Augustus's personal commander-type power armor stood at his right hand. It was a fully assembled CMC-300 power suit, painted a vivid red, its pauldrons bearing the golden emblem of the Korhal Revolutionary Army—a whip grasped in a ring.
This was the standard paint scheme of the Revolutionary Army. By contrast, Raynor's Raiders in regular formations would use blue with the "Wings of Liberty" markings, while the rookie units from Deadman's Port bore black-purple armor with a skull insignia.
The commander's suit was forged from titanium alloy. Compared to the ordinary model, it carried additional communications and data-processing systems, as well as a psionic shielding device from the Umoja Shadow Guard Officer Academy.
This power armor had come from the United Umojan States' XT39323 laboratory. It was meticulously crafted, multi-layer coated, and packed with advanced artificial intelligence and battlefield support systems. Its onboard computer was modeled after the mainframe of the Reagan colonial mothership, capable of handling massive streams of data.
The 2.7-meter-tall power suit stood silently beside Augustus. Its servo system kept the joints firmly locked so it could stand like a knight's armor. The wearer only needed to climb in through the opening, then have the suit's clasps secured, don the helmet, and be ready for combat. —Even without help, a well-trained marine should be able to suit up within five minutes.
Augustus himself needed little effort to put on his armor, while Kerrigan used her telekinesis to fasten the clasps and seal the suit, bringing its internal gases into a stable closed-loop circulation.
"When a marshal personally comes to the front line, it means he truly has no one else left to use." Handing a C-14 gauss rifle to Augustus, Kerrigan adjusted her visor as she spoke.
"I had no choice. If Duke's men break out from the narrow wasteland gorge, his troops can deploy onto the plain. By then we'd still be forced to send clerks and officers into battle." Augustus said, "At that point, Fort Martin won't be any easier to defend than the bottleneck position in the gorge."
"You should understand, that position sits on high ground hundreds of feet above. For Alpha Squadron to take it, they'd have to climb a long slope, with sheer rock walls on both sides and no way around. The best way to seize it is with heavy artillery bombardment—or by dropping an airborne unit to strike from the rear."
"Summon my forces."
With that, Augustus strode toward the elevator leading down to the command island inside the control center, while Kerrigan followed him in silence.
By then it was already 05:00 on the 20th. The sky remained thick with darkness. Above, a meteor shower streaked across—the hundreds of shooting stars flared and vanished in an instant on the horizon.
On the transfer square of Fort Martin, Augustus reviewed his troops. Even the engineers of the corps were driving their space-rigs, towering several meters high, preparing to head to the front. Staff officers and technicians from every department were fully armed.
Even the civilian personnel had undergone basic power-suit training. They could handle the gauss rifle skillfully. Many of them had only been pulled off frontline duty a few months ago, reassigned to headquarters by a single order.
Revolutionary Army Chief Engineer Rory Swann wore a power suit, hefting a grenade launcher as he prepared for battle. Augustus had originally intended for Swann to stay behind, but remembering that even the chief engineer—and his own friend—was among those he had said would fight, he held his tongue.
There were nearly 2,000 people inside the command center including civilian staff. Every one of them was among the most loyal fighters of the Revolutionary Army. Even on Korhal, these men and women could be called pioneers of the revolution. They were not only the vanguard of Korhal's independence but also the firmest supporters of the Mengsk family and Augustus himself.
When Augustus stood upon the high platform in the center of the square, he could see countless Revolutionary Army soldiers clad in power suits. He gave no speech, no rousing pre-battle words, because his very presence alone was enough to ignite a burning fighting spirit in them all.
Over 60 APOD transports, having taken off from the airfield, descended onto the square within minutes. Augustus was the first to board one, followed quickly by more soldiers.
Escorted by fighters, the transport formation rose through the clouds, flying toward the Desolate Gorge. After about 20 minutes, Augustus, seated by an observation window, could already see through the HUD screen linked to the ship's forward camera the Desolate Gorge ablaze with orange flashes and tracer fire. The gorge walls were lit bright against the night by the fury of battle.
"This is Harnack Command. The bottleneck position has been breached. Captain Tychus Findlay has already led the Styrling Wolfhunters suicide squad to retake the position, but at least more than 200 Alpha Squad soldiers pushed through." As Augustus's transport drew closer to the gorge, a young voice came through his command channel—it was one of Hank Harnack's sergeants.
"When did this happen?" Augustus asked calmly.
"Roughly 15 minutes ago. At present we don't know their position—they didn't attempt to strike from our rear but continued advancing south. They've already disappeared from our thermal imaging scans," the Revolutionary Army sergeant reported.
"Can you confirm their designation and commanding officer?" Augustus asked again.
"I don't know, sir, but I'm certain they're charging toward the gorge exit—they're trying to escape," the sergeant replied.
"Inform Command and Marshal Mengsk!"
"I am Augustus Mengsk." Augustus spoke into the channel. "Revolutionary Army Command sends its highest respect to the 4th and 5th Battalions of Harnack, the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the Styrling Wolfhunters, the 2nd Division of the Revolutionary Army, and all soldiers of the Reserve Brigade."
"It is our honor, Marshal." The sergeant's voice trembled before the transmission cut.
"We are all Korhalans. We are born for Korhal, and we fight to the death."
Drawing in a deep breath, Augustus switched to the cockpit channel. "Pilot, how far are we from the bottleneck position?"
"Marshal, nearly 3 km," the pilot answered.
"Accelerate." Augustus had no intention of concerning himself with the fleeing Alpha Squad soldiers. Even though, given the heavily re-socialized structure of Alpha Squad, such a retreating unit surely had an officer of at least captain's rank in command, Augustus would not waste time on them.
At that moment, a voice came through his helmet—it was a Wraith fighter captain.
"This is Wraith-117. I've spotted a Federal force below—they're the elite guard of Colonel Duke's Alpha Squad."
"Land." Augustus flipped the safety off his Gauss rifle and spoke into his command channel: "Surround that enemy force."
"Chamber your rounds, stay close to your officer."
At the order, the fleet of transports immediately split into two groups: one landed on the spot to cut off Alpha Squadron's advance, while the transports led by Augustus flew toward the rear to block their retreat.
By then, the cameras under the transports had already captured the image of several Revolutionary Wraith fighters dropping altitude, diving like hawks toward the desolate canyon. Their 25 mm laser cannon batteries opened fire at close range on the ground hidden in darkness, orange-red beams setting off a chain of dazzling explosions.
Below, the soldiers of Alpha Squadron quickly returned fire with shoulder-launched anti-air rockets, but soon their rockets were completely spent. After that, they did not waste time firing at aircraft flying several thousand feet above, but instead sought cover as best they could among the jagged rocks of the canyon.
Augustus believed Duke and his Alpha Squadron elite guardsmen were wishing they could bury their heads in the sand.
A dozen Revolutionary APOD transports skimmed low across the desolate canyon, the exhaust trails from their thrusters fanning out like phoenix wings. To the Alpha Squadron soldiers dodging the Wraiths' laser fire, it was as if death itself was swiftly bearing down on them.
After a brief bout of turbulence, the transport carrying Augustus steadied and touched down, settling onto the sand as lightly as a feather. By the time he and Sergeant Faraday and Kerrigan stood up, the hatch was already opening, the blue floodlights burning steadily to illuminate their way.
A top pilot was just as important as a good ship, and the pilot steering the Marshal's vessel was naturally the best Korhal had to offer. When Korhal IV was annihilated by the Confederacy fleet, every Korhalan lost most of their property, the problems of class immobility vanished, and the conflict of wealth inequality was, for the time being, drowned out. Driven by hatred, the people of Korhal became united as never before.
In the process of building a new home on Umoja, some of the former ace pilots and top engineers of Korhal's civilian interstellar airlines had turned to join the Revolution, serving under Augustus.
The moment he leapt down from the transport, the alarms inside Augustus's power armor flared red. Sergeant Faraday followed closely behind, and after him came Ghost operative Sarah Kerrigan—she dropped to the ground, sealed her visor, and vanished into the darkness.
Dozens of Revolutionary soldiers disembarked from the transport in quick succession, their steps fast but steady. Most of them were staff officers, but war was hardly unfamiliar to them—every single one had long been battle-hardened.
More Revolutionary soldiers emerged from other transports, hauling almost the entire stockpile of heavy personal support weapons from Fort Martin's armory: rocket launchers, 25 mm Mark II railguns, and a large supply of electromagnetic grenades.
"V-formation, advance by bounds. Flares!" Augustus ordered over the command channel. Seconds later, the flares lit up the entire canyon. Barely a thousand yards away, Alpha Squadron's bright white power armor stood out starkly.
With the flares bursting alight, both sides opened fire instantly. The dense barrage of gunfire echoed against the canyon walls, as though tens of thousands of soldiers were shooting all at once.
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