Part 30: Day 23, The Deimos Peninsula, Attack (Part 2)
BlazetheInferno posted:
Leave no good soldier behind - Northwest, toward the prisoners of war. After that, we can circle around to disable the timed pulses with renewed numbers.
anilEhilated posted:
Yeah, we really need to give Gregory the chance to duel a bloodthirster. Northwest.
habituallyred posted:
Northwest and make sure our troops are recording everything for later analysis.
Okay, cool. Sounds good. Just hold, there's something I need to do.
We await your orders, O'Kais.
Any word yet?
No.
Huh. I think the War Council is getting restless.
O'Kais? Are you still in your room?
Yeah, yeah, whaddaya want? I'm busy.
The War Council is getting impatient and are taking matters into their own hands:
Pops posted:
Comms traffic has been unusually quiet lately. Orbital scans suggested the area Shas'O Kais led a battle group into was some kind of headquarters and staging ground for a particularly deranged group of humans, but was not especially well defended. At the very least, the terrain was open enough that we should have been able to take great advantage of our superior range to burn down most resistance before it became a threat, and Kais had requisitioned Gregory to deal with short-ranged threats as well.
It's still premature, but given that Kais's forces went silent immediately after starting a raid on some sort of unholy ritual site to rescue a captured cadre, we can no longer completely dismiss these gue'la tales of extradimensional monsters from this so-called "immaterium".
While extended periods of comms silence itself aren't enough to draw any conclusions, the fact that our Earth Caste advisors and researchers are unusually reluctant to say much about this 'warp' phenomenon suggests that normal comms discipline may not be the entire story.
Begin preparations to launch a recon-in-force and have medevac-equipped Orcas standing by. At this point, it's just a precaution, but some of the stories our gue'la auxiliaries tell about these Chaos madmen are pretty wild - if there is some sort of threat our analysts missed, this could potentially jeopardize our bringing the Greater Good to this world.
Oh, crud. Uh, uh, hold on, I'm almost done, I swear.
What are you
doing in there?!
That's classified! Return to the front, soldier. I'll be there shortly.
Uh, okay, Shas'o.
Good.
Okay, he's gone.
Steadwick is yours no longer, General Kendal! Hahaha! You should've never let yourself be tempted by the resources at the Windmill.
Although your forces and skill are superior to mine, your tactical acumen is inferior. I would've
never left the castle walls for something as inconsequential as 5 units of Gems.
Ha,
that's it?! That's all you've left to defend your most important stronghold? For shame. I'm not even attacking with my most powerful Hero.
Your defenses only prolong the inevitable.
Wish my Heroes with "Implode" were closer, but hey, I'll work with what spells I have.
Time to feed the dragons.
YES! YES! FUCK YES! FINALLY! IT'S DONE!
OH ETHEREALS, WHY IS THIS LEVEL SO FRUSTRATING!? SCREW ARBITRARY TIME LIMITS IN VIDEO GAMES!
Alright, I don't what that score means, but I'm sure it must be good. That was a damn excellent capture.
Wait, what? This is crap! I should have a much better score! Who is this "Blind Sally"? I swear, I shall destroy them
O'Kais, seriously, there's a Bloodthirster just outside our base.
Oh, for crying out--yes, yes, I'm coming. Okay, let's head
northwest and take that Relic.
We tried sending a Drone Swarm against them, but it was no good. They're immune to the blood pulse weapon, but their Demon units tear them apart.
Okay, let's try this: load up some troops into a pair of Devilfish. We'll sneak troops across these blood pulse weapons and to the prisoners of war.
No good, Shas'o. This land bridge is literally clogged with Heretics. We can't get the Devilfish past. They're getting detected and destroyed.
Ugh, fine. All Tau guns bring to bear on the Bloodthirster. Remove it from the field.
Good riddance. Now we're getting somewhere. Capture these points. Let's get to the prisoners. Send Harbinger drones to the Chaos Advance Base to hold off their reinforcements.
Consider it done.
O'Kais, I have joined the battlefield.
Uh, oh, hey, Aun'el.
Do not let yourself be distracted by my presence. I'm just here to ensure all audio/visual records of our encounter with these Gue'la are destroyed.
Uh, right, okay. Whatever you think's best.
That's it, O'Kais! Just up the hill. We wipe out the Gue'la here and we save our compatriots.
Say, what's that one doing?
Oh, come on!
Run! Run! Up the hill! Let's go, let's go! Get the POWs out of there!
They're out, we have back-up!
Shas'o, thank goodness! These Gue'la have killed many of our number in bizarre rituals.
Just--uh, forget everything you saw. None of this is happening.
I, I'm sorry?
You were poorly fed while imprisoned. You experienced some frightening hallucinations induced by hunger, that's all. Now, quick, let's kill these Gue'la and move on.
Ha! Not so tough, are we? Our tech beats your tech!
"Tech"? By the Ethereals, no! The Bloodthirsters are monstrous products or horrific blood magic--
Gonna stop you right there, soldier. Just cause you had some bad dreams doesn't mean you need to go around scaring the rest of the rank and file. You keep that nonsense to yourself. If you're still worried when we get back to base, you can talk to an Ethereal.
The Relic is ours. Radio the base, ask them to bring in Gregory.
With pleasure.
The Harbinger Drones were having little effect, so we released Kroot Hounds into the Chaos Forward Base. It's crumbling as we speak.
In fact, we should have our Earth Caste Drones in there setting up a new Cadre HQ right about--
--now.
Okay, well that wasn't so bad. Not sure why Aun'el is so concerned about these pathetic Gue'la.
O'Kais, there are only two real choices now:
Take your forces north and destroy the Chaos base, or
dismantle their support systems to the east. We're mostly past all the blood pulse beacons, so it's not a big concern. However, if we want, we can head east and capture the Strategic Point, we can disable it entirely. If we want, we can also take out the second Chaos Forward Base even further east. However, our Broadsides have proven more than capable of holding off any potential attack on our main base--besides, Aun'el is there overseeing the defenses.
I'll leave the choice up to the War Council.