Durgama Takeover

The battle raging in the heavens gave the gently rolling waters an ethereal quality. Far above, great chunks of debris fell as if in slow motion, setting the dark night alight with a thousand falling stars, each ones fiery streaks in the sky mirrored in the waves below the landing craft.

“Are you sure they didn’t spot the shuttle?” one of the many huddled and low forms asked

“Yes, and even if they did, the brave soldiers on the front need these supplies. The station is likely abandoned given the proximity of the fighting, and its not like we are without our own teeth” The figure on the prow motioned to the cluster near the back of the bobbing boat “Besides, under cover of darkness and on the other side of the offensive, we are unlikely to encounter anything other than Morat scouts”

“I’ve heard stories of sepsisto-”

“Stories indeed. Keep faith brother, we shall all see the sun rise”
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“What is that?”
“I do not know. The Coalition has no reference to troop movement here. We have our orders, the supplies are the top priority”
“But what if-”
-WEAPONS LOCK DETECTED-
“NO TIME FOR DOUBT BROTHER, SAFETY OF THE SUPPLIES AND CIVILIANS IS PARAMOUNT. I WANT SMOKE IN THAT LANE OF FIRE, WATCH FOR-”

+Signal degradation provides no further remote recordings, switching to recovered local recordings+

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Highly Classified Battle of Vanilla Haqqislam vs Yu Jing Invincible Army

Winning the roll-off and realizing that striking first and striking hard might secure some early objectives, Haqq chose to go first, and gave up deployment choice, being forced to deploy first.

After deployment it became clear that rather than objectives, the active threat of the Guija was too much to ignore. Lacking proper anti-tag weapons, the brave soldiers of the Volunteer Force exploited the rather weak sensor suite of the TAG, employing smoke and advanced optics to lay down a rain of fire into the target. Fed crucial data from the lieutenant, the NCO Khawarij was able to fire with essentially impunity, hammering the TAG for multiple orders before finally downing it.

Pushing forwards and removing the ranged threat of the turret, it became clear that this aggressive push, while successful, left the enemy open to counterattack and possibly succeed with their unknown goals. With the Hunzakut’s expert scouting, a flank was secured and the Telemetric Data was downloaded of the new enemy’s backline. Throwing caution to the wind, the NCO Khawarij threw himself forward into the line of fire to take the TAG out of the fight for good (as there was an engineer remote beside it and doing so would secure another primary objective). Succeeding but massively overextended, the NCO died to the monofilament weapons of an advanced heavy trooper. The Ghazi following him making sure the remote helper stayed down but ultimately overextending alongside his superhuman brethren.

Seemingly without leadership, the enemy force none the less attempted a defense. Loss of lieutenant putting strain on their order pool, the Hulang confidently pushed into the Ghazi, but tragically lost every face to face and failed every save while taking him down. Opting to remove the infiltrator in their backline, the sniper takes shots at the Hunzakut, his shots narrowly avoided before the automated defense turret did its work and splattered the embedded sniper. Needing this threat removed the Zhanchi nearest the Hunzakut decides to double crit his volley, and the Hunzakut’s luck is done. Pushing forward with the remote to delay any further objective, the bot gets into a prolonged engagement with a revealed daylami, who ultimately managed to down the remote in multiple faces-to-faces.

Airborn reinforcements arrive, parachuting into the battlefield but eating reaction shots from the now enraged mech engineer. The Bashi immediately loses his holomask. Attempting to stop the rampage, the daylami fires his panzerfaust, promptly eating a bullet for his troubles. The Hakim (thankfully) nearby, rezzes the daylami, and in the next turn the daylami crits the mech engineer, who passes all but one save. Opting to try to please command with this new breathing room, the Hakim Secures the HVT ( Follow-up) and the Bashi crushes the downed servant bot (Predator- Secondary).

Using a command token to stop Retreat!, the paramedic rezzes the downed engineer, who now in a world without bots by his side flies into a rage and downs the Bashi, Hakim and Daylami despite their best efforts to dodge.

Needing to stop his rampage, the Kaplan engineer on loan from Bayhan drives forward to lock down his coutnerpart, eliminating zhanchi in a brutal corridor battle, and forcing the rest to hide. Setting up in a suppressive pattern to cover the civilians, he reloads and prepares for the worst.

Using the last command token to stay in the fight, the remaining zhanchi are forced to drive towards the Kaplan one by one, where they meet a grim end. Barrel still glowing hot, the Kaplan reports there are no more moving targets in the AO.

The battle ends 9 – 0 for Haqqislam, but at what cost. The enemies that lie before them amongst their own fallen are human too, thrown against them for some unknowable goal, and shattered against their implacable determination.

Hopefully, when Concilium is safe, there will be answers. But for now against shifting glow of a sky littered with the burning streaks that represent a thousand souls, the Volunteer Force licks its wounds in the cover of darkness, and prepares for war.

(It seems the images may be in a reversed order, so try starting from the bottom! Cheers)