The low thrum coming from the east indicated to Captain Isaac Owren that the enemy was coming much sooner than he could see them. The inlet was key to the city and whoever held the block that he and his men now occupied would control the inlet.
(New Sarder from the North with the Scourge forces visible)
The resistance soldiers looked over their shoulders now and again. They looked towards the body of water behind their position.
It hadn't been long since the fighting on their world had intensified. The PHR forces had contacted them first but they rejected the proffered help when they got into contact with UCM forces. Now it was time to pay the piper it would seem and Owren and his men would be the ones to do it.
(The resistance soldiers prepared for the onslaught)
He just hoped that General Drummond had made the right decision.
With Scourge and PHR forces closing in on his position, if the promised UCM support didn't arrive soon they would lose this city and they had held it against the Scourge for the last 30 years.
Owren ordered the lift hawk that had brought his infantry to the buildings up to intercept the PHR he could hear coming. He knew that the Scourge would be coming from the North but he wouldn't hear them coming. His plan was to stem the PHR forces with his own troops and then ask for the UCM commander to hit the Scourge in the flank.
(The gathering darkness, the PHR dropships mass for their assault on the block at 1st and Sound)
The first PHR ship broke though a line of buildings and Owren could see the walkers dangling off of the slow flying machine. Almost impossibly they hung beneath it.
The kraken moved before he even gave the command and the gun trucks roared out of it turn the sky into a net of bullets around the second Neptune drop ship that came through the block to their South East.
One of them struck the engine and brought the dropship down. The pilot was phenomenal. The almost out of control craft hit the deck with force despite his skill. But of the two APCs underslung, only one was damaged and half the men managed to crawl out of that and continue advancing.
That is when the massive Poseidon class came into view, six walkers hanging off of the underside.
Then the Scourge arrived.
(a fly by leaves the Hellhog damaged, but still flying)
The little cockroach looking APCs could be seen moving away from the dropship that left them in the center of the block to the North of the one his men were in. Owren saw the jerky motions of the possessed people that the Scourge infantry were as they moved out of the APCs to take positions in the buildings opposite him. Shots rang out up and down the street but there was no concentrated fire fight at this stage.
Just then a cheer went up through the coms, the UCM was here. The small gunships showed up first and started their attack run by blowing apart a Scourge AA skimmer tank.
As the Scourge retaliated one of the gunships crashed into the ground between the two forces.
His men were no longer having it their own way to the East either.
The PHR had dropped off six walkers now and the massive Poseidon drop ship was still moving towards them with two of its original passengers still hanging underneath.
Menchits, thought Owren and ordered his men to try to shoot the Poseidon down before it got any closer.
The Scourge presence continued to intensify from the North and Plasma fire was ripping through the North most building in the block he occupied. He could see Scourge and PHR interceptors chasing each other around in the air above him.
Then the second wave of UMC troops arrived and some Legionaires poured into the building he was in to sure up the morale of the defenders.
Owren told them to get out. His building had been hit so many times now that it was unstable.
Then the Tormentors appeared in front of it.
The UCM troops did as they were told and retreated to the larger high rise right on the sound.
They were just in time.
In agony Owren could hear what was unfolding around him.
He looked down at his ruined body and the remains of his squad. The Tormentor had done its work. The place reeked of the acid they had sprayed the building with. Breathing was painful as the corrosive vapors came into his lungs. Soon they would burn it out.
He looked over to the building next to him. Now the Poseidon was moving around that building and he could feel the heat through the wall. The Menchits were dousing that building with jellied petroleum.
The men, his men, were screaming. As they moved about to get away from the fire the triple machine guns on the anti-infantry walkers swept the floors of the building forcing the men into a tortuous dance to stay between the bullets and the fire that was killing them.
Masonry was falling in his building now as the walkers passed between the two buildings and their armoured bulk brushed against the walls.
His coms were barely audible but he could hear the cheers from the gun trucks shouting about shooting down one of the PHR drop ships.
"Dropped those cyborg 
ers right into the building," he could hear.
Then an explosion too close shook more masonry loose. The UCM channels revealed that the Legionaires had destroyed one of the Menchits with their missile launchers.
Gunfire could be heard between the two buildings and the one next to him was rocked by explosion after explosion.
He crawled to the window to look out and saw the bodies of several PHR immortals blasted apart in the building next to him. They had made it into the block then.
He slumped down on his back and looked North through the gaping hole in the wall of the building that was starting to collapse around him. Even though his left eye was now effectively blind he could still make out that jerky motion that he hated so much in the building to his north. The Scourge were in there.
His head slid to the right then and he gazed at the masses of PHR forces still moving towards the block, moving around the wreckage of both UCM and Scourge warmachines that lay smoldering before them. Darkness relieved him very quickly of having to accept the defeat.
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