First Light of a New Age

Chapter 121: The Iron Strikes Back

Sergeant Kalinga Norn never relaxed. Because Sergeant Kalinga Norn never relaxed. He didn't have time to count his stress pills or rely on them.

And he certainly never had time for downtime. Stress wouldn't kill you half as fast as the demons would, or the green skins. Oh, the green skins! Out of the two, he actually found the latter the more terrifying. The demons were just... just a beast, hungry, ravenous beast. But the Orcs… No! No, never relax!

That's what he was thinking, that was what he was reminding himself of when he noticed it, the sound. He was behind a recently set up fortifications when they first invaded this city.

There were plenty of noises in the air due to the many armored vehicles that were driving around here. But this noise was not the warbling buzz of the engines, or any machines, and it wasn't even the repeated, shuddering booms and blasts of the artillery.

It sounded almost like... almost like jets, or rather, Dwarven mech suits! At the realization of this, Kalinga, who had been sitting on a crate, listening to his squad babble on about inconsequential things, threw himself back, scattering his rations from his lap and hands as he snapped out his sniper rifle, holding the rifle up, starting to sight it even before his back thudded against the hard floor beneath him.

"Raid! Aerial Raid!" Kalinga bellowed, opening fire even as the first syllable left his mouth.

His squad did as he did, throwing themselves onto their backs or knees as they aimed up, firing before they even knew what they were firing at, not questioning the well-honed instinct of their sergeant. But he knew. Looking up, his vision was filled with three things: the bright blue sky which framed everything, the gray and silver shapes of the buildings around them, stretching as if to hold that vast tapestry up above them, and the white and yellow armor of dozens of descending dwarves. They had scaled the surrounding buildings, using them as cover to get far above them before descending in a surprise raid. While some squads near them took his hint and did as his men did, not nearly enough aped his reaction to make a large difference.

A squad of Dwarven Thunder Warriors opened fire using their mach cannons, each set to maximum charge.

The sergeant rolled and scrambled after having unloaded a hefty spray of gunfire into the sky, narrowly avoiding the returning fire sent at him. Looking around, he spotted a parked set of vehicles less than twelve meters away, a truck and an APC Wolfhound. He grinned a manic grin, and then flinched as a nearby pile of munitions took a stray shot and exploded, wiping out the eight men who had been standing around it. But none of his men.

"Alright you lazy sludge, up to the APC, now!" He bellowed, scrambling to his feet, sniper rifle clutched in both hands. He didn't look back to see if his men were following; he didn't survive out till now by being the kind of man who looked back. He just had to trust that they would follow, or trust that they were better off without those who could not follow. He ducked his head as the dwarves broke over the top of the secondary base, splitting into squads of six and sweeping about, hunting the human soldiers below them with sprays of focused fire.

"Where's the damn commander?!" cried one of the soldiers.

"How the devil should I know?!" yelled Kalinga as he came to the door of the APC. He looked at it again, his eyes growing wide. Most of the armored vehicles had .50 calibre machine guns mounted on top of them, which would have been helpful enough. But not this one, this one had a beautiful AFMG-1! It only made his spirits fall all the harder as he tried the door and found it locked.

"Shit!" He cursed, turning back to face his squad. "Alright, try all the doors, hurry it up!" he called, and his men scrambled to try, but no sooner had they started pulling on handles before they were noticed.