The Army had finally decided it was time to try and secure a larger foothold on the Turian-occupied bank. With word of allied reinforcements trickling down the grape-vine toward the Militia and Infantry fighting on the planet. Night had fallen over the continent where the Capital was and most of the forces were concentrated.

Tracers lit the darkness among the treelines as Turian troops equipped with their own personal Night Vision systems engaged the UNSC forces present. The Army troops were like Ghosts, however, with the Militia not far behind, appearing and disappearing from the various engagement sites as they inflicted heavier and heavier Casualties on the Turian forces present.

Carla knelt behind the cover of a thick jungle tree that hadn't yet been named by their plant-naming nerds. The metal shavings that acted as bullets in the enemy's guns cut marks into the tree with each impact, splintering it and forcing the girl to keep her head down. Sarah beside her was flat on her stomach, putting belts of ammunition down-range as she flashed the Turians' optics with her gun's flashlight.

Beside them, a pair of Army infantrymen armed with underbarrel grenade launchers fired 40mm HEDP rounds, which detonated in blossoming flashes of fire and shrapnel behind the Turians. They were facing down a squad near an old mine shaft that they'd used to travel through to what had once been Grayson's old home:The hamlet and mining town that they'd been assigned to.

It was a weird homecoming, the girl thought to herself as she primed and threw a flashbang grenade. She ducked behind cover, as did the other soldiers, when night became day for a split second. A four-man team of Turians that were trying to flank screamed in pain as their night vis systems overloaded, with Sarah grinning and shifting fire toward them.

Bullets ripped apart one of the men, tearing off battle plate and hardened skin from the body and sending the corpse tumbling back, blood painting the ground. She ducked into cover and let out various swear words in some ancient human language as she dropped the spent box magazine and slid in a fresh one. She said to Carla, "Ya know, I fucken' hate night fighting!"

"Amen!" Carla replied. She stood up and poked her rifle between the lower branches of the tree, utilizing them to stabilize her rifle as she fired bursts toward whatever she could pick up through her NVGs. She then hid again as a round cut through the tree beside her and slammed into the head of one of their soldiers, taking it off. She swore and barked, "FUCK! ANTI-MATERIEL RIFLE ON THE WALL!"

"Replying," A cold, calculated voice spoke through the com. The thunderclap of an SRS-100 firing caused the very ground to shake beneath them and the wall of the hamlet ahead exploded. Right, Clara remembered, they had some Special Forces with them now, a bit farther behind. They were trying to keep the Turians occupied.

She dropped the spent magazine from her carbine, slid a fresh one in from one of her pouches, then jumped to her feet and laid down the hate again as she and her team continued to advance toward the high building wall. Beside them, alien animals growled and screamed into the night, terrified by the gunfights going on around them like any sane living being would be.

Sarah stood up beside her, shouldering the GPMG and laying down a lot of hate to provide cover to them. The Army troopers beside her also fired more grenades, taking out units of Turians from the garrison just as they were running to meet them. Among them, however, Carla could swear she had just seen a humanoid figure.

As she jumped into a nearby irrigation ditch, she could see the walls and gate of the hamlet. Above her, a small clearing allowed her to peer into the night sky, watching the tall stalk of the Space Elevator rising high from miles away. Above, she could also see tracers flying to and fro, an exchange of fire between Turians and the suddenly-emerging Resistance.

Pushing further toward the town, the soldiers of the UNSC cleared themselves a path, though they, too, took casualties, with one man dropping dead from a headshot right beside Sergeant Grayson and her compatriot. One of the men brought up a rocket launcher as a Turian scout car of some kind rolled up and turned its automated turret to face them.

The HEAT rocket of the Jackhammer launcher struck the bow of the vehicle, igniting the inner workings of the machine alongside its fuel lines. It exploded in a flash, raining shrapnel onto the backs of the local garrison and making Carla grin. She deactivated the NVG system and pushed forward into the place with her strike team.

Putting her hand up to her ear, she said, "RAIDER Command, this is PHANTOM Actual," as she took cover behind the burning wreck, "We've made it inside the compound. About to go raid the enemy HQ in the AO for intel, ov-" and suddenly, she felt something strike her, "OOF!" and all the air out of her lungs was knocked out.

She felt herself pinned to the floor and soon saw the barrel of a shotgun pointed at her face, alongside an eerily beautiful blue-faced alien with tentacles for hair and human features. She wore similar tattoos to those of the Turians and was clearly biotic, going by the shine on her skin and her armor. Carla scoffed and said, "Didn't think they'd send Asari here..."

"A Commando has to work," The woman replied with a grin, racking the pump on her shotgun, "You Yuenescee creatures really upset the balance, you know? Helping the Geth and fighting the Batarians," before she knelt onto the girl's chest with the full weight of her armor, causing her to start choking due to the compression of her chest as the gunfight around them continued. She told Carla, "I'm not too fond of those four-eyed fucks, but everything else is... Problematic. Good night."

Carla saw her finger wrap around the trigger, only for some blur or shadow to impact her moments later, sending her into a wall as the shotgun went off, specks narrowly missing the girl. She grabbed her carbine off the floor and aimed at the Asari, only to watch the figure, whom she soon realized was a Spartan, deliver a biotically-enhanced punch to the alien's face that sprayed her entire head across the wall.

"Fuck..." Carla whispered, looking up at the Spartan as his heavy footfalls shook the very ground ahead of her. He offered her a hand, which she took without hesitation, before speaking out a weak, "Thanks, sir..." and getting no reply. The Spartan's active camouflage system engaged and he departed seconds later, with Sarah running up to the girl.

"Holy shit, Cee, are ya okay?!" The gunner asked as she shouldered her weapon.

Carla nodded, when whispered, "A Spartan just saved my ass from an Asari Commando..." as she looked at the headless corpse that lay sprawled ahead of them. The rest of her team winced at the sight, then looked around and found cover as the Turian Garrison came out in strength. The team, however, continued their objective.

They passed throughout the damaged housing units made up of prefabricated materiel, past Turian barricades that had been set up to try and stop specifically this and moved into what would be the Town Hall. Taking cover by the doors, the UNSC troops, both Quarian and Human, plus a supporting Geth-run drone that had just arrived, kicked the door in and threw stun grenades inside.

When the flashbangs flashed and banged, the team pushed in. They took out the trio of Turians with heavy weapons hiding behind the counter first by focusing them down, then Sarah hosed a hallway down with high-caliber ammo, chipping the walls and tearing through the doors just as the first Turians emerged from cover. Carla and two of her mates followed up with frags and headshots for the downed or disoriented Turians.

A second team pushed up to the second floor as the team swept the area clear, rifles ringing loudly in the night as they worked to clear the place. Another of Carla's soldiers took a shot to the chest and collapsed, dead before he even hit the ground. As they pushed up to the last door on the floor, Carla paused upon hearing crying.

Behind them lay a dozen Turian corpses and yet more destroyed pieces of furniture, dirt and debris strewn about the floor and mixing with the blood of their fallen foes. A lot of bullet holes marked the walls and doors, too, with some of the windows having shattered under the whittling gunfire. As they moved to the door, Carla gently opened it and poked her rifle's barrel through, only to pause as someone rushed her with some sort of cane.

When she dodged out of the way, she made sure to call out, "Hold fire," to her team. An elderly female, human obviously, staggered as she heard a familiar voice, then looked at Carla and whispered, "Carla Grayson... God," while her voice cracked. She waddled forward and hugged the girl, to which Carla smiled a little.

"Hey, miss Doherty," She sighed deeply, then knelt and asked, "I'm glad you're alright, but we're here for a couple of things:Intel and to find more people to bring to our side of the river. Where're the others? Where's dad?" only to pause as she saw the woman shiver, shaking. She pointed to the Turians and slowly began to explain...

... Camps.

"Fuck," Whispered Carla. She was ast on the front steps of the building, holding her rifle close and looking around. Every single man, woman and child from here that cooperated had been taken to a 'Safe camp' nearby a couple of hours before the Raid. The Turians had kept them here, thinking the war would never return to the other Shore and anywhere near New Warsaw.

When they realized that wasn't the case anymore, they'd taken them. Taken them to places they called 'Safe Camps', through the deployment of specialized squads known to them simply as the 'Hastatim'. Basically what would pass for a dictatorial Death Squad in any Regime of Ancient Earth. A hole lay not far from the place, where black, charred remains rest.

Carla assumed those were the people who 'resisted', going by the one bone sticking out of the hole being human. She sighed deeply, rubbed her face, then watched the rest of the Army strike team come out of the town hall with the necessary files, all of them stocked on several drives and tablets. Sarah said, "Boss, we oughta move... Turians'll probably send a response team soon."

"Yeah," Carla whispered, then stood up. They marched out from within the town, noticing some of the destroyed buildings and anti-air guns, their barrels bent and rusted and burned. As they passed by the remnants of that burn pit, part of Carla prayed her father was still alive. She mumbled to herself, "Gotta let command know about the Safe Camps... We need to go raid those damn things ASAP..."

"Agreed," Sarah spoke as she hefted her MG, "For all we know, our families could be in there. Your dad, me folks and so on," and she sighed, giving the girl a pat on the back, "Least we're delayin' telling your old man about... Y'know," and both of them looked over toward the much wider river that they'd created through the sacrifice of people dear to them.

As they trekked back out into the forest with their loot, the girls soon heard Turian vehicles rolling up and the audible voice of female enemy units, soon seeing humanoid figures march out yet again. They sped through the trees, leaving a few traps behind for the Asari Commandos that'd certainly try to track and kill them all...

NoWarStal

The 422nd were back at it again. The forest of steel that was NoWarStal became the sight of a firefight again, an ambush against Turian platoons advancing through the area. Forty Turian infantrymen were beak-to-face with the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers of the four-twenty-second and their comrades from the Army.

A Turian rocket struck a steel pipe just beside the head of one of the ODST officers, a Quarian, as she fired her MA40 on full auto toward the bastards. She took cover, taking a knee behind a bending pair of pipes in front of her, then ordered, "Hit them from the front, boys and girls. Rockets and grenades," only to hear the affirmative replies of her comrades.

A volley of Jackhammer fragmentation rockets, thinner projectiles with a higher-yield explosive warhead, flew in and detonated among the crowd of enemy soldiers, washing their ranks in sharp, burning-hot shrapnel and forcing them deeper into cover in the winding pipes. The woman stood up and fired at them just as a burst of rounds scraped her cover, leaving neat little cuts in the infrastructure.

A distant shot rang out, their Scout Sniper, positioned atop one of the disaffected smoke stacks, promptly nailing a vehicle and halting any sort of reinforcements for the Turian squad. He radioed, "Ma'am, we'd best hurry it along. The enemy's trying to send a convoy to evacuate the Turians' wounded," before he switched targets to a Turian officer and fired.

The round ripped through the Turian's cover and ripped his head clean off, spraying blood across his comrades and the pipes and containers they were using as cover. The Lieutenant replied, "Copy that," before priming a pair of smoke grenades and stating, "All units, push them the moment the smoke's up..."

She threw them, billowing clouds of smoke soon growing and growing until they obscured both sides. The Lieutenant waved her men forward, jumping over her cover as rounds from the Turians' weapons zipped past them, some even striking the armor plates and kinetic barriers of the ODSTs as they advanced. The Sniper's rifle sang again and another Turian, this one with a heavy weapon, exploded into meaty chunks.

The main issue that the squad faced when they came out of the smoke and pipes, however, weren't the Turians. A squad of five women, humanoid-looking, but still alien, emerged out of cover. Biotics, going by the amps and the purple auras around their forms. The Lieutenant gasped, lifting her rifle and opening fire first.

Rounds struck kinetic barriers made of biotic energy as return fire came:An anti-materiel rifle of alien design ringing loudly into the night. The shot narrowly missed the Lieutenant, but took one of the Army Troopers down as she took cover. The rest of the team pushed up, with the woman radioing in, "Command, be advised, we have Asari Commando squads on the ground!"

"Guess we pissed them off!" Barked an Army infantryman as he stood up, aiming for the Asari soldiers charging headlong their way. He opened fire, only to be slammed by a warp blast, followed by a full volley from one Asari dual-wielding SMGs with Warp ammo. When the shots connected, the concussive force sent the man flying back. He slammed against one of the steel girders with enough force to snap his spine.

The ODST Lieutenant sighed and opened up on the Asari trooper closest to him. Bullets punctured through the biotic barriers and struck armor, causing the assaulting Commando to stagger. A shotgun blast peppered the 'Yuenescee' member next, followed by her feeling the air knocked out of her lungs by a Biotic throw attack.

She staggered back, having felt the full weight of the blast sort of press her organs against her spine. Her weapon had been thrown out of her hand, forcing her to switch to her combat knife and SOCOM pistol, which she fired twice at the shotgunner Asari commando. The rounds scraped her head's biotic barrier as they closed distance.

Instead of falling back, the ODST Lieutenant took the initiative, utilizing her blade in a wide-arching swing to make the bastard take a step back, before putting several more slugs into her chest armor plate. She saw another of her boys go down to a Biotic blast, only to get his head canoed by another shotgun-toting bitch.

The Lieutenant grit her teeth and quickly decided to stop playing with her food. She knelt, dodging under a Biotic punch, before she slammed into the Asari officer full force, put the barrel of her pistol through the regenerating Biotic barrier and squeezed, splattering the woman's brains on the concrete. The roar of the SRS-100 followed and a trio of Turians taking aim for her found themselves painted in the blood of their center comrade.

The Asari commandos surrounded the Lieutenant and began laying into her with their weapons, bullets ringing through the battle plate as her own kinetic barriers collapsed. Her squadmates, however, were still in the fight, the team that had fired the frag missiles at the Turian force finally closing the distance and slamming into their uncovered backs while another team pincered the Turians.

Rifles and shotguns sang loud, bullets ripping through armor and forcing the Asari, wounded, to retreat, leaving the corpses of a few UNSC dead behind them, but a still living Lieutenant. The woman, though she was filled with enough lead to double her weight, stood up and started firing at the Asari, too, catching one clean through the skull and sending her tumbling to the floor, which caused one of her sisters to scream.

As the rest of the formation arrived, the Lieutenant didn't call for a Medic, nor for anything else, she called, "How many'd we lose...?" to her Sergeant.

The male human knelt beside her and said, "KIA? Four ODSTs, maybe six or seven Army troopers. Wounded? A dozen, yourself included, ma'am," before he cast a glance over to the Turian side of the battle and said, "Estimated the Turians lost twenty-three troops total, plus the Asari you guys murked... We came out on top."

"Good," She heaved, then coughed and took her helmet off, "Just... Get me the hell to a doctor now..." to which the Sarge let out a short laugh. He picked her up and carried her out as the Sniper was still taking potshots at the retreating Asari. They carried her all the way back to one of the nearby tunnels, thinking the enemy was getting too close to an entry-way for comfort...

... The Asari, meanwhile, had retreated beyond the walls of the Steelworks, taking cover within an old hamlet where the Turians had set up a forward outpost. The Asari that had screamed, Belia Merenis, a young novice compared to the rest of her squad, stared through a pair of binoculars at the jungle of steel, anger boiling to the point her biotic Aura flared slightly.

She felt a hand clasp her shoulder. She looked up and gasped, seeing it was her officer, an Asari with a darker shade of blue and a more ornate face tattoo, including a line running down from the bottom lip to the chin. She told the girl, "Keep that anger close by, kid... You're gonna need it," before turning back to the others and asking, "Just what the fuck was that?"

"Us getting our asses kicked on our first deployment," Another of her team spoke as she disassembled her rifle, "Those Yuenescee and Quarian bastards are dug in like Thessian Ticks and we ain't getting them out of there without more heavy artillery," and she set the weapon aside as a Turian Sniper climbed up to the roof. She looked at him and said, "He's gonna get his head blown off by those Ghosts of theirs..."

"Worry about yourself, not the Avians," Spoke the commander, authority clear in her voice. She looked at them, putting her hands on her hips, then said, "Yeah, we got our asses kicked. Wanna know why? Because those aren't some backwater pirates like you thought they were. You prissy idiots even think for a second that Tevos tossed us all the way out here for a very specific reason? The Turians aren't winning this shitshow."

"Don't let Fedorian or Vakarian hear you say that, ma'am," Joked the youngest of the Commando squad, "Might ruffle their feathers a bit."

The Commander chose to ignore the quip for now, though the others let out short laughs at it. She crossed her arms and told them, "Focus. We got lucky we only lost a couple of people this run," and she felt the anger of the girl behind her boil up again. Sighing, the woman pinched the bow of her nose and murmured, "We shouldn't even be in this mess, but Tevos just had to cash in that favor..."

"We made them bleed reinforcements they don't have," A rifle-toting Asari shot back.

She answered, "While bleeding some of our own, you Varren-bait bitch," with a snappy tone. She lowered her hands by her side and told them, "We aren't even supposed to be here. The Council knows this has become an embarrassing shitshow for them and they expect us to fix the problems before this Black League, whatever the fuck they are, wheels themselves around with their entire Fleet and decides to kick us off this rock. Underestimating them clearly hasn't helped anyone here, so I want your heads in the fucking game before one of their sharpshooters splatters them halfway across the Jungle. Am I clear?"

The team paused for a minute. The woman sighed deeply, then barked again, "AM I CLEAR?!"

"YES, MA'AM!" They all replied quickly. She sighed, gave them a handwave to dismiss them back to whatever they were doing to relax, then climbed up one level to the communication room. She really needed to get better troops than a bunch of Rookies and she prayed Tevos and the Goddess-damned Matriarchs would see it.

She lifted up her Omni-Tool and activated the com system, initiating a secure connection through the use of a specific set of keys and codes that had been given to her by High Command back on Thessia. She spoke, "Cloak, this is Dagger... We are in deep, requesting CODE THREE," before receiving a garbled transmission in response.

A second later, a holographic form in clear ambassadorial clothing appeared, her face resolving last out of the pixelation. The woman's eyes slightly widened in surprise as she spoke warmly, "Oh, Commander T'Loak. I didn't expect you to be in-country so soon-" though with no hint of a smile. They weren't exactly 'friends'. Business associates fit better.

"Spare the bullshit, Tevos," The woman replied venomously, cutting her off, "I lost a couple of my girls out there because we were sent in blind and underestimated the Leaguers. You mind telling me why I'm here with a squad of Novice Commandos, facing hardened sons-of-bitches that not even the Turians with their Blackguard could apparently dig outta their holes?"

Tevos breathed a sigh, rubbing her face, then said, "Salarian intelligence has been incredibly faulty and even the reports we get from Fedorian's Expeditionary Forces are wildly out of date by the time they arrive. We believe their Artificial Intelligence units and the Geth that are with them might be more proactive than we originally thought."

"And yet you still sent me in," Scoffed the woman. She let out a short laugh, "You're one mean bitch, Tevos. I can't exactly blame only you, though. The Matriarchs never really liked me stirring up rebel thoughts in the other Asari youths about living their own Goddess-damned lives. The Commandos are too rigid for that, they'd say."

"Aria," Tevos sighed, "What are we looking at down there? Your Quantum Com system is the only one on-site... What do you see? What is going on on that planet? Tell us, send us intel so we know if we should be worried about reinforcing our positions or if this is a Police action like the rest of the Council seems to think..."

Aria looked out into the greater city just as a guided bomb from an enemy aerospace fighter blew up a checkpoint in the center, causing the entire place to shake with the shockwave. She only had two words to say about the situation. She turned to the Asari Councilor, grit her teeth, then said, "CODE RED..." garnering wider eyes out of the Councilor.

Tevos gave a weak, singular nod, then whispered, "I'll talk to the Council to mobilize... Just in case..."

"Good..." Aria mumbled. The com shut off and she turned away, scornfully whispering, "Fucking politicians..."