Talk:Zumwalt's Skirmish Room/@comment-27404954-20160913235826/@comment-11135771-20160915011923

Backup arrived… But not for the Protoss. A screeching sound gradually filled the sky as hundreds of Prometheus Corporation drop pods streaked through the air along carefully-plotted trajectories into the streets and rooftops of New Antioch. Around a quarter of the pods shattered just before reaching the ground, side panels exploding outward to allow the battalion of Prometheus elites inside to descend the rest of the way with the jump jets attached to their power armour, moving themselves into the most advantageous positions they could find before opening fire on the enemy forces. Among these, sniper teams equipped with cloaking and invisible-beam laser rifles set up on rooftops and in city buildings to lay down a field of lethal precision fire against the Protoss troops.

Most of the other drop pods landed directly on the ground before opening up, deploying a full division of Prometheus infantry as well as several hundred Flayer and Shredder hovertanks. These landed around the side of the city relative to the Aneph front, the PC forces aiming to trap several Protoss troop concentrations between their own advance and that of Aneph’s army. A few of the drop pods landed directly among the Protoss forces, who immediately turned to aim their weapons to shoot whatever came out. Unfortunately for them, they were surprised to discover that the pods never actually opened – instead, the Protoss squads nearest to these pods began to experience a strange buzzing sensation in their heads, accompanied with severe disorientation… Followed by the compulsion to turn their guns on their allies and open fire.

Amid the confusion caused by the mind control attacks, tens of thousands of mentally reprogrammed Prometheus shock troops who had been dropped off outside the city limits slowly advanced into New Antioch from all sides. Although rather ineffective individually compared to properly trained soldiers, they were dangerous in their own regard by way of sheer numbers and flagrant disregard for their own safety in favour of constantly taking ground, sweeping ever forward like a horde of zombies – with guns – as they pushed inward on the city.

While the Protoss were occupied with fighting the shock troops and their own mind controlled forces, a Prometheus Corp. air wave reached the city and began its attack. In the vanguard flew several dozen Gargoyle-class gunships which engaged the enemy AA emplacements, their heavy armour allowing them to shrug off punishment which would have shredded conventional aircraft. Combined with the erratic movement afforded to them by their plasma reaction jets, they served to cripple and distract the Protoss air defences while the rest of the Prometheus aircraft moved in. Escorted by Vampire fighters, hundreds of Marauder bombers began deploying volley after volley of heavy cluster rockets equipped with white phosphorus munitions among the largest Protoss troop concentrations.

Although other weaponry might have produced a slightly larger amount of direct damage, the white phosphorus ensured an extremely large degree of moral impact upon the enemy forces, as the air filled with the psionic screams of Protoss burning to death from the intense heat of the chemical compound stuck to and melting into their armour and skin. Furthermore, the thick white smoke produced made it difficult to see more than a few metres ahead, greatly improving the effectiveness of the reprogrammed shock troops and mind controlled forces. The bomber and fighter squadrons swept around for another pass, as the gunships continued to suppress the enemy’s AA capability.

Outside the city limits, a Prometheus transport ship set down. Instead of unloading troops however, it simply dropped off a few large components, blocks of raw material, and a massive swarm of constructor nanites. The ship itself remained on the ground to continually supply power to the nanomachine swarm. Like a silver-grey anthill, the nanites flooded over the pile of raw materials and components, tearing apart and reassembling as they hastily put together a large construction. Over the course of around half an hour, the shape of a Cerberus 1600cm rapid-fire rotary artillery installation gradually took form, ready to lay down heavy fire support against the enemy forces.

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Although Enceladus’ small numbers and lack of focus on ground combat compared to the other major powers involved in the battle for Helios prevented them from bringing in anything on the scale of most of the others, the Protoss were a threat to all of humanity, and the Enceladus Armed Forces had every intention of contributing to their destruction as effectively as they could. Five EAF Condor-class transport ships fitted with spacetime stabilizers dropped out of warp in orbit over Helios, accompanied with around 1,500 aircraft which they had brought along with the use of the stabilizers – a combination of Aurora air superiority fighters, Firewing interceptors, and Shrike close air support craft. They descended, the Condor-classes landing just outside the city limits behind the AIF forces.

From the EAF air fleet, the Shrikes moved in behind the AIF advance, providing deadly anti-armour fire with their rapid-fire particle beam cannons and rockets – each tipped with a tiny amount of antimatter. Meanwhile, the Aurora and Firewing squadrons fell into a holding pattern above the outskirts of New Antioch, just out of range of the enemy AA batteries. Though intended for downing enemy bombers and light-medium aerospace warships, the Firewing interceptors’ heavy particle beams allowed them to take up what effectively amounted to sniping positions outside the city. Hovering in the air at a distance, the interceptors laid down extremely accurate fire on the enemy AA emplacements and armour, each shot capable of instantly tearing through a tank. The Aurora fighters continued to patrol nearby, maintaining vigilant watch over the skies above the city should any additional Protoss aircraft arrive.

A brigade of EAF ground forces advanced into the city along with the AIF troops, including 2,400 BRD-01 Spectre infantry robots with Spyglass AI support. Accompanying them were around half that number of regular EAF soldiers equipped with particle beam rifles, followed by 400 Cicada robotic light support walkers and 80 HT-01A2 and HT-02A2 hovertanks. The majority of the Enceladus forces moved in to support the Aneph army, reinforcing any areas where more significant losses had been taken. The Cicadas made great use of the urban environment, using their wall-climbing capabilities and jump jets to quickly scale buildings, appearing seemingly out of nowhere and opening fire on enemy squads, before disappearing back into the city’s architecture before the Protoss could return fire effectively. Several of them stayed with the various allied forces, using the suite of nanites housed in their fuselage to help conduct repairs on friendly armoured vehicles which had taken damage during the fighting.