Snippet #2816468

As Aschen stacked up to prepare the breach with Duncan, he was pulling up the rear of the squad and barking into his comms-bead. “This is Duncan, I’m with the HN’s at the back of the Mansion. We’re breaching the cellar, lads!” He shouted to the rest of Alpha 2-1, who were busy preventing any approach by whatever was left of the insurgents fighting on the south lawn.

It appeared that most had either been killed or fled, a few seen tossing their weapons down as they disappeared into a dense tree line of forest that ran along the outskirts of the port city. There was the occasional snap of gunfire from the Exogarden marines, another bark of returning fire or the occasional scream of a man being hit somewhere deep within the woods as they retreated.

Across the lawn of the Governor’s Mansion, Alpha platoon had gathered and concentrated on the seized trench, giving covering fire to the Aschen and Duncan. Pasters and Rattaglio had moved up with their SAW-429s, both in the trench beside one another as the marines lay strewn throughout. “Anyone seen the fuckin’ commander?” Pasters finally asked, turning his chest on the lip of the trench. Rattaglio lay down the trench with a radio pack draped on a post of the trench next to him.

“I ain’t seen him since we railed this line - did Staff Sergeant say he’s with fucking hosties?” Rattaglio barked down to the trench. Private Yechezkel was beside him, holding his rifle up against his chest while pressed against the trench.

“What the fuck’s Sarge doing jumping around with fucking Aschen - are they up to something?” The Private barked, adjusting the brim of his helmet as a Specialist down the line racked the pump of his spent grenade launcher before holding up a 42mm shell.

“Bro, if we just invaded Aschen space I’m going to fucking laugh.” Specialist Sergej remarked, kneeling down in the trench as he began to feed a shell into the launcher. “How do you say ‘stay on the fucking ground’ in anquietas?”

“We didn’t fucking invade Aschen space, Indy - “ Pasters grunted as he hauled the SAW-429 and adjusted it against the trench. “Or at least, I’m pretty sure we didn’t.”


Duncan dropped his machine carbine into his sling and reached up to take his helmet free of his head. As the Aschen put their strobes together, the Staff Sergeant pulled free a pair of goggles from his helmet and drew them over his face, covering his head with a fabric cowl in his uniform. “Mind all the lights, boys. Remember, green is friendly this time aye?” Duncan remarked, drawing the daisy chained grenades together and giving them a spin before sticking down onto the door as it activated.

Ducking off to the side, Duncan grabbed his MP-24 and readied for the entry. When the grenades blasted with a wave of heat, it peeled through the metal door with a fizzle of of hot white and blue that burned a sizeable hole into the cellar. Duncan stepped down first into staircase it dropped down into, giving the Aschen a driving hand forward as he did.

The cellar stepped down into a deep complex underneath the mansion that Duncan and the Aschen had just blown their way into, on a corner where a marine was found behind a sandbag position.

Lance Corporal Patrick Madrolus laid the G4 down on the sandbags, pointing down the long hall of the bunker. “Holy shit! Where the fuck have you guys been? The Commander’s down in the comms bunk!” Just as he did, the insurgents strung out in a few last positions let of a snap of gunfire that made Duncan crawl into a nook of the bunker wall before unleashing a shower of fire from his machine carbine for the Aschen and Madrolus to attack. Down the tunnel, another sandbag position snapped off rifle fire, another marine firing off his G4K1 battle rifle into the insurgents.