Turian Armor deployed outside the cities rolled forward, their guns roaring as they advanced toward the treeline. UNSC Infantry was firing AT weapons at them, tracers lighting the night's air between the two opposing armies. The Turian infantry rode in their personal APCs as the guns mounted in automated turrets let loose rippling volleys of automatic fire. The enemy replied in kind, still. The Quarians and their allies were nothing if not persistent.

A Turian Private gripped tightly his Phaeston AR, the oddly designed weapon bouncing in his arms as they rode over the field. He mumbled, "Spirits, they really aren't letting up! Can't we just run the distance and hit'em up close while the Armor flanks?!"

"Their AI-driven Combat Platforms are laying waste to any infantry that tries!" The squad Lieutenant replied, his white face tattoos glowing scarlet in the light of the transport. He opened his omni-tool and looked at details taken by extremely distant scans of the enemy quadrupedal and hexapedal mechanoids, then said, "They're running on Geth software from the looks, though!"

"Command's gonna enjoy the confirmation that whoever these guys are, they managed to unify the Geth and Quarians!" The Sergeant quipped as she held close her sniper rifle. Their vehicle bounced as a missile struck past the APS. She heard the crew swear, then mumbled, "Sounds like the crew chief and his boys aren't having the best of times," as she activated the eye sensor mounted to the left side of her head. She switched on the HUD and linked to the transport's external cameras, only to gasp, "HOLY SPIR-"

The vehicle almost collapsed in on itself thanks to the impact. A Railgun tank had fired at them and cored the vehicle at an angle. The troops managed to jump out, the few of them that survived. The Lieutenant, one Gracius, stumbled out with a shard of steel embedded in his armor's collar. He pulled it out, then hoarsely demanded, "Status!? Talon squad, report?!"

"Sarge is KIA, sir!" The Private cried out, the panic in his voice almost palpable as he added, "And I cant' feel my damned legs!"

The Lieutenant swiveled about, watching their few survivors crawl out of the tank, dragging the Private out by the arms. He could see why the Private couldn't feel his legs, too. A shard of the broken tank was stuck in his spine and had probably cut clean through, severed it. He breathed, then looked over at the treeline where muzzle flashes appeared. He ran over toward the destroyed tank, a collapsed husk, then knelt and opened fire with his rifle.

Allied armor and aircraft advanced around them, their gunships laying into the jungle ahead with twin-linked heavy cannons while hovering in place. Overhead, there were still many enemy fighters, the airspace still contested by both sides' aerospace fighters. The League's aerodynamic designs, however, seemed to be better armed versus Turian fighters that lacked their missile-carrying capacity.

One of their other transports stopped, disgorging an infantry platoon and a medic. The Platoon's Lieutenant asked, "What's your status, Talon-2!?"

"Medic, Sergeant and the transport crew are dead! Enemy railgun!" The man replied, then pointed forward at the treeline. Yet again, a light brightly flashed in the night. One of the gunships snapped in half and exploded as a railgun shot punched clean through its kinetic barriers, overloading them and delivering its full kinetic force. The man stated, "I think the only reason we're still alive is because we were at an angle when the shot hit!"

"Get your wounded aboard the second vehicle coming up and follow us!" His fellow Lieutenant replied as another gunship swept in, firing its cannon. A thundering shot echoed across the place from a sniper rifle, followed by a Turian infantryman losing his head. The unnamed Lieutenant of Talon-3 spoke, "Spirits above, those are some mean guns..." as he and the other platoons pushed up with their vehicles.

A pair of fighters dropped explosive charges in the treeline, shattering several trees and setting ablaze the surroundings. Surviving soldiers, Quarian and Human alike, scrambled for the cover of undamaged sections of the forest, firing their weapons or retreated deeper into the forest as their wounded were taken out of the place by truck and ambulance.

When the Turian vehicles, wheeled or otherwise, reached the treeline, the infantry poured into the thick underbrush, firing their weapons as they went. One 'Yuenescee' solder(That was what they'd heard them be referred to as) was cut down by two men focusing on him and filling him with enough rounds to put him down for good. They watched the weirdly Asari-like form dropped to the floor, helmet flung off of his head by the impact.

One of the Turian soldiers kicked the rifle away from the corpse and kept up the fire. The Lieutenant marched up to the corpse and knelt, grabbing the man's sidearm and slinging it onto a magnetic lock on his thigh before taking another few steps forward. A laser beam cut the tree ahead of him in half, forcing him into cover. To that, Gracius mumbled, "The bastards have lasers...! Great!"

One of their tanks shook as its main gun fired, only for its entire front to explode in a flurry of smoke and fire as a railgun shot drilled through it. A second tank aimed and shot back, its AP round slamming into and shattering the kinetic barrier. Two Turian AT soldiers with launchers ran up and fired, missiles streaking forward and destroying the machine's guns and the railgun on the back. The tank then fired again and peeled the vehicle open like a can of sardines, exposing the internals and revealing that it was, in fact, unmanned. Its central Geth core glowed for a moment, before the vehicle detonated to avoid capture.

The hostiles were surprisingly calm in their retreat. Gracius barked, "Hold position! Watch out for booby traps!" then aimed down the scope and nailed a man clean through the back of the skull with a burst. They were firing at silhouettes at this point and the silhouettes were firing back as they disappeared into the smoke and shadows of the trees. Night had long-ago fallen on this side of the planet.

The Lieutenant pulled up his com system and barked, "This is Talon-2 Actual with Talon assault element due South-West of the city! Enemy forces have been pushed into the Treeline! Requesting defoliation equipment to pursue!" as a shot zipped past his head, clipping one of the crests on his 'crown'. He scoffed and ducked into cover, then repeated, "I say again, Talon Force has hostile forces retreating into the Jungle! Requesting defoliator tanks in order to pursue them!"

A moment's pause allowed the Turian officer and his compatriots to hear that the gunfire had died down around them. The only source of audible rifle fire remained the city, which, when they looked back upon, they saw it was ablaze. Multiple large fires still burned across the relatively newly-built colony. Still-standing concrete structures were bases of fire for their hostile foe, while overhead airpower was slowly thinning. Many jets were already bugging out, having run out of ammunition. Some were shot out of the sky by Turian starfighters. Others escaped.

The sounds of repeated sonic booms caused the Avian aliens to cover their auditory organs and look up as the enemy's fighter-bombers disengaged. Some more came back to replace them, heralded by the arrival of Beyond-Visual-Range missiles fired from their undercarriages destroying the Turian Eagle fighters. Fireballs still fell to the ground amidst the city's ever-more-ruined landscape, igniting more fires around them.

The Lieutenant froze as he heard a familiar voice over the radio. General Fedorian himself spoke, "Talon squad, permission denied. Return to the city and complete the encirclement so no more of their troops can escape. We'll deal with whatever remaining units of theirs managed to break out into the jungle soon," calm and calculated. Gracius blinked, sighed deeply, then motioned for his squad to board the nearest transport.

The troops of Talon rolled back into cover, leaving a rearguard to keep the treeline secure. They took control of checkpoints along the central boulevard leading toward the Colony's most important structure:The Space Elevator. The city itself was built in a concentric pattern which was more visible from above. Seven main boulevards ran from the central square where the Space Elevator and all of its tethers were to the outskirts like the spokes of a wheel. They were connected by four smaller concentric ring-shaped boulevards that separated the city into blocks and districts.

They were ordered to position on the boulevards sat at the city's approximate nine and seven o'clock. The roads were packed with abandoned civvie vehicles, but this part of town was far less ruined. The hardest-hit, with fires still burning, were the military sector which acted as the main base for the city's garrison and where fighting was still audibly ongoing, and the industrial sector, where civilian workers armed with fresh-off-the-assembly-line and makeshift weapons were putting up one hell of a fight with enemy infantry.

Gracius shifted uneasily as their bulldozing vehicles moved the abandoned wheeled cars out of the way. One of his soldiers commented, "Hydrogen-powered ground cars," as he leaned against one of their transports. He continued, "Spirits, they feel a bit primitive... They have the Quarians and Geth with'em and here they are, driving this kind of crap..."

"These 'primitives' just sent several dozen men and women of our company to the Spirits' embrace, Septus," The Lieutenant commented, watching the flames dancing on one of the few cars hit by their HE. He tapped the side of his head, pointing to the missing crest, "And they nearly sniped me. I don't think the Asari, our Command, or anyone realizes how deep in the refuse we just jumped..."

"You thinking we can't pacify them, sir?" A female soldier inquired.

He shrugged, "You saw how hard they're fighting. Word of mouth is their General went down when a Blackwatch unit kicked his door in. Fought to the last bullet in his magazine," then he sighed deeply and murmured, "This isn't a policing action anymore... We're in for Counter-Insurgency if my nose is right. And it's never been wrong so far..."

"Sure doesn't seem like the Volus Insurrectionists we faced on that one moon colony," Another corporal nodded, shifting his rifle over into his other hand. Corporal Lupercal, he recalled. He asked, "I suddenly miss Severus-IV, now that we're talking about it. Beautiful women, wonderful beaches and only one or two drug-fueled psychos shooting at us instead of..."

"Instead of our mirror image, but including the Quarians," Gracius hummed, then scratched his chin. He scanned the rooftops and paused, seeing a single silhouette on top. He blinked, something urging him to move toward it. He did, marching toward the building to th quiet protestations of his men. Lupercal, however, followed him in. They entered a collapsed suburban house, destroyed by the husk of a crashed starfighter belonging to them, roof caved in right where the living room would've been.

The Lieutenant climbed up the stairs, rifle drawn. His eyes scanned every neat little detail on the ground and on the walls as they did so. Booby traps that had been triggered and smears of bright red, 'Yuenescee' blood and even Turian blood. Quarians as well, probably. When he reached the entrance to the roof, he pointed his gun at the figure and audibly 'cocked it'.

The figure didn't move. He pushed up and gasped, looking around at what looked to be a dozen dead Turian infantrymen and two more 'Yuenescee' dead. One of the two soldiers was riddled with bullets. The other was a Quarian with three holes punctured into the chest armor that reinforced her environmental suit. The third and final dead was not armed or equipped like the other two.

A fully enclosed helmet, its visor tinted dark-blue. Black body armor with a red stripe on the shoulder pad and reinforced leg servos and armor. He walked over to the figure's front, about to make sure he was dead, only to see his chest had been opened by a Turian shotgun, red blood smearing the breastplate which had dozens of holes in it. The side of the visor was cracked.

His left hand, a five-fingered one with shorter, thinner gripping appendages, held onto what looked to be a submachine gun, its strange square magazine dropped on the floor. There were no spent casings on the floor, though. Beside the man was the corpse of the shotgunner that had killed him, his almost Krogan shotgun smeared with blood at the barrel. The Turian had gotten close.

"Spirits above," Murmured Lupercal, his voice trembling, which was just about enough to worry Gracius. Lupercal didn't scare easy. He called, "Sir," and when Gracius turned his head to face him, he pointed down. A blood-covered knife lay in the soldier's other hand, gripped tightly. The blade had dulled, but it was stained by congealed blood. Turian blood, both Turian soldiers noted. Soon, they examined the corpses of the dead Turians and saw that several of them had the marks of slit throats or stabs to the fleshy openings of their auditory organs aside from bullet holes in their armors. The man with the shotgun had gotten a stab in the throat, visible by the blood pooling in his collar and on the floor.

Gracius knelt beside the Yuenescee soldier and looked right at him, mumbling, "What sort of soldier manages to do this...?" before his slit pupils peered down below the helmet. Despite the broken chest plate and the shallow bullet holes in his armor, there was still writing visible on the top of the plate. He squinted and read, "'ODST'..." before mumbling, "Seems like it took Death to stop you..."

He paid his respects to the soldier by gently laying him down, then radioed, "This is Talon-2-Actual transmitting. Requesting CASEVAC, one platoon strength unit, dead on roof. Add one Infiltrator sniper team to help maintain overwatch at possible hostile egress point," and looked at Lupercal. The two men nodded to one-another and waited for their air support to come down and retrieve the dead.

The Elevator Square

Fedorian breathed a sigh, tugging at his armor's collar. He hit the top of his helmet twice, then looked over to one of the sixteen other Turians on the elevator itself, noting Admiral Vakarian, whom had chosen to accompany him down to the planet. As they entered the atmosphere, the two could still see the loose airbattle going on around the elevator, but it had become so thinned that the Turian Air Force finally gained superiority simply by the fact the enemy force had had to retreat to whatever bases they had and rearm.

The city below burned, still. Vakarian quipped, "Looks just about like every other secessionist stronghold..." though his voice was a bit dark, glum and quiet. He was miffed that they'd lost several Frigates and almost a thousand good men before they'd even set foot on the planet, which was understandable, Fedorian thought. Those ships might've been older models, but they were still expensive.

As the Elevator reached its lower point, nearing the city itself, it began to decelerate to ensure they didn't crash into the ground at past the speed of sound. Fedorian replied, "Well, let's pray it's less like that. Sparatus tied our hands behind our backs, meaning that if we deploy the Hastatim, they're gonna have to play nice..." and that got a snrot out of Vakarian.

When the elevator touched down and the massive bulkhead door opened, a battalion of Turian soldiers and their vehicles came into view, spread out amidst barricades hastily erected within this massive central square. It wasn't a 'square' per se, but rather a very decorated center of the circularly-designed city. A soldier marched up the ramp toward them and gave the two men a salute, before Fedorian commented, "No saluting in a combat zone, soldier."

"S-Sorry, sir..." The man quickly lowered his hand and looked back, seemingly panicky.

Vakarian and Fedorian looked at one-another. While Vakarian let out a slightly derisive snort toward the kid, Fedorian said, "Calm down. Take me to your officers. I want a status report," to which the soldier gave a quick nod, showing them to follow. The two men and their escorting squadron of Marines marched down, the Marines preparing their weapons. Many of them, the officers included, tensed as they saw the tanks scanning the rooftops and standard Legionnaires looking around as if hunting for ghosts.

"What the hell's got everyone so twitchy...?" Vakarian mumbled as they walked.

Entering a command post built in the confines of an old grocery shop which had been cleared out, the two men found the Legionnaire officer in charge. He greeted them with a fairly professional nod, then said, "Welcome down to Hell, sirs. The locals refer to this colony as New Warsaw and, going by their willingness to fight and die for it, they're intent on marking it in the records of each Legion deployed planetside."

"What's the status down here, Centurion Civitus?" Fedorian inquired as he leaned on the table where a holographic map displayed the city. He saw there was still heavy fighting in the Northern and North-Eastern parts of the city, as well near what was a newly-discovered Mine Shaft from where Triple-A had been laying into them like nothing else.

Civitus replied, "Well, what ain't happening, General?" with a hint of sarcasm. He pointed at a city sector and stated, "We've isolated a regiment-strength unit of enemy soldiers and Militia in the Industrial sector of town. They've got enough supplies and ammo to last in there for a while unless we start deploying some of the stuff we signed off on never using in Wars again. There's almost three hundred thousand civilians still in the city and Spirits only know how many more in the jungle, retreating with their military southward and a good lot of'em don't seem to like us very much."

"Anything new in this war?" Vakarian quipped, crossing his arms to his chest.

The Centurion sighed deeply, then said, "Afraid so, sirs," then he pushed aside the three-dimensional holomap. A three-dimensional render of a local sniper appeared. Clad in what looked to be a ghillie suit, with enhanced goggles and a strange, magnetic long gun that had a multipurpose smartscope attached, he or she looked mean as all hell and was obviously 'Yuenescee', as the Batarians and a few of their own troops called'em. He told them, "Keep your heads down as much as possible. They have a lot of these bastards still in the city."

"What are they?" Fedorian asked, cupping his own chin as he stared, trying to figure them out.

Civitus shrugged, then said, "Snipers, sir. Very dangerous ones. We've recovered a few of those rifles they're using and they're heavy-duty magnetic anti-materiel weaponry. One of them can put a hole clean through two of our tanks and have energy to drill through a concrete building at maximum setting," and that caused them to gasp. He nodded, "Worst part is? No Mass Effect fields are being used. On any of their weapons. It's just really advanced propellants and cartridges..."

"That limits their ammo carrying potential a lot," Fedorian blinked, "We know they have Mass Effect tech. They didn't adopt it?"

"Not as much as we thought they would," The man shrugged. He added, "Their weapons still hit like hell, though... But these guys? They're worse than just their rifles," only to pull up a video taken by a Turian guncam. The soldiers in question were engaged in a firefight amidst a series of high-end shops. Civilian Militia and Army troops. All seemed to be pretty standard until...

... One of the snipers appeared, materializing like out of thin air, a film of nauseating light peeling back to reveal the dark-grey camouflage uniform designed specifically for combat in an urban sprawl. The camera froze just as the massive gun's muzzle flared. The two men stared, stunned as the footage rolled back, then played again in slow-motion. Civitus stated, "They have active optical camouflage. Shields them from everything from thermals to sound detection..."

"That's impossible..." Fedorian murmured, "The Salarians' own Infiltrators are barely testing OPTICAM out..."

"Seems like these guys got it before us," The Centurion stated rather obviously, "Hence, be careful, sirs. They can be everywhere..."

"Great," Mumbled Vakarian, "Just when we thought we'd gotten control of the city," and he looked to Fedorian. He told him, "I'm gonna go back aboard the Executor. Send a message to the Citadel Council and Palaven about this... You take care down here, old friend," before patting him on the shoulder. Fedorian gave his friend a nod and let him depart with his platoon of escorting Marines, many of which tightened formation around him. As if that'd stop a rail rifle round from mulching them.

Fedorian rubbed his forehead-or, more accurately, his helmet-with two of his fingers, thinking. He ordered, "Contact all units and tell them to have a continuous night watch. Maybe try utilizing flashbangs to disperse the active camouflage or at least disrupt it. All else fails, keep two sentinels on battle buddy duty throughout the night in whatever parts of the city we've secured... And check the sewers. If they're big enough to fit one of us or one of them, they might be using them to travel..."

"Sir," Civitus nodded, "I'll contact the other Centurions ASAP."

"Good luck, Civitus. Spirits guide you," Fedorian offered, then stepped over to the doorway, leaning against it and scanning the rooftops for movement, too, now, out of instinct. His guards stood at the ready, weapons poking out of every window and murder hole just in case some random enemy Scout Sniper decided to appear. They were fighting an enemy on relatively fresh-broken-ground home turf.

Some sort of device started playing a tune. The man looked back into the bar, pausing as he saw what looked to be a haptic-interface musical system that had started working the moment a Turian command staff member stubbed his foot on it. The soldier sat himself down next to the device, in one of the booths, and checked his leg while the General stepped over to the device as the strum, thump and hum of instruments combined with a Yuenescee's voice to sing a fairly relaxing tune.

"Background music, huh, sir?" Joked the soldier who'd stubbed his toe. Fedorian gave a light chuckle, then walked behind the bar. He took his helmet off, revealing his clan's face tattoos to the young man before pulling out a bottle of alcohol he knew for a fact was Dextro due to having had that exact brand before. A weird find in a secluded place like the hermit country that was the League, but he supposed that, with all the ships that'd gone missing, some would've gotten looted for booze. He offered to the trooper, who raised his hand and shook his head, then poured himself a shot. He figured, since it was gonna be a long occupation?

Might as well taste what the locals had to offer.