Out of Space 309 Bronze VS Lead

The Imperial runners saluted and hastily rode off to relay the message to the rest of the battlefield. Flags and horns were soon waved and blown, redirecting the masses of Imperial troops towards the breach in the UN defense lines.

"Double time!" Moel yelled. "We can't let the Black Scorpions take all the credit! Faster! Move faster!"

The Imperials troops knew that once the enemy lines were breached there were be riches to be looted and women for them to enjoy. They formed up en-mass and charged after the Black Scorpions without any order or formation in their haste.

Even those with their morale broken rejoined the fight once word spread to their ears. Moel was excited, for he rode alongside his troops, urging them to hurry their paces.

The troops having advanced halfway of the battlefield without any danger, grew braver with each step and they wanted blood in revenge for the hell they had been put through by the enemy.

"CHAAAARRRRGEEE!!!"

-----

"FALL BACK!" A Marine yelled at Mills's ear as he fired his carbine at the Imperial soldier that finally collapsed face down in the trenches, oozing out some thick and black substance.

Mills had realized that these Imperials were not Undead, rather some kind of super heavy armored automata that could absorb a lot of damage before they went down.

"Back! Back!" Mills turned and pushed his radioman by his radio wore on his back. "Come on, Ted! Told you, you need to stop eating those fries! Hurry up, man!"

"Sarge!" The radioman panted as he carried the heavy gear, including his weapon and ran, following the trench line. "Not... funny!"

"Ha!" Mills laughed as he took a look behind. He could see some of the flamers still at work, they washed their flames over the Imperials who had dropped into the trenches. "Whoops! More Terminators at our ass! Hump it, soldier!"

Luckily for the Marines, the enemy did not know that they had trenches as defenses, thinking that they only had some form of low wall instead. Hence the great swords of the Bronze Men actually worked against them, as they were unable to swing the weapon in the tight confines of the tunnels.

Some of the 'Terminators' as the Marines started to coin them, were standing over the trenches and striking downwards at the running Marines who ducked low and kept falling back. Those that stood on top of the trenches were exposed to the .50 cal machine gun teams sited at the second line of defense.

The Haven 1 or H1 .50 caliber machine gun variant was designed and developed locally and so far it had proven to be as good as Earth's version of the similar weapon.

The high powered .50 caliber round blew the 'Terminators' away as they stood there in the open. Some of the 'Terminators' still retaining their great shields, raised them up and tanked the .50 cal rounds for a couple of seconds before the steel of shields were twisted without recognition by the force of .50 cal rounds.

Armor bits and gore rained down as the Imperials Terminators collapsed in an unidentified mess before the .50 calibers switched targets and continued firing.

"Hold here!" Mills grabbed a couple of Marines and ordered them to make a stand. "We hold this tunnel!"

One of the Marines was an Orc and he carried the MG - 1 as his weapon of choice. The Orc Marine prone flat on the trench floor and deployed his weapon's bipod while the rest crouched down and aimed their weapons at the other end of the tunnel where they just came from.

Heavy clanks of armor could be heard approached with brief thunderous roars of machine gun fire over their heads. Soon a smoking figure appeared from the corner of the trench tunnel and it turned its head robotically to face the Marines.

"Wait for it!" Mills hissed. "Wait till that damn Terminator comes in full view!"

The distance between the two was barely ten meters away as the trenches were dug in a zig zag manner with twists and turns, every few ten to fifteen meters intervals. It was to prevent infiltrating enemy troops from simply firing down the length of the trench lines, and it helped prevent any gas or artillery attacks from spreading far down the line.

The Imperial turned its whole body and entered directly into the line of fire of the waiting Marines. It had abandoned its great shield and instead held its great sword pointing forward like a spear. It's once pristine black armor has slightly sagged from the heat of the flamers while several bullets covered its chest plate.

Its helmet looked dented and had some sticky substance oozing out its eye slits and bullet holes. The Imperial braced its self as if it was going to make a charge and Mills roared. "FIREE!"

Everyone fired, including Mills and sparks erupted all over the armor of the Imperial. It took a step back to balance itself as round after round slammed into its body.

It managed to take two steps forward before it crumpled down in a heap on the floor. But as the Marines were rejoicing, another 'Terminator' came into sight.

"Fuck! Kill it!"

-----

UN Northern Front Central Command

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Joseph hovered anxiously over the map table as he looked at the minute updates coming in from the front.

"Sir, All units in Trench Alpha Two has fallen back to Secondary Alpha Two." One of the command staff reported. "Units at Alpha One and Beta One has been reinforced."

"Good!" Joseph nodded in acknowledgment of the report. "What's the ground situation at Sec Alpha Two?"

"Falcon Company is holding the ground there," The command staff replied. "But they are encountering a new enemy that appears to be very resilient to our firearms. Heavy fighting amongst the trenches connecting to Sec Alpha Two had been reported.

"What? New weapons from the Imperials?" Joseph was surprised and turned to the Intel Officer. "What kind? Do you know?"

"Sorry, Sir," The Intel Officer shook his head. "We are still in the midst of finding out. But what we know as of now is that they are heavily armored, at least with three times the protection of an average full armored Knight and also covered with at least a Level 1 arcane protection at least."

"Our flamethrowers are reporting that their flames are not very effective against these Imperials," The Intel Officer added. "And the Marines are dubbing these new Imperials troops as 'Terminators'"

"Terminators?" Joseph rosed an eyebrow.

"Yes, Sir," The Intel Officer said. "T-800 'Terminator' from the movie, Termi-"

"I know what it is, Lieutenant," Joseph raised a hand and cut the Intel Officer off. "I'm just surprised that the Imperials had something like this up their sleeves!"

"How are the preparations for Operation Firestorm?" Joseph changed the topic. "Is everything ready to go?"

"We need roughly an hour more for the Mariners to be ready, Sir," The command staff replied. "We have to hold on at least an hour more!"

"Damnit," Joseph sighed. "We better pray for those in the front!"

-----

Several Terminator bodies had effectively blocked off the route in the trenches at Mill's location. He could still see one or two of those bodies still trying to move but they were trapped under the weight of the rest.

"Hold here! You go grab more ammo for us and bring some reinforcements here!" Joseph pointed to one of the Marines with him.

Mills carefully crept forward to the pile of bodies and used his rifle to poke at one of the still twitching bodies. Seeing it not doing much, he bent down and tried to pull the helmet off.

The helmet stubborn refused to come off, either it had been deformed by bullets or was just too tight, Mills didn't care. He just wanted to see what was underneath that armor.

Frustrated with his fruitless efforts, he whistled to the Orc Marine, "You! Come here and help me!"

The Orc Marine quickly jumped up to his feet and came running over and with his help, the helmet was finally yanked out, exposing a bald elven head.

Mills frowned and he crouched down to observe the Imperial. He could see the head of the Imperial still twitching slightly and its eyes were half opened with their whites showing. The skin of the Imperial looked shiny dark brown, almost like bronze while a gunshot wound at the left cheek of the Imperial oozed some kind of thick and black liquid instead of red blood.

"What the fuck is this?" Mills stood up and frowned. "Seen anything like this before? Is it an Undead?"

"No undead!" The Orc Marine dapped the black substance and sniffed it curiously. "No dark magic!"

"Yucks!" Mills grimaced at the Orc Marine who whipped his hands on his dusty uniform. "Please wash your hands and don't touch me!"

"No black magic, not undead," Mills sighed, "My brain can't process this! So what the hell is it?"

"Some kind of meat puppet?" Mills's radioman and the rest had joined them at the bodies. "Maybe some kind of golem?"

"Well, whatever it is, as long as we can kill it," Mills grinned. "That all we need to care!"

The radioman and the rest nodded before one of them yelled, "More incoming!"

Mills peered over the pile of bodies and saw a large group of the Imperial approaching down the trench tunnels toward them. "Shit! Ammo check!"

The men retreated back to their previous location and make ready, while the radioman received a call. "Sarge, new orders from HQ! We are to hold for an hour more!"

"What?" Mills blinked his eyes in surprise. "One fucking hour more?"

"Why don' they ask me to go take the enemy commander's head and serve it on a silver platter for them?" Mills ranted. "Are they crazy?"

The radioman ignored Mill's outburst and added, "Sarge... you are not gonna like this... HQ reports the whole damn Imperial Army is headed our way..."

"Oh FUCK ME!" Mills hissed. "Urghh! Whatever! We just kill every one of those son of a bitch! You with me boys?"

"OOORAH!"

"Good! Now, let me show you how to trigger tripwire traps with these lovely grenades that we have!"

-----

The Rock frowned when he saw the exposed Bronze men standing at the crest of the slope went down in pieces. He knew that as long as the enemy can see them, they can hit them with some kind of spell that is invisible to the eye.

"I want the Battlemages to cast a smokescreen just beyond the crest," He ordered his men. "Once the smoke is up we charge in! Do not stop, keep moving fast! Kill off the enemy mages, left the rest for regular soldiers to mop up!"

The Black Scorpion Battlemages stood up positions behind the shield wall and started their incantations. Glows of magic circles appeared and formed into a ball of ink. The Battlemages raised their hands up and the balls of ink flew out in an arc and shattered along the crest, spewing out clouds of black smoke.

"Good!" The Rock gave a cold smile in anticipation of the slaughter to come. "LEGION OF THE BLACK SCORPIONS! FOR THE EMPEROR! ATTACK!"

"CHAAARGGEEEEE!"

-----

Moel seeing the enemy defenses suddenly spewing out smoke and he cursed, knowing that the Rock had started the attack without him.

He quickly yelled at his men to move faster, "Every man who brings me the head of the enemy gets one gold crown as an award!"

The soldiers hearing his words were stunned. Normally killing an enemy commander or officer would gain them a gold crown for their efforts. Now every common enemy soldier is worth a gold coin too?

Greed immediately took over the soldiers as they cheered their Lord and charged forward, each man hoping to overtake the other to kill the enemy so that they would be rich!

"KILLL!"

Chapter end