Humanity Endures

Part 12 - Bravery and Bloodshed | Chapter 10

The boots of his enforcers viscerally grinding the debris below into powder as they lumbered forward, Osilarzan and the thirty thousand enforcers around him rushed ahead with the intent of grinding Heralax's force of three thousand into powder as well. Osilarzan watched as above him thousands of Loyalist fighter-craft, obviously under the command of someone clever, managed to launch a surprise attack on the overwhelming Nahmatiixers below, cutting through hundreds of the traitorous craft and beginning the air-war better than he could have hoped; despite this, however, Osilarzan was skeptical of their ability to hold the line against such a superior foe, and ordered some of his flak-wielding soldiers to fire into the sky to help balance the scales. Soon after it had begun, this was forced to cease, as the Loyalist enforcers arrived at the base of a particularly massive mountain of debris, from the peak of which the personal forces of Heralax Tekran stood and rained death on their Loyalist counterparts. Hundreds of Loyalist enforcers were wounded in the opening seconds of the battle, and for each moment that passed, Osilarzan knew that a staggeringly large army — nay, a horde — of over one million Nahmatiixian militia drew nearer.

His own force could not afford being caught unprepared by this massive foe, and he could not hope to break through Heralax's well-entrenched bodyguard before they arrived. With no other option remaining, Osilarzan, cursing his situation, ordered a third of his soldiers to go out to the streets and entrench, where they would stand a far better chance of repelling the vast number of hostile Nahmatiixers than if they were to try and fight these numbers on the open field that the fallen skypiercer had left behind. This having been resolved for now, Osilarzan instructed his other twenty-five thousand enforcers to encircle the hill on which Heralax was entrenched, and to attack it without mercy or relent; with such superior numbers of troops locally, Osilarzan, a legendary brute among brutes, hoped to brute-force his way to victory in this most critical of engagements.

Scaling the hill of debris before them, or simply flying over it, the Loyalist enforcers, with anti-armor cannons, lightning Guns, MMMs, and countless other destructive varieties of weapons, engaged in land battle so unimaginably brutal and powerful that it easily rivalled engagements involving aliens in terms of sheer ferocity. As melee combat was joined by the more eager from both sides, the thunderous, deafening sounds of ear-splitting gunfire, ringing battle cries, and the clang of metal against metal, began to fill the wrecked surroundings where Heralax was making his stand. Thanks to the Nahmatiixers' ownership of high-ground, the Loyalists were unable to make full use of their otherwise overwhelming firepower, and they were also met with a disadvantage in melee combat, though the superior numbers of the Loyalist enforcers ensured that the advantage in casualties went to, and stayed with, the Loyalist side from the outset — this, however, did not mean that progress was quick, such was the determination of their outmatched quarry.

To make matters worse, the horde of Nahmatiixian militia, being herded into action by a small number of proper officers, then arrived; their thundering battle-roar, bellowed forth from one million eager throats, supplanted the sounds of battle nearby, only to be supplanted once more by a chorus of panicked screams and shouts of pain as Osilarzan's detached forces launched a brutal spoiling attack. Against lightly-armored, almost untrained militia who often lacked the heavy weapons necessary to fight back, the ten thousand enforcers, descending on their foe from all directions, quickly butchered just over fifteen thousand of the traitorous curs and forced the streets of Nahmatiix to run red with Traitor blood. Against such overwhelming numbers, however, this would certainly not last — much of the enforcers' most powerful weaponry was based on ammunition that was both quickly expended, and only available in limited quantities, thanks both to its expensive manufacture and large size. Motile Munitions, which had to contain a primitive AI and thruster pack within each round, were especially limited in this ever-critical regard.