Into The Rift

Lethal Force Projection (48)

-0243 Military Hours
-Tartarus Base, Northern Outskirts

The loud concussive bursts continue, never relenting in its intensity. Guiding my every move, the thin film of rage steers me towards a single objective. Make them, regret.

The violent surge from each bullet spurs me into overdrive, further adding to the crescendo of emotions. Everything is on the table, after what they did to everyone here. Each gram of pressure applied to the trigger is accompanied by a grim undertone of realization.

'Beyond all reasonable doubt, they're hostile to us.' The phrase echoes inside my head like a religious mantra. I pause after firing a short burst, tilting my head closer towards the scope, stopping to finalize the minor adjustments. There is barely any distance left between the visor and the scope's outer rim. This is a close as I can go, and that suited me fine.

The corners of my vision fades into obscurity as I get mentally accustomed to the role of a sniper. After a few heartbeats, everything outside the rim seems irrelevant. My whole world now is through this narrow field of view. In other words, the massacre ahead has my full undivided attention.

Administering an invisible pressure on the trigger, the loud applause of weapons fire returns. The ballistic nature of rail weaponry, meant any deviations would be mostly lateral. Projectile drop is functionally none-existent, or at least small enough to not be perceivable to the human eye even at a distance of over eight hundred metres.

Small arms rounds streak off in groups of three and four, easily finding their mark on the winged-reptilians ahead. The Silverwings presented a large centre mass, making them easy targets to engage when factoring in the decidedly open nature of the airpads.

Most had already been neutralized, their wings deflated with a handful issuing calls that seemed to approximate a dying wail. Had the situation been anything else, it would have made for a disheartening sight.

Maintaining the team's lethal tempo, Douglas issues a lengthy burst down onto the airpad, neutralizing the last of the armoured banshees armed with a degree of purpose that couldn't be slowed, halted or ignored.

"That's the last of those things," he sounds off, targeting his weapon away from the kill-zone.

"Just in time too," Robert continues in response, jutting a hand to the front over his weapon. "I'm seeing lots of movement over on the far side, nearest to airpad three. Looks to be infantry types only. We should be expecting CTEs to be present in the formation."

I lift my hips up, sliding right to get myself reoriented squarely behind the rifle after angling it towards the far end of the occupied base. The angular swell of multiple prefab structures looms over the opposition force as they gathered on the southern edge.

Presenting itself as a unified legion of armour, the formation hoisted up several military standards of the same design. A black fist, etched against a background of dark crimson. Pacing into quick march, a forward element detaches from the main force, eagerly closing the distance without regards to our weapon capabilities.

"Hope you've got a decent plan for us, they're starting to move up west," Douglas inquires. He angles his head to spare me a brief look, the opaque visor displaying a blank canvas of ambiguity and nothing else.

I reply with a reasonable amount of assertion. "I do, I'm not expecting this to be easy. Might... be our most difficult predicament yet," I admit, getting up to a crouch.

Scanning the approaching group again, I identify several possible commanders in the tight line of armor. 'Six', my observations produced. The presence of a larger, more elaborate cape makes that assumption a reasonable take on their command structure.