The carriers activated their generators, blanketing the space around the advancing forces. Lightnings flashed in the places where the defenders' laser beams harmlessly fizzled out, and smoke mushrooms emerged, the results of the destroyed artillery shells failing to penetrate these screens. Spheres of hissing energy rolled across the ground, punching holes in the minefields, and the fabled siege tanks of the khatun fired their first shots.
Brood Lord postured atop a battle tank in the rear. Ivory-colored and gem-incrusted armor covered his body; the long-range cameras caught the confident grin in his visor. Prosthetic limbs, gleaming with gold and platinum and thicker than his natural limbs, replaced his missing hind legs. Casually carrying a sword on his shoulder, the khan motioned, and hulking shapes lumbered ahead of the front.
Taller than their leader, these Malformed used knuckles to support their oversized and misshapen bodies ripped with muscles, mouths on their warped shoulders eagerly opened and closed, bubbling with violet liquid on their half-rotten fangs. The soldiers in the first line of defense opened fire, hiding the Horde from view in the horizons of eruptions, and several shells and shots even breached the shield, tearing chunks of flesh from the Malformed.
Out of their mouths, the Malformed vomited streams of filth, and the flame wall parted, letting the acidic torrent soak the soil and detonate the remaining mines.
"Fourth brigade, to the second line," Janine ordered.
"They are still capable of inflicting damage," Dragena noted calmly.
"They will inflict far more if they fall back and stay alive," Janine stated.
The defenders hastily abandoned the front line and retreated to the rear trenches as the hissing mass melted through the force shields and enveloped several towed artillery pieces, instantly reducing them to corroded wrecks.
Behind the Horde, it moved. The superweapon that spelled Opul's doom was visible in the distance, despite the enormous distance. Compared to it, even a crawler seemed small; it was a pure mountain of metal, baring its fangs, its turrets, and keeping the main cannon ready.
Drozna. Heika. Phaser. Janine spotted neither of them as she joined her unit, greeting the confused Jacomie clad in full armor and wielding a four-barreled machine gun.
"Warlord, what is going on?" Jacomie asked on the private channel, handing a plasma cannon to Janine as they entered the tunnel leading to the bridge. "We were supposed to be reinforcing the north!"
"Change of plans," Janine assured her, waiting for Dragena's trap to sprout.
How to deal with a teleporter? Dragena had used the New Breeds, blessed with predictive abilities and not shying away from enlisting the criminals guilty of trying to bankrupt casinos, and had laid out her plans and available information to them, demanding approximate percentages of success for her ambushes. Not satisfied with that, she had also used the analytical officers of the Investigation Bureau, consulted Till Ingo's experimental computer processors, and talked to the Brood. Gleaning clues from every possible source, Dragena now knew exactly how Phaser wielded his power and deduced potential locations based on Brood Lord's personality.
The first invading party emerged from an open portal in the sewers, fifty men strong. Their leader's neck was sliced in two by Reaper, who then threw a grenade in the direction of the portal, causing Phaser to close it before the explosives designed to breach the wall could be sent. Jumping backwards and disappearing into a nearby tunnel to hide from the hail of bullets, the assassin began his grim business. The next incursion took place at a power plant in the south. Three assault teams appeared in its corridors.
Here the plan ran into its first difficulty. A unit of sixty soldiers positioned themselves behind the barricades in the main hall, ready to kill the invaders as they came. To their woe, Drozna stepped out of the blue portal's surface, utterly ignoring the bullets and laser beams heating his hide. A single sweep of his arm tore the defenders from the barricade, collapsing it and sending the men and women splattering against the wall. Heavy blows liquidated them and the hordeman roared an empty warning about the 'betrayal'. The Reclaimers' jammers came online, preventing the enemy's coordination, and the trap was sprung.
While the first group had failed to hinder Drozna, Slaughterer gleefully pushed over the soldiers of his unit, his tendrils wrapped around the shocked hordemen, squeezing them dead and throwing the carcasses in his mouth. Lacerated One, arms folded, stared down the last raiding party in the control center, where a skeleton crew of technicians oversaw the silenced plant.
"A meager offering," said the Supreme Shaman. Her claws slashed, deflecting the projectiles away from the allies and screams of agony filled the room as she bit the first hordeman.
Inside the crawler, Ygrite smiled, spreading her arms wide in greeting to those infiltrating the Inevitable's armory. Volunteer Jaquan Kruger and his bodyguards gave her no time to gloat, and immediately opened fire on the enemy, using the crates for cover. The warlord rolled her eyes and joined in, slicing off limbs.
In the north, another portal opened near the fuel silos. The raider in charge of this group tapped on the nearest fuel tank and yelled, "The bastards had us! Into the city now, take cover in…"
"What's the rush, little lambs?" murmured Kalaisa, climbing down the tank; the electric lamps caused her long shadow to stretch over the invaders.
She bounced off it the second the first of the saboteurs fired, and her paw closed on the leader's head, twisting it away and using the dead body to slam the nearest hordeman dead. The wolf hag dropped a couple of grenades and shoved a hordewoman off her path with a shoulder tackle, running to ward off the soldiers' positions and clutching her old wound with one paw. Acid flowers bloomed in her wake, speared by the suppressive fire of her allies.
Not every group handled the sudden invasions as planned. Janine watched as several companies of mercenaries and even former assassins met their match, dying to the superior firepower of the invaders. Several scouts had their brains splattered on the pavement by heavy boots, their troops slashed to the last. Then the enemy spread throughout the city, carrying out their sabotage.
Cruel as it was, the situation was still within acceptable parameters. They had no way of protecting everything, and with the citizens safe and the vital facilities secured, the freed units could hunt down the intruders like insectoids…
"Incoming!" Janine roared, spotting a single shell fired by a siege tank from the Horde's position. It broke through a weakened segment of the shield and was about to fall atop the wall.
Then it disappeared. Janine narrowed her eyes, looking at the trembling air, and the HUD of her helmet confirmed a spatial distortion that obscured the projectile's trajectory and warped it away.
"Dragena," Janine contacted the bridge. "Are you aware of any teleporters or spatial manipulators on our side?"
"Yes, sister," came the cold reply. "Everything as expected."
A tear on the bridge stopped Janine's further inquiry. The blue line ran from the ceiling to the path leading to Ravager's throne, and Phaser rolled from it, laughing at the bullets fired far above him. His hands slashed, cutting through reality, and blobs of plasma flew from the opened passages, vaporizing two soldiers all the way to their ankles.
The hordeman immediately drew himself high and launched himself off the path down to the operators. His touch split a human-sized terminal, and in its place opened a window into a storage bay. Servants began rolling a cart full of explosives. A single shot from an energy weapon startled the servants, and Phaser darted away from the window, closing it in a hurry as another shot followed into the portal. If there was an explosion, Janine's cameras didn't catch it.
"I need to kill you without touching your claws?" Dragena asked no one in particular, jumping down and sending tremors through the floor. She leveled her rifle, scaring Phaser away from killing an operator. "Simple enough."
"Weren't you supposed to be…" Phaser started talking.
His eyes widened in fear, and a swipe of his claws opened a portal that swallowed the searing heat aimed at his head. The warlord took a single step, sliding under the portal before its edges could touch her armor, and neared Phaser, pausing briefly at his smile and reaching for a knife on her leg.
Space shattered above her head.
"That'll cost extra to Brood Lord," laughed Phaser, dousing Dragena in the familiar violet sludge. "Didn't see that coming, doggie?! I can handle anything you throw at me myself!"
His claws stabbed, destroying the reality around them and forming a tunnel that kept Phaser's arms safe from the acid. Ten claws aimed for Dragena's neck, and she rammed the butt of her hissing rifle into his stomach, throwing the man straight into the wall with enough force to leave a footprint in it with his body. He screamed in pain and agony, noticing two fingers missing from his hand, and Dragena broke from the downpour.
"Open emergency ports, oxygen masks, now," Dragena commanded, dropping the useless rifle and unsheathing the second knife. "Captain, take over. It'll take a while."
Schalk's unit went dark; their IDs disappeared from the HUD, marking their last location as they deserted the crawler via the emergency exits amid the confusion and raced toward the city, firing at every camera in their path. But this time we know what you are planning, traitor.You'll pay for Keon's death. Janine clenched her fist, wishing she could be there to deliver retribution to that lying piece of human garbage.
She trusted him! Janine really thought that the man really welcomed her to Houstad and wanted to help out of duty or the goodness of his heart. She pitied and grieved for his people… Then again; they didn't deserve what happened to them. Janine reproached herself. Schalk's betrayal did not lessen the old tragedy.
But he'll die. Anissa and Yennifer will make sure of that.
"Soldiers of the Reclamation Army!" Jacomie visibly shuddered, hearing Captain Cristobo's voice. The man lowered himself from the compartment above the bridge and sat on the throne. "We have identified the traitors. Schalk is hereby stripped of his rank. Every loyal soldier of the state is to shoot him and the 4336th platoon on sight."
"What is going on?" Jacomie demanded. "Warlord, first we blatantly ignored the orders and took a different post, and now…"
"Forgive the deception, Captain. I myself have only recently learned of Captain Cristobo's survival. Though I admit I was a fool. The Blessed Mother gave him the gift of immunity to poisons; I should have realized it sooner." Janine placed a paw on the captain's shoulder. "I am not privy to every detail, but Dragena and he were busy flushing out the traitors and countering their actions."
"But Schalk… He is… That's just not possible." Panic flashed in the captain's eyes. "The complex! Warlord, that traitor wanted my troops to take over the complex! If he…"
"Nothing will happen to it. It is impossible to teleport in there, and we took precautions about the rest," Janine assured the woman. "The lies were laid bare at last. The scorching flame of the Dynast's judgment awaits the traitors, and they will be found wanting."
"DEVOUR THE WORLD!" The hordemen boomed their battle cry, shouting on top of their lungs.
"Choke on your own blood!" Janine roared back, exiting the gates leading to the bridge.