fighters down at a rather alarming rate.

Luckily for them, it seemed that their profiles were too small to notice or the Imperials were too focused on not allowing a Scram Missile or Drone Fighter to blow them to hell to target the ODSTs…

Buck's heart was pounding in his chest as the altitude dropped past 5,000 feet.

Buck saw a carpet of green forest, ghostly mountains in the distance, and pillars of smoke rising from the west.

His HUD beeped, signaling it was time to deploy his wingsuit.

With a blink at an icon that dominated the top of his HUD and field of vision, the stubby wings on his back folded open in an instant, belying Buck's and every ODST's fear of malfunction, and his two small jet engines that he was basically wearing spun to life.

Five thousand feet.

The ODSTs continued to fall as the air assault reached its fever pitch.

An F-99 Wombat streaked not a mile away from him, dodging a flurry of energy bolts and shooting missiles at an unseen enemy.

Another Drone was atomized as beams from an Imperial fighter caught it, slicing it into two.

An Archer missile, apparently the only one to make it through the defenses detonated above the city, blotting out the sun as his video feed to the outside world polarized to keep him from being blinded by a multi megaton jet of plasma bursting forth into the atmosphere and immolating a dozen Imperial craft.

Buck could see the target now.

The Newton Armory was not the most impressive of military installations that he had seen or lived in, but its slab sided barracks, command center, hangars and vehicle bays along with landing pads and its squat pyramid shaped main control center looked worse for wear, having dozens of scorch marks on their sides and with windows blown out.

Buck could also see the Imperial vehicles now.

Strange chicken like walkers, actual hover tanks speeding down its lone runway, oversized treaded tanks of some sort with a tall turret that was spitting energy bolts into the sky, and a trio of large, lumbering quadruped walkers with large weapons of some sort on their dorsal flanks spitting balls of energy that exploded into those energy flak.

Before he could speak Ludmilla designated them as targets on his and the others HUDs.

Dutch suddenly shouted onto the comms.

"Incoming! Go evasive!"

They had detected them.

The ODSTs immediately broke formation and scattered across the sky.

But not before a flurry of energy bolts struck two unlucky ODSTs in another squad nearby, simply erasing them from existence.

"Hit the deck!" Ludmilla shouted as Buck's training kicked in.

With subtle movements from his armor and his neural link controlling the Wingsuit, Buck rocketed forward with the others and danced across the sky in evasive maneuvers, causing the world to spin as he tried to stay within the approach trajectory on his HUD.

As 600 feet cleared, the ODSTs pulled up on their approach, pulling up just in time to not dig their own graves.

"Shit!" Mickey cursed out as one of the four legged AAA vehicles swiveled its weapon towards them.

Without hesitating Buck and his squad, now split apart by their fireteam, spun out of the way as Buck actually found himself completing a barrel roll…

Just as a blinding green ball of energy burst into existence in a hundred feet in front of him and two his right.

Not even thinking he pulled up, spinning around and over the brief ball of hellfire, missing it by mere meters as he felt his temperature on his side suddenly got hot and temperature warnings shot onto his screen.

Buck checked on the status of his squad.

One of his fellow squadmates, a hardened Rebellion War veteran known as "Robbie", had his vitals flat lined.

How am I supposed to make it if a veteran cant?

A roar rumbled even through his armor, and Buck saw the Imperial anti air vehicle's weapons swivel as fast as they could and begin firing at an unseen enemy.

Three Slyver-Lavals coming in to strike just before they hit.

He was now no more than a mile from the armory…..this was cutting it close.

One missile was speared by plasma fire as the other suddenly tumbled out of formation, likely jammed by Imperial ECM as the third Scram Missile, leaving a wake of debris and displaced superheated air in its wake, thundered into the Imperial position at Mach 8.

A titanic explosion and orange streaks of superheated slugs cut through several of the Imperial vehicles, gratifyingly shredding them and one of the lumbering anti air vehicles in the process as the western edge of the military base and the Imperial positions were devastated and vaporized by a white ball of fusion energy…

Yet still Buck could tell that the enemy's ECM was unscathed, as he could just barely keep in radio contact with his squad.

The Newton Armory was now upon him, and his LZ, the top floor of one of the three story barracks, raced to meet him and the others.

Buck decelerated, and leaned back and directed his thrust to stop him from slamming into or bouncing off the building.

"I've got hostiles!" Ludmilla shouted.

On Buck's HUD four figures were outlined in red on the rooftop they were aiming for.

Imperial Soldiers.

He briefly studied them.

They were humanoids alright, likely human really. However he could not tell what was under that….white?...full armor suit that seemed to hug their body much more than his own power suit.

What he did care about, and his threat detector warned on his HUD, was the unfamiliar weapon with a rather large muzzle and bore being pointed at him.

"Take 'em!" Ludee shouted, just as a crimson bolt of energy tore past Buck, missing him by inches and nearly dazzling him as he cursed.

Right at his most vulnerable maneuver.

Without letting them take another shot at them, or get a lock on them with whatever they could do with those Energy rifles, Buck, Mickey Dutch, another two ODSTs and Ludmilla raised their micro missile launchers on their right forearms.

Still slowing down his suit immediately locked onto the heat signatures of the Imperials. Buck selected a target as a brief lock on tone chimed while a red box drew itself onto his target, and fired with a thought.

A small 10mm x 50mm Arrow Micro Missile leapt from his wrist mounted launcher, locked onto the Imperial who fired at him a second before as three other missiles from the accompanying ODSTs joined his.

The White armored Imperial soldiers dove into cover, but too late as the missiles arced over the cover of the top of the building's façade and struck each of them…with gory results.

However right before the missiles struck a trio of bolts from the Imperial soldiers leapt forth….and struck an accompanying ODST square in the chest just as the man cleared the rooftop.

The blood red blasts tore into the ODSTs power suit, deforming and melting armor plates and a burning carbon nano tubes. The first and second blasts didn't kill the ODST….but the third burned through to scorch and eviscerate human tissue, meat and bone.

Another vital sign flatlined on Buck's HUD as he cleared the rooftop.

With another burst from his jet engines, he leaned back, slowed his pace to a crawl, and cut his Wingsuit, landing on the roof of what had been a barracks as he detached his wingsuit with a command from his uplink and unstrapped the MA6 secured to his chest.

The other ODSTs landed right next to him, with Mickey coming in faster, tucking into a ball and rolling before getting back up into a combat position.

"Status?" Ludmilla barked, the ODSTs now sticking to tight band comms as the other squads of ODSTs landed in positions around them and the Armory.

"All green." He replied, not even waiting for orders as he and others as he stacked up on the roof of the building.

The base was in a sense of chaos as the Imperials were disorganized by the Scram missiles strike, but they were quickly moving to regroup and likely set up a defense of the jammer and their AAA units.

"I've got movement below us." Mickey announced over the roar of an F-99 shooting overhead on a low level gun run.

Four red dots appeared on his motion tracker.

"Take them…you've got the schematics of the place downloaded?" Ludmilla asked as Buck nodded.

A three dimensional Map of the building morphed into existence on his HUD.

At the same time a small device detached from Dutch's belt, and the man threw the black ball into the air where instead of falling the small device, a tiny drone called a Peaker, hovered and sent an X-Ray into the building below.

On his HUD the ghostly outlines of four Imperial soldiers making their way to the roof with their weapons drawn dominated his field of view.

"Now."

The ODSTs sent a stream of hypervelocity tungsten through the roof of the building, MA6's sent out a brief snarl and two Gauss Rifle leant hypersonic barks to the crescendo, chewing through it in an instant and turning instacrete into powder.

Slugs impacted the Imperial troopers, and they danced and jerked like marionette dolls for a second before collapsing to the floor lifeless in the middle of what was one of the main hallways.

"Clear."

Ludmilla nodded, "Off the roof boys. The other squads and drones got sight of where that jammer is. Its highlighted on your HUD. Other targets of opportunity are any Imperial AAA. The Imps are starting to put up a fight though and our teams are encountering stiff resistance around that jamming tower, so we will have to fight through them."

Buck studied the situation.

That jamming tower was located at the western corner of the armory, past Imperial defenses hastily being erected to defend it, and reinforcements were on the way, no doubt about that.

They had to hit hard and very fast, in and out….the shock trooper way.

"Lets move!" Ludmilla shouted.

The ODSTs jumped off the roof, falling three stories and hitting the ground in a firing position, the synthetic carbon nanotube muscles in their legs flexing and absorbing the impact, making three story fall feel to Buck as if he was simply jumping off from the back of a Warthog.

The ODSTs quickly moved from their LZs to link up, putting down any resistance which was still disorganized on this side of the base, having been hit hard by the Scram Missile's payload, allowing the ODSTs to group together and begin their work.

Tattered remains of Imperial soldiers in their strange body suits, which his suit's sensors quietly examined for him, and one of the vehicle bays along with a walking mech had been turned into nothing more than scrap metal.

The other ODSTs appeared, moving amongst the buildings and quickly eliminating resistance with brief bursts of gunfire or an airburst grenade, and soon they had linked up and pressed the assault.

"Here we go!" Ludmilla roared as another F-99 managed to strafe the Imperial positions between them and their target hidden amongst the buildings of the armory, rockets and machine guns pouring out a solid river of destruction and leaving a wave of smoke an debris that the ODST's VISR systems pierced through, outlining the enemies some fifty meters across a small open field in red.

"Like I need something to tell me they want to kill me."

The next five minutes would be the longest of Bucks entire life.

Buck took point, the ODSTs running forward meeting the Imperials head on before they could recover from the drone strike.

A hundred troops in black power armor ran forward toward the smoking breach in the defensive line at nearly 15 miles an hour, firing micro missiles targeted at individual Imperials, grenades from their underslung launchers, and streams of slugs from industrial sounding MA6Bs and Gauss Battle Rifles.

Buck ran through the smoke, his targeting systems identifying an Imperial soldier 40 yards away from him spinning out from behind the cover of a low lying concrete wall.

Still running at full tilt Buck swept the targeting reticule on his HUD of the enemy soldier at let loose a short burst from his weapon. The 8mm stacked projectiles leapt from the three barrels of his MA6 at hypersonic speeds in an electro-thermally induced snarl, cutting down the Imperial, denting and deforming the man or woman's white armor before another slug tore through it, leaving a bloodied and ragged mess to collapse to the dirt.

Orange hot bullets and white hot plasma flew past each other as they found almost instantly hit their marks. Three more ODSTs near Buck collapsed, their armor penetrated and melted as red blasts of energy tore through them as another simply had his arms blown off.

The man's cries of agony were cut short as two blasts of energy melted and blew open his helmet.

Downrange half a mile away one of the Imperials spinning around from behind a downed hover tank suddenly disintegrated from the torso up as a 10mm tungsten dart traveling at close to 3,000 meters per second passed through him delivered from a Stanchion Sniper Rifle.

"I've got you covered" the voice of the platoon's sniper, "Romeo", the Madrigali native whose crack shot with the Corps M2014 Gauss sniper rifle was un paralleled.

Another two Imperials soon met the same fate in hypersonic shrieks.

Buck kept running forward even as the most primitive parts of his brain screamed at him to get down, to dig the deepest hole he possibly could, and stay there.

The smoke from whatever the drone had hit kept covering the early dawn battlefield, and the infrared on his HUD came on, allowing him to keep moving through a hellish twilight of bloody carnage.

Three more Imps appeared to his right as he finally cleared the field and got in amongst the building, firing at him with precise shots.

Before he could spin into cover a bolt struck him square in the chest.

Buck cried out as a flash of pain and heat burned at his chest, and he fell to the ground and tumbled, luckily avoiding another hit as he got up, his spinal implants giving him a dose of painkillers.

Warning lights and readings flashed across his HUD.

He had second degree burns on his chest under his armor and his Carbon Nanosuit in that area was hot. The outer armor of Titanium A and Depleted Uranium steamed as a fist sized blot of red hot armor plate sizzled and popped.

Shaking himself out of any revere he spun back out of his momentary cover to find the Imperials engaging more of the ODSTs and sending streams of angry bolts of energy into the smoke.

They didn't realize that they hadn't killed him until it was far too late.

He fired on them, emptying his ammo strip and they burst into a shower of entrails and bloody fog.

"Come on, come on!" a voice yelled in his ear, almost uncomfortably loud.

Bullets snapped and cracked everywhere, their passage clear to him by the heat trails that showed vividly in the infrared.

Enormous volumes of fire saturated the faintest sign of enemy resistance.

The ODSTs crashed through the tattered Imperial lines, cutting enemy white armored soldiers down with deadly precise slugs from MA6s, Gauss Battle Rifles or shots from supporting snipers.

The Imperial lines began to crumble.

A micro-missile here to destroy a holed up enemy, an impromptu smart motor barrage courtesy of stacked grenade launchers there… the Imperial defenders began to crumble under the rivers of precise firepower and swift moving opponents.

However the Imperials didn't give up, and if anything put up an even stiffer and more professional resistance after realizing that staying put and relying on cover didn't work as well as it did against other opponents, and began blazing away at the ODSTs with streams of pulsating energy blasts while covering for one another's movement to a new and better position.

A crawling tactical withdrawal.

Half a dozen more ODST's fell quickly to the hellish fire of plasma and energy as Ludmilla screamed over the comm and her heart rate spiked even higher.

Spinning around and finding her after finishing a firefight with an Imperial trooper holed up behind a burnt out Warthog and another behind a low barricade (thanks to the last of his stock of Micro Missiles and the remainder of his third ammo strip), with the help of his HUD located Ludmilla.

She had taken a bolt to her right leg below the knee, burning through armor and synthetic muscle to incapacitate her.

Medical readouts showed that her suit had already deployed its Biofoam to stop any bleeding from the mangled leg, but more importantly that a group of Imperial soldiers were upon her.

Without hesitation Buck cursed, and bolted from his position over to hers, nearly getting shot again himself and forced to send a stream of fire an Imperial on the top floor of a barrack, forcing the man back into cover and chewing apart the position.

Smoke still billowed as a nearby fire consumed one of the buildings nearby while smoke enveloped Ludmilla's position, yet his VISR cut through the smoke effortlessly and highlighted the wounded ODST in yellow as he made it to her position.

"They got me." Ludmilla raggedly admitted as Buck stooped to pick her up.

"Behind you!" she shouted as two Imperial troopers charged through the smoke.

The interference from the Jammer had now reached a point where motion trackers were useless.

A bolt of energy caught Buck's left shoulder as he spun around to bring his rifle to bare.

Too slow.

Again his armor plate took the hit, and boiled and sizzled as he yelped in pain as his shoulder underneath burned, and the physical impact hit him like a prize fighter.

His MA6 clattered to the ground.

The Imperial kept charging, the smoking barrel of the enemy's weapon visibly charging for another shot to finish him off while the second trooper behind him and barely visible from ten meters away did the same…

So this was it?...

The second Imperial's head exploded into bloody confetti of meat, bone and brain matter, a vapor trail from a 10mm electro magnetically accelerated slug from a sniper going through the space once inhabited by a man's skull.

"That's ten." Romeo's voice came in over the comms.

The first Imperial hesitated and was distracted for an instant….

The instant that Buck needed to tear across the three meter distance in a flash and sidestep a blindingly red burst of energy.

A power suited enhanced hand batted away the Imps weapon in a flash as the two collided, the larger mass of ODST Marine winning as Buck effortlessly threw the Imperial Trooper nearly three meters to the ground.

The Imp however skillfully rolled back onto his feet in a fluid motion, loosing his helmet in the process, and ejected a nearly foot long deadly looking vibro blade from his right arm.

Buck barely had time to take in the tanned man's complexion….the man charged, roaring a guttural scream and charged towards him.

Normally in a situation such as this any Marine or ODST, or even UNSC Army Trooper had been trained to simply retrieve their weapon, but he didn't had time.

His attacker was crazed.

Eyes rolled back in his head, frothing at the mouth, tendrils of ragged flesh and old dried up blood decorating the spike on his arm.

Buck instead turned his hips, taking himself out of the line of attack, for a vibro blade could damage his nano suit underneath his armor plates; he simultaneously parried the thrust with his left arm, ignore the cries of protest from his burned shoulder beneath his armor.

Without thought, without aim, he snapped out a side kick , driving his armored boot into…and through the must vulnerable point with all of the force he could muster, pivoting on the other leg to deliver extra torque.

The Imperial's knee cap.

Even through the white-washed armor plates, the enhanced strength of the ODST insured that Buck was able to bore right through it as armor plates bent and buckled.

He heard the joint dislocate with a sickeningly wet crunch.

The man dropped, screaming, until Buck's armored fist smashed into the bridge of his nose with such force that it destroyed the sinus cavity and caved in the frontal lobes.

The man was dead before he had fallen all the way to the ground.

Buck immediately moved and retrieved his weapon, and helped insure that Ludmilla was secure.

She wasn't.

A throbbing pulse of plasma from three Imperials stitched the ground around the ODST as Buck spun and returned fire.

His enemies were sixty yards away moving amongst the nearby ruins of a building, able to hit him now thanks to their own likely vision enhancers and that the dawn sun was dissipating the smoke that had hidden him.

Crimson bolts cut through the smoke as hypersonic 8mm slugs travelling at 1800 meters per second displaced air.

Another near miss dazzled Buck as he sidestepped, firing again in a long burst and settling his targets within his reticule.

One of them had their heads burst open, as the other's chest cavity was suddenly exposed to the outside world, fist sized holes nearly cutting the bloody man in two.

The ODSTs were now amongst the buildings now, clearing them out in close quarters combat with grenades, micro missiles or by simply firing through the buildings with X-Ray targeting and micro drones.

Dutch's voice came through on the comms, "Take that fucker down!"

An Imperial Mech, having survived the missile strike, was firing deadly blasts from chin mounted cannons, rounded a corner, spitting fire at a duo of ODSTs who attempted to take out its leg joints with their micro missiles.

They were only partially successful, managing to slow it down and visibly damage the mech, but were simply vaporized as the Imperial walker turned its weapons on them.

The mech was making its way towards his position.

Shit!

Buck ran to scoop up Ludmilla, who groaned in the process as Buck began to pump his legs and sprinted away from the walker, whose weapons were turning to face him.

"Warning. Vehicular Threat detected." His threat detector and CI spoke to him needlessly.

"Incoming!" Mickey shouted on the Comms as Buck ducked just in time for an 102mm anti tank missile from an ODST support specialists M-41 Dual Heavy Missile launcher streaked over his head and tore across the concrete tarmac towards the Imperial Mech in a flash.

The fusion based shaped charge vaporized half of the head of the Walker, as secondary explosions sent it crashing to the ground.

"Thank you." Buck half chuckled as he got to a safe position and set Ludmilla down.

One of the four Medics who had jumped in with the ODSTs ran to tend to her wounds, as Buck took stock of the situation.

It didn't take long however for him to notice that his radar, motion, and long range comms systems were back up, and Dutch's enthusiastic cursing over the comms gave him all the information he needed.

The jammer was down.

They could see now.

Information streamed in from the drones and the Big Eyes, giving him every bit of detail about the area, the position of his enemies, and friendly forces.

The jammer at the space port had been taken out by the initial missile strikes, but Imperial reinforcements were soon moving it to sweep the ODSTs there out.

Their casualties were running at the 50 percent range.

The assault on the Utgard Reactor Complex had gone well, and his own assault had taken down the Imperial anti air units and the jammers, but out of the three hundred ODSTs that had landed, a third of them were gone.

However the Imperials were in full retreat, for now…..

The Comms of every ODST came to life.

It was General Kitts.

"Good job boys….but we are prioritizing getting our ODSTs out of the spaceport, that mission is FUBAR. You will need to hold out as long as you can until we can pull you out or our armored forces link up with you."

Ludmilla and the higher ranking ODSTs continued talking to the General as Buck looked at the sensors….

The Imperials were swarming out from their shield dome, and their Drones were starting to drop like flies. The Wombats were nearly all depleted, as were the Imperial fighter ranks, leaving the air to be controlled by who brought in the most anti-air units.

And a large advanced force of Imperials were moving their way….

They had to hold out long enough to be exfiled as the UNSC ground assault reached full steam…

And they had minutes to prepare.

Imperial Command Center

Ivani slammed her hand on the holotable, cracking it as she all but screamed.

"Launch the 112th and our AT-ATs now!"

Her subordinates didn't hesitate as projections of her forces meeting the UNSC armored advance from both directions.

The UNSC air assault had been blunted, but her jammers were gone, taken out by UNSC soldier flying in and jumping from space.

She took stock of the situation…they wouldn't last long against her forces moving to reestablish the front.

Had they came in on a suicide mission?

If so she had an even more newfound respect for her opponents, but somehow she doubted that they were not planning to exfil…

But either way it would matter….

They would all soon be overrun.

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