Chapter Text
[WARNING, PLAGUE SHIPS DETECTED!]
"By the gods..."
[ALL CITIZENS, PLEASE ENTER THE NEAREST FALLOUT SHELTER]
[KAUPDF UNITS WILL BE MOBILIZED TO COUNTER THE THREAT]
"They're attacking us now, when we're all still building our strength, General! We are in no position to form a counter attack."
The old lupine officer broke a sweat before cursing to himself. He had warned the top brass about Torque's inadequate defences. But High Command only gave the general enough soldiers to only "maintain a standing force".
"Damn desk-jockeys," he cursed, "Alert the Cavalry and arm the Orbital guns! Our only hope is that we entrench ourselves deep enough to defend Torque from the plague."
"Yes, sir!"
"Get those guns up and ready, squire! I wanna see a shooting gallery up on the orbit!"
"But sir," the squire protested, "We haven't done our firing drills!"
"I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR LIP, SQUIRE! THAT BARREL BETTER BE POINTING SKYWARD IN FIVE..."
The squire's eyes went wide and and gripped the orbital gun's console before turning it on, "Radar's online!"
"FOUR..."
On the field, far away from the console, sat a giant canon the size of a train tunnel, lying flat on the ground. Then, it gave a bellowing mechanical groan as its barrel rose upwards.
"THREE..."
A truck-sized ordnance was loaded into the gun's chamber before it was then overcharged by the weapon's interior.
"TWO..."
The canon rose higher and higher until it was fully erected, joined by dozens of other orbital guns and thousands of anti-air weapons across the planet, ready to defend Torque until the bitter end.
"ONE!"
The squire's ears perked up, "Orbital gun's fully onlin-"
"FIRE!"
"Wha-" the squire the tried to ask, before having his head rotated by his Knight towards the hundreds of blinking red dots on the radar.
"THE PLAGUE'S IN HIGH ORBIT, SQUIRE! FIRE THE GUN!"
A loud thundering bang soared through the skies followed by echoes of similar gunfire from all across the continent. But Knight Lornski didn't pay them any mind. Between listening to comm chatters and her power armour scanning for any nearby plague drones, the sound of orbital guns have become background noise.
The bombardment may have torn a hole in the plague fleet above, but it didn't stop the swarm of drones that continued to descend from orbit. Lornski gripped her chain gun tightly and began to spin the barrels as a destroyed plague ship crashed on the field, outside the newly built city of New Corinx. The ship's damaged door burst open and the mob of drones came flooding out.
"Contact! Contact! Lumberjacks inbound!" a squire shouted.
Without saying a word, the chain-gunner knight unleashed a heavy flow of charged munitions, ripping the lumberjack's limbs clean off its body while leaving the others full of smoking holes. The rest of her squad opened fire to kill the remaining plague from the downed ship, but the drones kept coming, like a wave of mechanical limbs.
"PLAGUE DROPSHIPS INCOMING!"
Lornski shifted her gaze at the sky just in time for a pack of hungry scouters to drop to the ground. They collectively shriek the moment the saw harvestable biomass. Some of the squires diverted their firepower to halt their advancements, but the pesky skirmishers dodged most of their shots.
One of the knights stepped in, firing light Kestrel shots to confuse the enemy before blowing one of their heads clean off, while Lornski suppressed them with her chain-gun.
But all of a sudden, her stream of bullets stopped. One of her squires immediately tried to replace her ammunition drum. Unfortunately...
shriek
SLASH
Lornski's eyes went wide. A scouter managed to snuck up on the poor squire and slashed his throat as if it were paper towel. Without hesitation, the Knight drew her pistol and shot it three times: one to the body and two to the head.
"SQUIRE DOWN! WE GOT A SQUIRE DOWN!" another squire shouted, before lending Lornski a paw to reload her weapon.
The Knight didn't get another moment to slow down before she was told to fire upon everything that moved in her sight.
"More lumberjacks, 12 o'clock!"
BRRRRRTTTT
"Scouters tryna flank us again! 8 o'clock!"
Lornski grunted and turned her weapon around.
BRRRRRTTTT
"BUTCHERS INBOUND! 1 O'CLOCK!"
The knight huffed and shifted her position again before almost freezing at the sight of four butchers barreling down towards her pack.
"ALL 'O YE, FOCUS FIRE ON THE BUTCHERS!" the Commander ordered.
A wall of charged lead hit the abominations all at once. Light shots overwhelmed their senses. Heavy shots blasted limbs from their body. Each butcher was broken down into scrap metal one after the other as Lornski emptied another drum of highly charged rounds.
And yet... The plague still kept swarming towards them. Everytime the pack turned their head, the saw a drop pod or a drop ship full of plague that sent them more enemies to shoot, and everytime a plague unit was dispatched, ten more took its place and charged them with steel claws.
"This is Horn pack, requesting some FOOKIN AIR SUPPORT 'ERE! WHERE ARE 'YE LADS?" the Commander demanded on the comms.
The comms chattered back, "Negative, Horn pack. We're being harassed by aerial drones here! They're attacking the cities!"
Lornski's jaw dropped to the base of her helmet. The plague had beaten them on the first round by flying straight towards New Corinx and now, they're picking her packmates off on the outskirts of the city they were supposed to defend.
"Goddamit," the Commander cursed, "FALL BACK TO THE COUNTRYSIDE! WE'LL GROUP UP WITH HOOVE PACK THERE!"
"General, we're moving you underground." an officer said.
"Into the vaults?" the old lupine asked.
"Into the vaults."
The general pinched his brow and sighed, "What's the situation outside?"
The officer hesitated for a second, "Our guard forces are being stretched thin with...little back up sir, all in the effort to defend the cities and its surrounding countryside."
"What about the Knights?"
The officer glanced at his ST-IK before facing his CO once again, "They're regrouping at the countryside, sir."
The general slowly got up from his seat and opened his cupboard, "What about the Cavalry? When will they arrive?"
"...in a couple of days, sir."
Sighing one final time, the general retrieved his sword from his cupboard. "I'm afraid I won't be coming with you, co-"
"Wait...sir! We're getting a signal from offworld!"
The general froze in place, "Is it the Cavalry?"
"No, it's..."
"Well? Who is it, colonel?" the lupine general asked.
The officer read the reports once again, "It's an unidentified ship, entire fleets of them, sir!"
The general stepped closer, back to his desk. "You mean they're not one of us?"
"No, sir, they don't appear to have KAU insignias." the colonel replied.
He turned on the hologram in the office and showed a full scan of planet Torque and its surrounding area. A green hologram of a ship, swarming in drones revealed itself to be the plague's flagship. Both commanders are already familiar to them. But the red ships on the other hand, confused them both.
As the scan updated itself, more red vessels started to reveal itself. It seemed to multiply every second until it completely surrounded the planet's hologram.
"They..." the colonel stuttered.
"They outnumber the plague 3:1..." the general finished.
[~~~~~~~~~~~~allies~~~~~~~exterminate~~~~~~prepare~~~~~~~~~~bombardment~~~~~~~~~~We will~~~~~~~~~be brothers]