Deadman

Between us and Medina were still nearly a thousand soldiers. They’d heavily fortified the area around the city with turrets, mobile cover, and drones. A good quarter of their remaining soldiers were suited in sleek silver power armor, the rest armed with lasguns. The mine field around Medina had been completely obliterated, but the walls showed no signs of having been breached.

We’d spent the last several weeks ensuring that the siege didn’t get worse and doing everything we could to distract the Remnants from pushing forward with their siege and taking Medina, or more importantly, killing the Khan who as far as we knew was still recovering from the wound he’d suffered. Losing Medina would be painful for the war effort, but losing the Khan and the men and women within the city, would be a wound that might be impossible to recover from.

Our intel indicated that the Remnants were going to make a push to fully breach the walls soon, we hoped due to desperation after all the havoc we’d brought to them behind their lines, but it was also possible they simply thought they could win. If they breached the walls, it would be very difficult for Horde forces to hold up against them. Their vehicles wouldn’t exactly have room to maneuver, and the average Horde soldier would have tremendous difficulty bringing down so many power armored forces. The Khan himself had never meant to trap his fleet in the city, but in the panic from his injury and with him out of commission, they’d been in too much disarray to think properly. The Khan’s strength as a leader and love he received from his people had become a weakness with his life in danger.

Outside of the city, further away than even the Remnant forces, I sat with Nix, King Leroy, Shayera, Angela, Nico, Daisy of the Entombed and the Khan’s ex-wife Violetta of the Kaijin. We’d gathered all the forces that remained outside the walls. The Deadmen and Rens had done the heavy lifting of raids in STAR territory, but the next phase would rely heavily on the forces that the Horde and Kaijin could muster. There were a little over five hundred of us. Even combined with the forces within the walls, we were outnumbered, so we had to play things smart.

We watched, and waited. If we were right, we’d managed to gather on the day the Remnants were planning their final push. It was early morning when they started to get into position. They didn’t try to hide their intentions. They mustered all of the power armored soldiers to one side of Medina’s wall that already looked significantly weakened, and the mines had been thoroughly cleared, and they started to march forward. At the distance I was standing, I could see the flashes of las-fire and hear the rapid fire of traditional arms. This is where things got tricky, we needed them to fully commit or else we’d be marching into a battle we couldn’t win, and the only way we could make sure they were committed, was to attack when the walls fell, and trust that Medina’s defenders could hold while we ground the Remnant forces to dust between us.

The Remnants continued their assault, slowly closing in on the wall. The gun emplacements peppered Medina’s walls with steady fire, keeping them from being able to properly defend against the attack. When the silver armored Remnants reached the wall, I saw several grenades dropped or thrown on top of them. After the explosion scattered and knocked several of them down, they poured gasoline on top of them, and quickly lit it on fire. The power field the armor produced was meant to stop objects moving at high velocity, lighting them on fire was a great solution. Unfortunately before they could attempt it on the next group, they were pinned again by the gun emplacements, several of them falling dead from the walls.

A group of the power-armored men and women made it to the wall carrying a massive pillar I wasn’t able to identify. They placed it against the wall, and I watched as it lit blue, shot back with enough force to slide those holding it backward, then slammed forward into the wall with a smashing noise I could hear even at the far distance at which I stood. The wall started to crumble where it had struck.

“Now!” Yelled Angela.

Her call was answered by the roar of dozens of engines coming to life. We all surged forward on the horde transports, each group to a different target in Medina’s perimeter. Leroy and his Rens moved toward the eastern portion of the city, Violetta and her Kaijin to the northern one, The Entombed were divided into different groups to target the gun emplacements, running at slightly reduced power to keep from irradiating our allies, Nix and our people took the south alone where they could fully unleash the full power of their Cerberus without harming anyone. The majority of the Horde forces would be attacking from all angles, circling the city with heavy weapons fire.

A force made up of myself, Angela, Daisy and three of her entombed, as well as a mix of soldiers from every group made our way for the breach that the Remnants had created. Just as the gun emplacements and soldiers started to take notice of us, Angela pulled a hard turn and launched me and Daisy out of the back. I landed and rolled around a hundred feet, finding myself in the midst of a host of unarmored STAR forces. A few of them started firing on them, but the press of them was so thick that they mostly shot their own men, the few shots that would’ve met their mark dispersing across my shield. I started to unload with my shotgun with one hand, while slashing out with my sword. I didn’t bother aiming, the enemies were clustered so closely around me that there was no reason to. I didn’t activate my sword, saving its charge for the silver-armored enemies that were still focused on breaching the walls.

I started working my way through the enemies toward the breach. The press of bodies kept me from picking up too much momentum until I heard the sound of one of the gun emplacements firing. I ducked instinctively, but it fired in a wide arc around me, shredding those soldiers that had been pressing toward me. I risked a glance to see the black armored form of one of the Entombed behind the gun,using it to clear the enemy.

Before I could return to the fray, Angela and her squad rode through the path cleared by the gun, wreaking havoc with the .50 Cal on the back of her truck even as she took the time to crush a few STAR soldiers beneath its tires. She moved quickly through, and in her wake I saw Daisy and two of her entombed join me, a few dozen Kaijin and Ren following them.

With their support we were able to push through the rest of the Remnant forces, carving a bloody path to the breach. There were still a number of power-armored Rens outside of it, which bode well for the defenders inside. Several of them turned to face us. I activated my swords superheated edge and carved through the first two to turn their attention to us. Daisy leapt over my head to crash into a third, her black armored people launching themselves like her shadows, directly into yet more of them.

I spared a moment to worry for our Kaijin and Ren allies and turned my attention to them. I needn’t have worried, those Rens who’d accompanied us were wearing the forged scrap metal armor that marked them as Ursan hunters. I watched as groups of them would attack power armored foes as one, slipping their spears into the gaps between armor, and shifting who attacked to keep them off balance. The Kaijin on the other hand were using thick rope woven from vines along with heavy rocks as bolas to trip the armor before driving their own spears into their joints. The Remnants had introduced a powerful new type of warfare into the wastes, but wasters were nothing if not adaptable.

I moved through the breech to find a pile of dead, both Remnants and Defenders, the sounds of battle raging deeper in the city. I ran toward it, noting how the battle had unfolded. Medina’s defender had clearly been ready for the Remnants to breach this particular wall. There were deep pitfalls dug with scrap metal spikes lining the bottom to skewer or at least entrap the heavy invaders. I saw a number of heavy machine guns that would’ve normally been mounted to the Khan’s fleet placed in strategic locations to create firing lanes as they entered as well. There was even clear evidence of explosive traps meant to bury the invaders in rubble.

I made it to the sounds of battle. Armored soldiers were laying down laser fire while I could see horde, Kaijin, and a few scattered deadmen posted behind thick cover returning fire where they could, though clearly losing ground. I noticed Bastien engaging two of the enemy alone with his spear, bashing one of them in the head with enough force to crack his helmet. I saw Mercy, popping up at different points and throwing explosives that exploded with ink that blinded the enemies or such intensely focused shrapnel that it tore them to shreds. Atlan too, was shouting orders, shooting down on approaching enemies, and I even saw her drive her metal leg directly though a power armored enemy’s eye lens, killing him instantly as he attempted to climb up to her position.

Before I could throw myself into the fray I saw five power-armored figures fly through the air behind the defending forces.

“Ignore them, focus on holding the line” yelled one of the defenders.

I ignored that order, and adjusted my path. There was only one target I could think that they’d be after deeper in the city. The Khan himself.