Faith & Empire: Book One of The Holy Terran Empire

6. GROUND ASSAULT

As if to drive the captain's point home, our Halberds and Hussars loosed a cannonade of bright, white-hot plasma overhead. The Spontoons lurched forward to meet the incoming threat. On the ground, the Kuvasz tanks raised their turrets and laser guns to the sky and loosed sprays of fiery bolts of light and supersonic slugs of searing metal. Our mechs holstered their HAWs and raised their arms skyward.

We grunts scrambled for cover.

"Squad 3 on me!" Corporal Yukio Shoji shouted and a pulse of light on my helmet's interior faceplate directed my attention his way. The corporal led us to a man-tall, roughly mushroom-shaped outcropping of blue-black rock.

Just before ducking beneath the stone mushroom's cap, I watched the Torquemada fire off a volley of rockets towards the approaching drones. She then moved forward with the Hussar and her sister Halberds, their laser and particle beams firing without ceasing.

We huddled around the stem while the exchange of fire above and around us made the surrounding terrain flash like it was under a giant strobe light. The muffled explosions of missiles, rockets and destroyed drones filled the air like a low, slow-rolling rumble of thunder.

The explosions quickly drew closer.

We tightened our huddle.

"Let's concentrate shields up top, boys," Corporal Shoji ordered and we all passed the command on to our individual armor computers.

Seconds later it began raining laser fire. The vapor around us ignited in orange-red flashes wherever the bolts passed. Explosions blasted the air and shook the ground beneath us as a shower of missiles followed the laser-strafing.

One rocket struck thirty meters from our position, landing in front of our platoon's first squad. The explosion destroyed the half-dome tump of basalt they were hiding under and hurled them for several yards.

A nearby mech was hit by four rockets in rapid succession. The mech's shields absorbed three hits, pushing it back a few steps with each blast, but the shields were spent when the fourth rocket struck. Its explosion sheared off the mech's right leg and caused it to topple backwards.

The mech however, kept firing from its downed position.

Wrecked drones fell from the sky everywhere.

Just as suddenly as it started, laser bolts, drones and rockets ceased falling around us. Instead the air thrummed with the aether drives of our Spontoon escorts as they flew overhead, giving chase to the few retreating drones. We cheered every time the gunships' streams of molten tungsten found their targets.

Captain Obey relayed the "all clear" and we began reporting in by squads. A Company suffered only a broken leg. B Company suffered three wounded and two deaths. C Company was fortunate to come out unscathed. Our 1st Squad was shaken up by the near miss but unhurt. D Company took a direct rocket hit and two other indirects. They reported seven wounded but, thanks be to God, no deaths. E Company suffered a death and six wouded from a direct hit.

The Squires reported two wounded among them. The Hospitallers and Knights of Saint James reported in hale and hearty. Only one mech was rendered inoperative. Casualties among Austros contingent added up to nine dead (the crew of yet another destroyed tank) and five wounded troopers.

Captain Obey called for the Santo Colombo to collect the dead and wounded. He ordered one squad of Squires to stay with the injured and fallen until they were loaded onto the Halberd. "Catch up as soon as you're able," he told them and then ordered the rest of us to continue forward.