[Tshombesha] Du hast mich

The sea had no name. Or, at least, no real name. Like so much else on Tshombesha the official label on the maps and planetary surveys changed from year to year based on who was currently in power. This year? Humans. So it was the Ash River that wove it's long, slow, lazy way into the Castor Basin and emptied out into the Breaker Sea. And it was the city of Victoria that sat, nestled in the low, rolling foothills that, miles and miles away would eventually grow, spike up, into a proper (if modest) mountain range.

The sky was the color of an old bruise as the Sun's Grizzlies rolled in and the air was heavy with the scent of ozone. Over the ocean distant threads of light and heat leaped from sea to sky and back again. Thunder rumbled on the horizon as Sgt. Pacey shouted orders, as Legionnaires dismounted from the armored convoy, blue boots hitting the ground.

Victoria was a land of opposite extremes bound together by geographic proximity. The working poor, the laborers, the miners, lived in the sprawling favela-like slums outside the town proper; prefabs stacked on atop the other, forming terraces and narrow streets. The company executives, foremen, and mining overseers lived in the city center, a handful of clean, modern, upscale arcologies joined together by covered bridges and broad, hard packed roads.

Intelligence had designated the slums as a hotbed of anti-MUT sentiment, a breeding ground for militant Vonskar loyalists. And so the Suns were here to bring the hammer down.

They were here to make an example of any would be insurgents.

"You 'ave your targets. Incapacitate and retrieve, we'll start stringing them up in the square 'ere. Anyone resists, anyone decides to show you some teeth, gut the little shits. No fucking civvies unless they pull a gun. Understood?"

Cass joined in the resounding, guttural hooah to Pacey's speech before snapping on his helmet and hopping out the hatch, leading the rest of his fireteam into the fading, evening light.

Blue booted feet crashed on doors.

The air filled with screams, shouts.

Welcome to the stormlands.

"Sergeant." Dunn nodded approvingly at Pacey as his own section clambered out of the lead APC. The Centurion was in something of an unprecedented scenario, given the Lieutenant Colonel's decision to remain hands off for the operation. Technically, that made him the ranking solider, as far as the Legionnaires were concerned. But with a whole platoon under his command, Dunn had adopted a 'lead from the back' approach and thus it was Sergeant Pacey leading Alpha Squad off on point. Given the Suns usual discipline in the face of REMFs, Dunn may have felt a little uncomfortable at the prospect of essentially becoming one but at his age he was long past caring.

Better Pacey getting shot than me. Besides, he was far more familiar with Bravo Squad's Legionnaires. He had raised several of them up there himself.

"Charlie Squad," he clicked his mic on, "Hold up here by the convoy in reserve. Be ready to shell the crap outta this shithole if we yell for it." He received a somewhat muted affirmative. Being denied action this close to the combat zone would sting, Dunn knew, but he was in a cautious mind this early into the campaign.

Dunn pulled up the 3D overview on his HUD, momentarily blind to the outside world as luminous lines and basic geometric shapes filled his vision. So far, so good. The Suns had encircled the eastern half of the city expertly, two companies of regular infantry skirting round the south and north east respectively. They were the anvil, 9 Codo's formidable Legionnaires the hammer.

Fuckin' slums Dunn spat as he dropped the map data from his visor and cast a disdainful eye on the city. The tight alleys, haphazard layout and vertical nature of the city had all but ruled out a mounted assault, much to the experienced Centurion's chagrin. The risk of so-called civilian casualties had been the final nail in that particular tactical coffin, and had likewise largely denied them close air support. Extraction'll be a bitch if the shit really hits the fan Dunn mused wearily, just like fuckin' Rwanda all over again.. Still, to his credit he avoided mouthing any cliches about how 'he was getting too old for this shit'. Instead, he clapped the leader of his second fire time, one Legionnaire Rapsus, on the shoulder, gave him an encouraging nod and barked out his marching orders.

He yanked his battle rifle from his back - his not quite fully recovered wounds still giving him grief whenever he tried using his Revenant LMG - hit the release catch and let it unfurl comfortably in his arms.

"Let's go earn a fuckin' paycheque." He commanded brusquely. Only scant few metres behind Pacey's Alpha Squad, Dunn and Bravo Squad were tasked and on mission.

The city was a planning nightmare, laid out like someone had tried to draw a piece of fractal art during an earthquake while operating a jackhammer with their free hand. Every new twist and turn had one of the Suns pausing to check their omni-tools, ever vigilant of attack from the shadows. A spray of automatic fire from above as, hiding in an alcove, someone actually tried using an ancient Lancer against them. A bright blue globe of biotic force struck him in the head, making him float helplessly out from his hidey hole and dangle above the alleyway. The field died and he fell. Badly. The snap of breaking bones was audible from a block over, and his neck was bent in entirely the wrong direction. He looked like a ragdoll.

Aquila scanned the body, his face hidden behind his hardsuit helmet. "Not a target. Keep moving." The broken body was left in the mud as his fireteam went on. Found the last known location of their first quarry. A hacking program shorted out the door in no time flat, blue-armoured figures storming in like a tsunami. Their target went for a pistol. Another biotic blast sent him flying, bouncing him off the back wall and leaving him groaning, face-down on the floor. Aquila turned and looked out the door, scanning the alleyway as behind him his men secured the first insurgent.

Blue Suns. Hooah.

Many underestimated what they would do to survive. What they would become. The truth was, violence weeded out those who would lie down to die and left those who did what they had to in order to take another breath.

So, she was not surprised when the President ordered the Suns to take care of the insurgents. He wanted to live. He wanted his new nation to live.

He was not so different from many politicians in Citadel Space. He was just honest about what he wanted.

But he had asked her to oversee the Suns' little outing. To ensure things didn't...get out of hand. She was somewhat amused that he thought that one commando could stop a group of mercs once they were killing but here she was.

Trailing after the man called Pacey, shotgun cradled in her arms, watching as the Suns knocked down doors and shouted. She had yet to fire a shot, and she didn't intend to.

As Avera was not attached to any squad, she and her spotter moved slightly ahead of the main unit to find a good position where they could lay down supporting fire. The human's name was Marija, came from a place called Croatia back on Earth, fought in the resistance during the Reaper occupation, lost everything, usual story. Didn't have anything to go so she joined the Suns. And thanks to Avera's lack of luck, she got assigned as her spotter for this OP.

Thankfully, at least for this OP, they were tackling Loyalist insurgents as opposed to the yellowbellies, so this would be a good field test for Marija. Who knows, Avera thought, the kid might prove she was worthy of the armor and tat.

They reached their destination, an alcove from a four story apartment that provided a good firing position facing the rest of the slums. From the sporadic sounds of gunfire, seemed the rest were already encountering resistance. More insurgents were probably lying in wait further into the city.

"In position, no hostiles spotted."

Here's the thing that they don't tell you about rooting out armed rebellion.

It is hard. It is hard, tedious, backbreaking work that requires all your attention and all your skill to keep from getting your head blown off.

This was either the thirteenth or the fourteenth house that Cass had hit that afternoon, the man inside was nobody in particular, some mid-level lieutenant of the Liberation Guard, one of Henderson's men. Day laborer in the mines probably, or maybe a former refugee who was between jobs.

They smashed his head against the table before he had time to get out of his chair and dragged him into the street; grabbed him and started frog marching the half-stunned man back towards the "plaza" (plaza was generous, it was more like an exceptionally wide street on the edges of the hot zone). A quick nod at Aquila's fireteam as it came the other way; hand off the cuffed man to the detail of troopers manning the makeshift gallows.

A moment or two to chow down on a protein bar, wash it down with pull of water from the camelback and then they were gone. The man already swinging from a rope in the square behind them, dangling next to his brothers in arms, face black and twisted.

Theodore.

Yeah that was his name, right there on the file.

Theodore.

With ever passing moment the Legionnaires were advancing deeper and deeper into the small city of prefabs and shacks. And the farther they went, the more common resistance became. The initial push had taken the Guard with their pants down but now they had armed themselves, now they were organized, now they were pushing back. They knew the terrain. They knew the people. They knew what they stood to lose if the Suns swept through the district unimpeded.

Fat fucking lot of good it's doing them right now. Cass thought to himself as he lobbed the Inferno grenade up and into the skylight, bomblets splitting off from the core as it fell among the squad of Guardsmen taking cover in the prefab. Within seconds the interior was engulfed in flame.

"Move out, we're linking up with the Sergeant and Bravo at Junction Cross in twenty." The gateway to the heart of the slum the Cross was where the resistance would be the fiercest and it was there that the stroke would fall the hardest.

Lucas Dunn ducked back into an alcove between two prefabs as, once again, Bravo Squad's arrival on a new street was greeted with gunfire from somewhere above.

"Anyone got a visual?" He barked to the rest of his fireteam across the street. He was answered only in negatives. "Fuck it." He cursed under his breath, before clicking his mic on. The hostile fire was a staccato tapping, likely only a pair of insurgents with light automatics trying to keep their shots controlled. Four hardened Legionnaires with functioning kinetic barriers should have plenty of time to get a bead on them simply by standing round and looking. But Dunn refused to leave anything to chance.

"Rapsus, we're pinned again." He shouted to his subordinate over the radio. "Move your fire team up, get your marksman covering as much of the street as he can, I'm going to try and draw him out." He received a double comm bleep as an affirmative. Keeping the stock of his Vindicator tight in his shoulder, Dunn stepped out of cover, looked straight ahead and upwards and fired off a quick three bursts. He snapped back in place sharply as his kinetic barriers surrounded him in a glowing blue aura as rounds struck him. But it had been worth it.

"Fireteam One. Third floor balcony, end of the street, left side. Three hostiles. Suppressive fire on my go." A brief pause while his KBs powered up. "Go!" His fireteam stepped out in unison, three automatics and one burst fire battle rifle swept the target balcony, dropping the insurgents behind their makeshift cover. The Suns were out of cover for barely a couple of seconds, but it was enough. The small locator in the corner of Dunn's HUD showed a single blue blip racing behind him; Lanni Ixias, squad marksman.

Dunn allowed himself a tight grin. It was as good as over now. Sure enough, it didn't take long at all for one of the insurgents to get curious and pop his head out over the lip of the balcony wall again. A quick double tap from Ixias' Mattock almost took it clean off. Beast of a weapon, Dunn chuckled, didn't do a half bad job there. Like most of the Legionnaires in the squad, Ixias' rifle had at one time had Dunn's trained eye give it a look over, and the extended rail it carried was all the former logistics officer's doing.

"Push forward!" Dunn cried, and his fireteam moved deftly down the street, allowing Rapsus and his men to get into a position to cover them. Another quick command, and Dunn was joined by heavy weapons gunner Mona Du Preez. The two Suns readied a pair of grenades, and lobbed them over onto the balcony. The dual thump of the detonations was mingled with a guttural scream that died quickly. Job done, the Centurion acknowledged. Beckoning the second fireteam to leapfrog them and take point down the connecting road.

"Let's get a fuckin' move on here!" Dunn called to his men. "We're still eighteen metres from Target Aroch, and we gotta link back up with Alpha." He relayed their position to Sergeant Pacey, and checked the mission time displayed on his HUD.

So far, so clinical.

The screams and the savage, efficient way the Blue Suns dispatched the Guardsman reminded her of other raids. Other executions. She kept up with the mercs, eyes scanning her surroundings.

A flash of movement in the corner of her eye. She twisted, a corona flaring bright, tangling around her arms. A Guardsman was scuttling into one of the alleyways, rifle raised and firing. The first shot glanced off her shield.

He didn't get a second chance. She pushed her biotics out of her, a ball of blue shooting from her palm. The man screamed as he was tugged toward her, flailing helplessly. She calmly raised her shotgun and pulled the trigger twice.

He hit the ground with a sickening thud and silence.

"Marija, visual?"

"Two hostiles on second floor balcony, looks like they're setting up a turret, range, 170 meters"

With a nod, Avera trained the Mantis' scope at one of the insurgents, seemed he was having trouble trying to get the turret operational, the scope now trained at his head.

"Fire when ready" Marija said.

Two seconds passed before the insurgent's head was rendered into ground hamburger, his partner tried to run back inside before Marija got him in turn.

Avera said nothing, though she did give the girl a nod of appreciation, she would make a good Sun yet if she survived the day.

There was a giant sitting on his chest. A fucking, morbidly obese elcor crouched on his breastplate; kneading it's knuckles into his sternum. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't sit up, his muscles and nerves apparently thought that now was a good time to punch out early and nip off for some booze and broads

they wouldn't bring him any though

the fuckers.

Seriously was shitty to just leave a guy like this, on his back like a fucking turtle or something; with something digging into his spine too, right where he just couldn't reach.

A drop of rain fell (whistle! splat!), scattering its liquid guts across his visor.

He blinked. The elcor shifted.

Storm's coming in

Sgt. Pacey was standing over him, hand extended. Half of his shining blue armor had been charred a sooty black. Kinda weird now that he thought about it; 9 Codo was pretty spit and polish for the most part, shit like that would never fly. Least of all with the Sergeant.

A gauntleted claw rose as if pulled on a marionette's wires and loosely gripped the pro-offered hand.

Pacey hauled him up and into cover and a wall of sensation came rushing back. Smoke filling the air. The screaming. The bitter taste of ashes. The metal whistling of rounds as they tore through the air over the squad's head. Or

well

what was left of the squad. His men were still in one piece, crouched behind rubble and inside doorways along the street. Sending rounds and grenades and bursts of flame back up the street. They had been pulling rear duty, covering Pacey and their better halves as they advanced down the street towards the unlovely pile of prefabs known as Junction Cross. It was the gate and the key, a natural chokepoint to the more well defended core of the town.

Take Junction Cross and take the slum.

It hadn't been a mobile, the nets were down, cutting off cries for help and comms. The only words being spoken were being spoken on Suns and Allied channels. It hadn't been wires or a pressure switch, they had been looking out for those. Not a preset countdown, the timing was too good.

There was a triggerman.

Had been a triggerman.

Funny thing that, coat of rags, defeated expression, takes a few extra precious seconds to identify you as a threat. Plenty of time to take your thumb off a switch.

Antimatter charge. Used for breaching new mineshafts. There was light. Then there was heat. Then there was a storm of shrapnel as the prefabs and cheap metal siding disintegrated around them; an entire block outside the Cross flash converted into no man's land. The pressure wave scattered those who survived like leaves on an autumn wind.

Bad intel. Bad intel. Bad intel gets good men killed.

Half aware of Pacey shouting into the comms for backup Cass took his rifle and set up a stable firing position

Sight

Breathe

Squeeze

Loosing tight, controlled bursts of vindicator fire.

Henderson sounded the horn and the gutter had risen up in response. They were coming.

In the narrow confines of the slum, the pressure exploded through the surrounding streets, funneled by the maze of ramshackle prefabs. Fifty yards from the target junction, Lucas Dunn saw the plume of dust, smoke and flame only fractions of a second before the blast smacked him in the chest, sending him staggering. Miniature debris rattled round the street, pinging noisily off buildings and armour. The distorted, heat driven air currents swirled viciously around them, kicking up dust in spiraling vorteces.

"Fuck!" He spluttered, immediately regretting it. With his face only three quarters covered by transparent visor, the sudden intake of air brought with it what felt like half the street's dust and smoke. The Centurion spent the next few moments coughing his lungs out, and trying to grab frantic gasps of air through a gloved hand. The deafening boom still had his ears ringing, but he thumbed on his radio all the same.

"Overwatch, this is Bravo Squad. Overwatch, do you read? Did you get eyes on what the fuck that was? Oscaius? Oscaius, do you read?" His answer was simply bursting static. Whether it was the comms of a dozen disorientated Suns jamming the network, the dust shrouding the already impenetrable streets or EM radiation from the blast, Dunn couldn't know. All he knew was that, for the immediate future, getting a radio signal out of the city was unlikely. "Shit." He winced. On a better settled world, he could have turned to SatComs, but as yet the Suns had had no luck cracking the priority channels of Tshombesha's sole comm buoy.

He strode over to help Rapsus back to his feet; the turian had been on point and been taken clean off his feet by the blast roiling through the slum.

"Take your fireteam back the way came, link back up with Charlie and pull 'em in here." Dunn ordered, clapping Rapsus on the shoulder as the turian tried to clear his head. "I'll push ahead, see what I can do for Alpha. If there's any of 'em left." He shook his head bitterly. Fuckin' insurgents. Fuckin' city warfare..

It took only a few minutes for Bravo to reform and split, Dunn making sure his fireteam had the lion's share of medigel on them. The Centurion cast a thankless eye skyward as the rain fell thicker, fat drops colliding with the swirling dust and clumping it together, the stinging smell of scorched metal, ozone and abrasive dust growing stronger as the air dampened. The atmosphere was choking, but Dunn's fireteam pushed through it, weapons ready.

"Alpha, this is Dunn. If anyone reads this, we're pushing through to you. Sit tight."

Barely halfway down the next street, they were ambushed again. Five desperate locals tumbled out of an opposing pair of alleys, brandishing old Elkoss pistols and clad in flak jackets and what looked like ATV helmets. It was an attack borne of madness, and kinetic barriers made the decisive difference. Even caught off guard, the Suns tore through the unshielded assailants in seconds while their own barriers held strong against the wild barrage of sidearm fire inflicted back on them.

Shoving the shock of the attack, the fear that lingered after the explosion and the revulsion at the ease with which his fireteam had just messily ended five lives to the back of his mind, the Centurion kept on.

The team rounded the corner into the wasteland that now enveloped what had been Junction Cross. Dunn barely had time to acknowledge the extent of the devastation before they were fired on once again. The Cross was a warzone. A few scattered Suns had managed to entrench themselves, while across no-man's land, the insurgents were massing. These were not the desperate civilian collaborators Dunn had wasted moments prior. They were armoured, better armed and a hell of a lot more combat effective. Dunn's team bunkered down quickly. Heavy Weapons gunner Mona Du Preez took less than a minute to swap submachine gun for rocket launcher, lock target data and being pounding the insurgents with rockets.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Dunn tore across the cratered ground to crash down beside the nearest Alpha trooper; a turian, Dunn just about processed.

"What the fuck happened?" He yelled above the din, all pretense of protocol long abandoned. A few bursts from his Vindicator in the general direction of the hostiles alleviated some of his frustration. "And where the fuck's our support?"

"... well."

Aquila let the biotic shield flicker out of existence, his fireteam emerging from behind him pretty much unscathed. He waved his claws as if to shake out the ache, and readied his Tempest again. A few short bursts of fire from the submachine gun as he crouched beside the previously prone blue-armoured figure of Cass. Not really meant for anything but a deterrant against the massing enemy forces beyond the crater.

"Some sort of bomb," Aquila replied to Dunn over the gunfire, ready as ever to throw up another extra-strong barrier in case things got too hairy. "I didn't get here in time to see it happen. Cass could tell you more, I think."

His visor marked an incoming grenade, an old model that had long been out of service but still a threat. Aquila flicked his wrist and a biotic shockwave sent it shooting back toward the insurgent lines. He always got a kick out of stuff like that.

The first bit of shrapnel had taken T'Masu by surprise and it had carved a furrow across the shoulder of her hardsuit before she'd instinctively drawn her barrier around her, even as she was knocked back. She'd been further forward and she lay there for a moment, disorientated, the world spinning around her and hazing in and out before she shook herself, the barrier falling.

She clawed her way to her feet, shifting a bit of rubble of her shoulders and running.

This was. Unfortunate.

Unfortunate was the word. The Junction was now a war zone and her head was still ringing.

Still, she hadn't been a commando for centuries for nothing, and training kicked in. Get to cover. Glance at the HUD to see if any limbs are missing. Open fire in the general direction of the enemy, even if you can't hear the gunfire. You can still see the muzzle flashes.

The insurgents were ill-armed, badly equipped, untrained. But there were a rather lot of them. And she had to get to the nearest clump of Blue Suns-looked like Pacey and a few turians who seemed oddly familiar.

Well then. One thing for it-she wasn't going to run that far with the amount of shields she had right now and she wasn't waiting here to be killed.

There were two insurgents between her and the Suns. Convenient. She flared and concentrated. Her body blurred in a tunnel of biotic blue and then she was smashing into the closest one, knocking them both stumbling back. Before they could recover, she jammed the bayonet attached to her shotgun through the chest of one insurgent, cutting through his terrible armour with sickening ease. The other managed to get his pistol up and let off a shot before she pulled out her sidearm and shot him point blank.

Blood splattered across her armour. She wrenched the bayonet free and ran, sliding into cover beside the turian biotic.

"Bravo Squad, this is Overwatch. Hang tight, we're moving to your position."

Avera and Marija moved across the rooftops towards the cloud caused by that huge explosion that Dunn's men were caught in. The insurgents it appeared had been ready for them.

They finally arrived at another slum tenement near what was once Junction Cross, she got a view of Bravo Squad returning fire against the hostiles in the ruins.

"Bravo Squad, we are in position. Where do you want us to shoot?"

Meanwhile, back in the Elizabeth command post, a burly, bald figure in full hardsuit lumbered back and forth in front of a bank of monitors. Helmet cam feeds and biosigns scrolled across the screens, comm chatter pouring out of speakers as headquarters personnel quietly talked to each other at consoles. His fists were clenched, teeth gritted, though whether out of frustration at his men's inability to quickly dispatch a single hostile or frustration that he wasn't out there himself was quite the judgement call. At the sound of footsteps in the ops room, he tore his gaze away from the monitors, looking back to spy his XO hovering behind him."Captain Rossi."

Serge Rossi's bulldog features were similarly intent, but he seemed more irritated than his commander. "Problem, mon Colonel," he said quietly.

Art Daye kneaded his temples. Last fucking thing he needed right now... "The fuck is it this time? Puren get into another fight with one of the locals?"

At the mention of 94 Commando's acerbic leader, Rossi's features almost---almost---assumed an amused cast, rather than the usual mask of stoicism. "I'm afraid not, mon Colonel. Seems the leader of President Godfroid's bodyguard is out there on the raid."

"Like fuck she is." Came the growled response. The President had promised them a free hand, and something about Joseph Godfroid had made Daye believe him. Usually when politicians who hired on the Suns said that, it just meant they were covering their asses, but something about self-declared President of Tshombesha...

Daye scanned the helmet cam feeds and sure enough, there she was helping to lead the charge. She'd seemed a tough woman, so no surprises there, but it was the fucking principle of the thing. "Fuck. Alright. We'll deal with this when the raid's done. Anything else?"

Rossi looked down at the datapad in his hand, eyes flicking across the reports. "Next slowboat supply shipment should be here within the week. Mostly essential materiel---spare parts for weapons and vehicles, ammunition, and food. No comfort items."

"The men don't like that they can fucking deal. Dismissed, Captain." Daye turned around to watch the screens again, footsteps fading away behind him into the distance of the Blue Suns command post's corridors. His fists were still clenched.

The shells zoomed across the twisted mess of still faintly glowing rubble and scrap, tearing out great, bleeding chunks from the fortifications of the enemy. A shriek, a long, drawn out yowl of tearing metal and one of the more precariously stacked prefabs began to sag, began to slide, began to fall. Muffled shouts and curses drifted over to the Suns's forces accompanied by a distinct lessening of the amount of fire being put their way.

Cass slumped behind his own piece of cover, a lovely little garden wall abutting a now gutted home, taking a breath as he finally got a chance to size up their interim reinforcements. The Centurion and half of Bravo (but the half with the medigel thank fuck). The President's guard. A sniper team on overwatch up above their heads. And Aquila along with half a squad of troopers from Spirits knew where.

Probably one of the detached teams nipping on the edges of the slums. A part of Cass thought to himself, the rest occupied with the task of swapping out his spent heatsink and getting his tongue to work. Alpha 'n Bravo to sledgehammer the North list and the South list and Charlie to hold in reserve and a nice little grab bag of Legionnaires to gut those who needed gutting an fuck that's it. Just us and a blue and sweet shitting spirits I am going to have my head on a spike somewhere an

Cass mentally hauled off that part of himself and slapped it across the face so hard it's mandibles ached. He wasn't afraid, he wasn't afraid he just really really didn't want to die here.

You are a fucking Legionnaire and you will DO YOUR FUCKING JOB

"Guy with a vest I think, IED probably based around something like a heavy industrial charge. Mining? Fucked if I know." He paused as he searched his pockets before turning and smacking Aquila on the shoulder. "Sinks?"

On his other side Pacey was pulling a pair of fingers away from the side of his helmet and there was something relieved in the way that gauntleted hand fell back to his gun. "Gunships ten minutes out. Carinus is sending in the 91 boys 'olding the cordon, bringing up fresh men. Going to burn out the town center."

Sometimes a more delicate, nuanced touch didn't work, sometimes you needed the axe rather than the scalpel. Sometimes, to break an insurgency, you needed more than to put the fear of God in them.

You needed to take them by the balls and make them understand why they should fear you instead.

The light was fading. The rain was falling. The skies roared with celestial artillery fire as oceans flowed down to the earth. A flood, a deluge. The few scattered, steady, drops earlier joined by their fellows. Hundreds and thousands and more arriving every second.

The light went out and, for a moment, it was nighttime in Victoria.

And then light appeared behind them, a cloud of expanding flame and shrapnel as the errant rocket slammed into a prefab down the street; the detonation lost in a roll of thunder.

Dunn hammered out a pair of bursts, before slapping loose a depleted heat sink from his rifle. Just visible beneath his dust stained visor, he cracked an eyebrow at Aquila's biotic display. Normally, the biotics were on the other side, but he was impressed all the same.

Another double tap on the trigger. Amid coils of smoke, dirt pluming out from explosive detonations and the flashes of tracer fire, Dunn was sure he spotted the blue flare of a kinetic barrier reacting to his fire. Two bursts more. He saw nothing; his target had either found cover, or he was dead. It mattered little.

"Shit." He breathed softly, as T'Masu, blood spattered and grim faced, clattered to the floor beside them. Daye'll tear me face off if she gets hit. Bad fuckin' PR!" He winced to himself. Still, that was now two biotics he had with him...

"Bravo!" He barked into his mic. "I've got two wounded by the burned out cab depot, get the medigel and... Aah, fuck." He recoiled as a blast of static assailed his headset.

"..erwatch. Hang tigh... position."

He fiddled with the settings on his omni-tool interface, with only partial success.

"Brav... we are... ...ition. Where... us to shoot?"

Sniper team, he told himself, before scanning the tactical overlay on his HUD. "Overwatch, Bravo. Got a hostile mortar postion tagged on the grid. One-seven-six by one-two-five. See what you can do, over." No sooner were the words uttered into his mic, a dull thump and a spray of dirt and debris marked a mortar strike barely ten metres to their left.

"We need better cover than this!" He yelled over to Cass. The noise pressing all around the ruined junction was staggering. The rain had grown ever stronger, pelting the Suns. The clatter of the deluge against metal and ceramic was almost the equal of the gunfire that rippled out in all directions, ricocheting off the enclosing walls. The electric buzz of charged biotics and mechanically generated mass effect fields alike was like a muted bassline, at the edge of human hearing but undeniably there, an undercurrent to the percussion of explosions.

Dunn saw the turian nod, just as the blast of a rocket flared around them. The Centurion throw up a hand in reflex, shielding himself from some of the shrapnel.

"That fuckin' does it!" He roared above the din. "We're takin' that cornershop on the left side." He gestured to a building at the rough ten o'clock point of the battle strewn square, maybe fifty metres away - a distance that seemed a lot longer under intense hostile gunfire. The facade had been blown clean off, its door and display window shattered into fragments. But structurally, it still looked sound, and the inside revealed half a dozen strong columns that would make for good cover. By far the biggest attraction, however, was the lipped upper level; chest high windows made for excellent vantage points.

"Bravo'll give us suppressing fire. Me and Maggles will push forward, make for that crater and try and draw fire. You two," he jabbed a finger squarely at T'Masu and Aquila, "get the magic runnin' and fry any indig bastard stupid enough to try and kill us. We're gonna pepperpot 'em." He stated firmly, before realising that British Army idioms were likely lost on turians and asari. He ground his teeth. Don't have time for this!

"Fuck, right. Once me and Maggles are set, you two haul fuckin' arse into the shop while we cover you. Rinse and repeat till we're all in. Should keep us safer 'til the CAS rocks up." They looked to have understood. One last piece to put into place.

"Overwatch, if you copy this, team of four Oscar Mike across the junction, heading to grid... One-nine-four by one-one-three. Requesting support fire, over." He looked back at the turians, slamming in a fresh set of heat sinks. "Let's go ruin some indig's day!

Aquila dug out a pair of sinks and handed them over to Cass without skipping a beat. Not like he was in desperate need of his. Still, no need to get needlessly flashy, so he threw out a few token bursts from his Tempest. For once the turian was all business as Dunn barked out his orders, nodding once in acknowledgement.

As far as 'getting the magic running', Aquila wanted to pace himself for the long road ahead. He set up in a stable firing position, pinning his Tempest to a wall with his free claw to better handle the recoil. His model was heavily modified for general purpose use, what looked like a tiny power generator fitted all around the body of the gun, the stupid-looking under-barrel accessory that looked like an ancient magazine replaced with a foregrip, the vestigial butt of the SMG replaced with a folding stock that he extended now. Not a heavy assault weapon, but when that many rounds are coming downwind at you, you really don't care how big or small they are.

Also it was still better than a Phaeston.

He flared, not just to draw fire. A little holographic square appeared on the Tempest, a stylized purple bullet. Appropriately, his next burst came with a biotic-purple muzzle flash. Warp rounds were always a handy feature, especially when you were biotic yourself and didn't need any help stamping the rounds. He saw a blood spray stain a wall where an insurgent didn't quite get behind cover in time, and paused.

"You're clear."

Akere nodded to the Suns NCO, "Understood."

She didn't bother trying to work out what the man meant beyond the basic idea of what she needed to do. Humans said strange things. (Maggles?)

She ejected a heatsink and slid in another, breathing deeply and steadily, preparing herself for the dash they would soon undertake. A insurgent peeked out of cover and then sailed forward helplessy as her biotics wrapped around him.