The Burst

More from 3oEight.

Theanor-City, 0100 [1:00 AM]

The charging handle clacked as it slammed forward, the first of many rounds entering the chamber. Both hands were wrapped around the ST-61. The stock of the rifle was pressed tightly against his shoulder. He kept his back to the low wall of dirt. Silently, he thanked his dear and fluffy lord that it was not raining. He would've found himself standing among a constantly rising pool of mud and blood were that the case. He was among many men low in the trench, all with rifles similar to his own. Bullets whistled all around, gunfire crackling in the distance. Close by, a tank cannon roared as it sent forth a powerful shell that impacted with its target. The result was a fiery explosion. The target happened to have been Cironian infantry who were tossed about like rag dolls and ripped to shreds by the blast.

Slowly, he turned around and peered over the top of the ditch. Beyond the X-shaped metallic tank traps and garrisoned buildings he could see them. Cironian Infantry moved between wrecked vehicles and rubble piles. They stopped their rush only to exchange gunfire with himself and his comrades. Occasionally, somebody would throw a grenade that would land too short of the ditches before detonating and hurling mounds of dirt and shrapnel in all directions. He rose just beyond the wall of earth and flicked the switch of his rifle near the trigger from 'safe' to 'semi-automatic', his eyes searching for a target. His left elbow was against the dirt acting like a makeshift bipod, the index finger of his right hand resting away from the trigger.

Nearby, a mortar shell slammed into the ground. Its detonation hurled mounds of dirt high into the air and sent a painful ring to his ears. It was followed by a second and third. The blasts were only a few yards apart. They may as well have deafened him. The Cironians had been shelling them since they had begun the assault. Fortunately, it seemed as though their mortars weren't that accurate. He had even spotted shells slamming into the ground without detonating. He guessed that this was the direct result of efforts perpetrated by a resistance movement growing within the Cironian slave labor based work force. Still, he and those around him were beginning to grow tired of the mortars.

He caught sight of one Cironian soldier attempting to sprint through a short distance of open space. It didn't take him long to predict the Cironian's path of movement and lead him a little, squeezing the trigger as the man crossed paths with his sights. The Cironian soldier ran directly into the bullet, the force of the blow knocking him off of his feet. His body hit the pavement with a heavy thud and became a slowly cooling corpse, a pool of crimson forming underneath. As he had gently squeezed the trigger he felt the recoil of his ST-61, a mere push with very little muzzle jump. The next Cironian that attempted to cross through the open was gunned down by a Machine Gunner somewhere on the battlefield.

"Tims!?" A voice somewhere in the ditch called out to him. He could barely hear it over the sounds of the battle around him and the slight ring in his ears. "What!?" He called back, ending the life of another Cironian with a well-aimed shot. "Get with Neeley and go take out those sons o' bitches dropping the mortars on us before they get lucky!" Tims had heard half of his orders. As his Commanding Officer had given them out, one of the garrisoned structures a couple hundred yards from their position suddenly collapsed shortly after the sound of a roaring explosion. A thick cloud of dust covered the street alongside an avalanche of rubble. In the distance a man screamed, "Fall back! Everybody fall back to the bridge!" This had drowned out what had been said.

A great white thick cloud of smoke puffed outward from cylindrical devices that had landed in the centers of the streets. As a third and a forth structure collapsed Theanorian Soldiers sprinted through the open towards Tims' position. Occasionally, a few soldiers would drop to their knees and watch for Cironians, shooting first and asking questions later if they spotted them emerging from the smoke. They vigilantly covered the escape of their comrades until they had all reached the bridge. M-70 "Demons" began to emerge from the slowly dissipating smoke screen. As they slowly rumbled toward the bridge a Mortar shell slammed into the ditch opposite of Tims', hurling a mound of dirt and gore into the air.

"Tims! Neeley! Take those Mortars out now! Use the tunnels to flank them, go!" His commanding officer screamed just as a red beam of energy arched upward into the air from somewhere on the island behind them. It stopped just above the tanks before splitting into three separate beams, each of them impacting with three different tanks. They exploded into fiery balls, the resulting blast killing soldiers that had been using them for cover during their advance. Tims opened up a man sized hatch concealed in the wall of earth, he ushered four men through the hatch before joining them himself. Neeley and the five men under his command were soon to follow.

The two of them were Sergeants in the Theanorian Army. Rather than joining a Militia or forming their own fire team at the age of eighteen they had joined Theanor's small standing army with the mind set of assisting in retaliation against invaders. When they had joined they had been issued ST-61's, a weapon that the Theanorian army had made their standard infantry rifle to allow the them to use ammunition interchangeably with the Militias. Tims had a wife and a pair of offspring who were all affiliated with the Defiance Valley Volunteer Militia. Neeley on the other hand was without any immediate family.

They and those under their command had been assigned the task of defending the bridge and the island it lead to. A large amount of Anti-Aircraft weapons and Evaporation cannons were on the island alongside a weapon known among the soldiers simply as the "AC". To most of the Theanorian soldiers the science behind the weapon was unknown. The Annihilator Cannon ["AC" For short] tended to cause large armored vehicles such as tanks or armored personnel carriers to explode. It had some much more...interesting affects on human beings. Many of the unlucky Cironians who had been hit by it were...melted.  The weapon was automated and was capable of locking on to radio signals. It came equipped with IFF; allowing it to distinguish between friendly and unfriendly radio signals. While Tims & Neeley were moving through the tunnels the Cironian infantry had figured out that they needed to turn their radios off to avoid being melted by the weapon.

The area that surrounded the bridge was composed primarily of suburban neighborhood. Many of the homes had once been garrisoned by soldiers of the Theanorian army. Now, a lot of those same buildings had collapsed in on themselves from shelling done by tanks at a distance. The roads leading to the bridge had been fortified with X-shaped metallic tank traps. Sandbag bunkers had been erected around the area surrounding the ditches and concrete bunkers with stairways leading to fortified rooftops were on either side of the bridge behind the ditches. A trio of H-90 "Dragon" tanks [Theanor's main battle tank] were positioned in the area as well.

H-90 "Dragons" truly were a piece of work. They had quad 120mm smoothbore auto loading guns capable of firing a multitude of different types of rounds at ranges a little beyond 1.9 miles. Its armor [called 'dragon hide' by the Theanorian army] could truly take a pounding from other tanks. It also had a secondary armament of twin fifty caliber machine guns in front of the commander's hatch, a coaxial 'Evaporation Cannon', and a thirty caliber machine gun in front of the loader's hatch. In the case of the M-70 "Demon" the H-90 had met its match. Although the M-70 had one 120mm cannon instead of four it sometimes came equipped with a round capable of inflicting some heavy damage on the H-90.

Quietly, Tims' popped the hatch at the other side of the tunnel. One hand held the concealed hatch up slightly while the other gripped a ladder. His eyes scanned the area before his line of sight thoroughly while his rifle hung freely from around his neck. He spotted them just beyond the view of the hatch. There were three of them crouched around a Mortar tube. One man steadied the tube, the other loaded in shells, and the third appeared to be spotting targets. They were in the center of a backyard lobbing mortars over a ruined home. He could just barely see a second mortar team in a backyard just beyond them across the street. "We're going to have to do this quietly" he said in a low tone, closing the hatch.

He looped the hand that had been holding the hatch open around a part of the ladder, reaching around and grabbing the barrel of his rifle. With his other hand he let go of the ladder and withdrew a suppressor from his vest, fixing it to the barrel of his ST-61. After a quick magazine change to Sub-Sonic ammunition he was ready to exit the tunnels. There was a series of clicks and clacks as the men below him changed out their ammunition and fixed silencers to their barrels. Once they finished he flipped his weapon to the 'fully automatic' setting and opened the hatch once more. Slowly, he rose from the abyss below. Over the sounds of the battle around them the mortar team didn't seem to hear the hatch open and weren't paying enough attention to spot Tims rising from the darkness.

When they did finally notice him it was too late. They were staring down the barrel of his ST-61. As they dived for their weapons he riddled them with bullets, the loud gunshots of the ST-61 turned to mere whispers. Crimson splashed across the ground and the mortar tube as the bullets pierced their bodies. Their corpses hit the ground with a heavy thud. His men emerged from the hatch behind him shortly afterward. They only had to watch as the other Mortar crew was gunned down by Neeley and his men. It didn't take them long to figure out the positions of the other crews and sneak in for the kill. They used the homes as cover---cutting down the other crews very quickly and very quietly before falling back in to the tunnels.

When everything seemed to be going so well...something went wrong. As Tims turned away from a window after finishing off the last remaining Mortar crew a Cironian Zealot lunged out at him from the darkness with a blade. Tims had just barely survived the attack by blocking the blade with the metallic stock of his rifle. Before the Zealot could swipe the blade at his fingers he gave him a swift boot to the crotch and shoved his blade backward; knocking him to the floor. Tims lined the sights of his weapon up with the Zealot who lay seemingly disabled from that boot to the crotch. However, the Zealot recovered within seconds of his impact to the floor and kicked the barrel of the rifle out of the way. This threw Tims' shot off, causing him to spray the last of his magazine's ammunition into the floor instead of the Zealot. The Zealot then knocked the rifle out of his grasp, kicked him directly in the face, and jumped back to his feet. He attempted to bring the blade down through the middle of him in the hopes of splitting Tims' in half.

Tims' trusty tactical sling had saved his life. Thanks to it, he had been able to whip his rifle into action and block the blade a second time. The lightweight and highly durable polymer that most of the rifle was made of seemed to absorb the blows from the blade with relative ease despite the fact that the blade was made of the same material. This time, Tims booted him directly in the stomach causing him to stagger backward. He used the time that this had bought him to fix a bayonet to his rifle before charging in for the stab. The bayonet plunged into the Zealot's chest. Thick crimson flowed forth from the Zealot's mouth. He dropped his blade; both hands wrapping around the stock of the rifle that now protruded from his chest.

Had Tims' been several seconds faster he would've been able to boot the Zealot off of his bayonet, reload, and then finish him off with his pistol. However, he was not fast enough. The Zealot ejected the empty magazine of the rifle and hurled it into Tims' face; pulling the bayonet out of him and picking his sword up off of the floor. For a brief second the Zealot's eyes flashed gold before returning to their normal color. He spat out a wad of crimson and then lunged at Tims' once again. However, he had quickly recovered from the previous blow and had evaded the attack. Maintaining stamina, the Zealot swiped his sword at Tims’ directly after the previous attack had been evaded. He was able to defend against the attack with the stock of his rifle; however, the blow sliced away enough of his rifle’s tactical sling to make separating him from it plausible.

When Tims' attempted to stab the Zealot in the throat with his bayonet the Zealot disarmed him with a fast and highly painful maneuver, kicked him directly in the chest, and brought his blade in to behead him. Tims' staggered backwards into a cooking stove. He had quickly recovered from the Zealot’s disarming maneuver. At the moment the burner grates of the stove were red hot, and a pot filled with boiling liquid sat on top of one. On a counter directly beside the stove was a rack of kitchen knives. Predicting the incoming blade he ducked under the swing and rose just in time to withdraw a knife from the rack. Deftly, he hurled it at the Zealot before he could swipe the blade at his head a second time. The knife nailed him directly in the forearm, causing him to drop his sword and stagger backwards. While the Zealot was distracted with the knife sticking out of him Tims' grasped the handle of the pot with both hands, stepped within range of the Zealot, and dumped the searing hot contents of the pot on to the Zealot's face.

The Zealot did not scream, he roared. Even as the hot liquid ran down his flesh and left it burnt he stood his ground, wrist blades retracting from the sleeves of his uniform. In the hopes of keeping the fight evened out Tims' retrieved the Zealot's sword. He took a swing at the Zealot's neck, who blocked the blade just in time and brought his right wrist blade up into Tims'. The wrist blade plunged into Tims' chest, crimson flowing forth from his mouth. Slowly, everything began to darken. Once the Zealot withdrew the blade Tims' staggered backwards. He fell into a seated position against the stove and watched helplessly as the Zealot concealed the wrist blades within his sleeves once more and retrieved his sword.

The Zealot ripped the kitchen knife from his forearm and tossed it aside carelessly before bringing his sword in for the final killing stroke. The end was near. He felt that he was going to die. Thoughts of his wife and young children surfaced into his mind. An image of his wife popped into his head. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she seemed to stand by helplessly and watch the onslaught. She pleaded with him to survive and ordered to him to kill the Zealot. It was enough to cause him to withdraw his sidearm during the last crucial seconds. First, he fired from the hip as he felt he did not have the time to truly take aim. Three lucky shots spelled the end of the Zealot. The powerful pistol slugs all struck him in the dead center mass. He dropped the sword for the final time and staggered backwards, Tims' finishing him off with the rest of the contents of the pistol’s magazine.

Finally, the Zealot was dead. Tims' vision grew darker by the second. He used his remaining energy to retrieve his first aid kit and treat his wounds, setting his pistol down on the floor. From the depths of the kit he pulled a pair of needles, medical gauze, large bandages, and a thick cloth. One needle was filled with Medical Nanites programmed to go in and temporarily repair damaged tissue as well as clean the wound itself, the other was loaded with pure adrenaline. First, he injected the Nanites into his body at the site of the wound. He let them do their thing, wiping away the blood from his mouth and the wound with the cloth. He covered the wound with a large bandage and reinforced it with medical gauze. Afterward, he stabbed himself with the needle containing pure adrenaline.

Every Theanorian soldier carried his own personal med kit containing gauze, a nanite injection, bandages, a cloth for wiping away blood, and pure adrenaline. The Nanites went in to the body and did the work of a field medic: pushing bullets out of the body, cleaning wounds, temporarily repairing damaged tissue, stopping bleeding, and sometimes negating the use of the bandages with some kind of protective hardened shield. Some of them could even be programmed to replace a field hospital, stitching wounds up in the same manner that the protective shields were erected and permanently repairing damaged tissue. Since they were not always programmed to form the shield the bandages had been added to every soldier's standard kit. With these items every soldier could be a field medic----even soldiers who themselves had been wounded.

He picked up his pistol and ejected its empty magazine, pulling a fresh one out of a magazine pouch on his tactical vest. He loaded it into the weapon and then pulled back the slide, letting it slam forth with a satisfactory clack. Expecting a Cironian soldier to round the corner he executed a quick sweep and then crawled over to his rifle, loading a fresh magazine in to the weapon and worked the charging handle.

The Nanites inside him were nothing compared to the ones inside the Zealot. An autopsy had surfaced a few hours ago. According to its published report those who had conducted the autopsy were in question of weather or not Zealots were still human. Various implants inside their bodies regulated their abilities and the Nanites swimming around all over their bloodstream kept them in the fight. Based on the autopsy they had abnormal speed, endurance beyond ridiculous, abnormal strength, abnormal hearing, and sometimes an ability to see in night or thermal vision [although that was a new feature that had yet to be implemented into some Zealots. The report had simply stated that the possibility was there.]

He and just about every soldier stationed in the city had had a chance to review a copy of the report on the Theanorian battle net, a highly encrypted nearly impossible to hack virtual military communications network that every Theanorian citizen had access to. Every citizen was given their own set of codes at birth. The codes were attached to their birth certificate.

A separate virtual communications network with a similar set up existed to keep citizens updated on elections and other political events. They could also vote from the same communications network and stay updated on world events. This network was under the oversight of an Artificial Intelligence nicknamed the 'Watchman'. If politicians running for office attempted to rig elections or hack the system for political gain in any way the AI would infect their access terminals with viruses and revoke their access codes. Afterward, it would publish their attempts at hacking or rigging elections on the same network and let the people deal with them accordingly.

A similar artificial intelligence maintained the battle net. It was nicknamed the 'Warrior'. Both networks were completely independent of the outside world. Theanorian access terminals and codes were required to gain entry. To other networks in the world it was like they simply didn't exist. The Cironians had their own version of a battle net. However, only Military and Government personnel had access to their version and a lot of the soldiers' radios were tied in to their virtual network.

Sergeant Tims staggered to his feet. "Friendlies coming out!" A voice shouted from around the corner. As they rounded the corner Tims identified them as squad-mates. They had run into some misfortune of their own and had been unable to assist the Sergeant in his close-quarters battle with the Zealot. There were now two men left in his squad. One soldier helped him through the door while the other covered them, the three of them limping toward a more easily accessed entrance to the tunnel network inside the house. Using a brick of plastic explosive they sealed the entrance behind them. After a long walk they emerged on the beach behind where their friendly fortifications had been. Waiting for them there was Neeley and what was left of his squad.

"Fall back across the bridge!" Someone in the distance screamed. The defense of the bridge had been a hard fought battle. However, there were simply too many Cironian soldiers and armor to fight; even with the energy weapon inflicting heavy losses on them. The H-90 crews had valiantly fought the Cironians, holding their ground and covering the retreat of the Theanorian infantry. The tank crews knew that they would not leave the neighborhood alive. Their cannons roared, blasting infantry and M-70's into oblivion as they rounded the corners of the streets and rushed the remaining defenders. The last remaining H-90 was attacked by three M-70's from three different directions. The resulting blasts spelled the end of the tank and lit up the darkened neighborhood. The M-70's and the seemingly endless waves of infantry started their push toward the bridge. At this point the others had already made it across and they were simply waiting for the Cironians to reach the center of the bridge.

Tims & Neeley and what was left of their squads found a pair of quiet-running transport boats hidden on the beach. They quickly pushed them into the water, started their quiet-running motors, and guided the boats across the river. As they crossed the river they could see them. Scores of Cironian Infantry men and tanks slowly crossing the bridge and exchanging fire with the Theanorians on the other side. As they came ashore on the island they were greeted with one hell of a fireworks show. A B-66 "Hammer" bomber flew overhead and unleashed hell upon the Cironian forces crossing the bridge. The resulting blasts caused the bridge to crumble into the wide river below, taking the Cironians to their watery graves. "That'll slow their advance" Neeley said, a smile across his face.

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"Lets give em' hell, boys!" The lieutenant barked, the charging handle of his ST-61 slamming forth with a satisfactory clack. He was the last commanding officer present in the "OSO" building. Currently, he commanded a full strength Platoon, the last one remaining of an entire Battalion of soldiers that had been essentially wiped out defending the building against relentless attack. The Colonel who had commanded the battalion had died during their retreat to the last defendable positions in the building after the Cironians had breached the entrance. They were all that was standing between the Cironians and 'the central computer' a false computer center designed to fool the Cironians into thinking they could access to the Theanorian battle net so that they would download the malicious software and be fooled into assassinating their own Generals.

To his right was a man operating a fifty caliber machine gun with thick metallic shields. It was positioned behind a low wall of stacked sandbags. To his left was another fifty caliber machine gun with the exact same set up. He stood behind another wall of sandbags in the direct center of the two, his own fortifications and those to his left and right standing between the Cironians and the hallway behind him which lead to what would appear to be an empty room at first glance. Behind a secret door was the fabled communications center. All over the room that the Lieutenant was in defenders had overturned thick metallic tables and stacked crates on top of each other for cover. For the most part they were positioned out of the Machine Guns' paths so as not to be hit by friendly fire.

Everyone was on their last batch of ammunition. The machine guns had one belt left before they would be dry. Many of the soldiers had two or three magazines for their rifles, a few cylinder-shaped fragmentation grenades, and one magazine for their sidearms. Some men were down to only their sidearms. Every man had fixed a bayonet to his rifle in preparation for their last stand, even the men who had run out of ammunition for their rifles. They stood ready, prepared to fight the Cironians with everything they had right down to their last dieing breath. They did not save ammunition for themselves, for each man knew that the Cironians would not take them alive. At the moment they were not interested in taking prisoners.

The Lieutenant's name was Jones. He was a thirty-five year old soldier who had been selected for a command position based on leadership abilities shown in training at a much earlier age. He had no immediate blood relatives or family. The only real family he had were the men that stood beside him. Some of the men under his command had other family. They spent their free minutes leading up to their final stand gazing at pictures of wives and children. Those photos and the bodies of those who grasped them would all be buried under rubble in a short time span. Each of them knew that there were only mere moments between them and the final fight, a fight that they could not possibly win. They could hear the Cironians on the other side of the large electronic door. They struggled to figure out how to get past the great obstacle that was the large metallic door. After explosives had failed to clear the obstacle they had finally decided have their engineers cut their way through the door with condensed particle beams.

Within their hearts the Theanorians knew the last seconds were at hand. They pocketed the photos of their wives and children and brought their rifles back into action just in time for the beams to cut through the last of the door. As the beams ceased melting and slicing through the door, there seemed to be a thousand clicks. Many safety switches of rifles had been flicked off. A powerful boot knocked the metallic slab that was once the door over. Bullets whistling out of the gaping hole. A few Theanorian soldiers dropped dead before they ever had a chance to fire a shot. The defenders retaliated with a volley of gunfire from their rifles that dropped the first Cironians to rush past the hole, crimson splattering across the metallic walls as every man fired a three-round burst.

The defenders lobbed several activated grenades into the doorway, the resulting blasts followed by an echoing score of blood curdling screams. However, the Cironians tossed grenades of their own through the doorway. These grenades had been cooked and had resulted in the deaths of several Theanorians who had been grouped up behind cover. Again, the Cironians charged in through the gaping hole with their weapons blazing. Once the Cironians began truly pouring in through the doorway the fifty caliber machine guns began spraying out rounds, the powerful slugs tearing into the Cironians and splattering gore across the walls as they ripped them in half. Even as well-aimed shots nailed the gunners between the eyes they still fired the machine guns, their fingers seemed to be wrapped around the triggers of the weapons for all eternity.

Overwhelming amounts of Cironians poured in through the doorway. Five Zealots lead the charge. As the Theanorians reached the last of their ammunition and the machine guns ran dry they swung the butt-stocks of their rifles and jabbed at the enemy with their bayonets. Up close, they slaughtered the Cironian infantry. However, they were no match for the Zealots who made short work of them. As the scene fell silent the Cironians moved from corpse to corpse, stabbing them with bayonets to ensure that they were dead. One Theanorian man who still lived crawled toward a picture of his wife. It had been knocked out of his hands by a grenade blast that had killed his comrades and badly wounded him. As he crawled towards it a Zealot came up behind him and stabbed him through the back with his blade, kicking the photo away from his grasp before pulling the blade free of his slowly cooling corpse.

Lieutenant Jones had been shot. He had given himself a nanite injection and had drawn his sidearm. As the first Zealot rounded the sandbag wall he gave him two rounds to the chest and one to the head, shooting another Zealot in the throat as he scooted back into the hallway and hid behind the cover of some crates that had been stacked against a wall for the last soldier alive. He fired several more rounds, dropping several Cironian infantrymen as they attempted to push through. While one hand ripped a grenade from his assault vest the other fired the handgun blindly. He pulled the pin of the cylindrical fragmentation grenade away with his teeth just as the magazine of his handgun ran dry.

The lead Zealot rushed through the hallway and rounded the crates. As he came around the corner he separated Jones from his head with his sword. His enhanced reflexes and speed did not save him from the grenade that rolled out of Jones' right hand and out in-between the Zealot's legs. The grenade detonated before he could react, knocking him backwards into the wall and riddling him with shrapnel. The remainder of the Zealot team seemed to move passed the scene through the hallway as if nothing had happened. They breached the room with the 'central computer terminal' and assigned a technician with the task of accessing it. A Zealot stood guard while the technician carried out his necessary tasks, finding the information and uploading it to the Cironian battle net.

In a nearby vent a spider-cam watched as the information was uploaded. It had been waiting for them to make their entrance to the room since the battle over the "OSO" building had begun. It waited until it received a signal informing it that the false data had been uploaded. As the Spider-Cam scurried away down the ventilation shaft it sent signals to hidden explosives rigged all over the building. The Zealot whipped around toward the sound of the Spider-Cam making its escape and unloaded a few rounds from his rifle into the vent. However, his efforts were in vain. He merely startled the technician who spent the last moments of his life wondering what the hell the Zealot was shooting at. The explosives detonated and the building collapsed in on itself, the Spider-Cam just barely escaping the blasts.

Cironians who had died at the "OSO" building had died in vain. However, the Theanorian defenders had not. The technician unwittingly uploaded a virus on to the Cironian battle net. The Virus was essentially an Artificial Intelligence programmed to: fool the Cironians into assassinating their own Generals, monitor Cironian communications, cover up the events that had transpired at the "OSO" building as best as possible, and disable Cironian communications when the timing was right.

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It was all over in a matter of seconds. The satellite aligned perfectly with the signal of the beacon exactly when it had been predicted to shortly after its activation. The Nuclear weapon shot through the atmosphere toward its target and never stopped. It detonated directly above the city, frying everything electronic that wasn't shielded. Zealot squads all over the city were literally killed by the burst. Tanks were turned to worthless hunks of metal and the crews were forever trapped inside thanks to the wonderful advances of electronic hatches. Night-Vision and Thermal optics failed all over the city. Cironian battle net access terminals were fried. Energy weapons simply failed----the burst had fried their circuitry and made them useless. Only the Cironian vessels in the harbor survived the burst. Long after the nuclear weapon had detonated above the city they were still shelling parts of it still held by Theanorians with the biggest guns in their fleet. The soldiers on board would continue pouring into the city until they had taken every square inch of it.

A few moments prior the message had gone out all over their tactical channels. The Theanorian soldiers & Militia forces still present in the city were to retreat to EMP shielded bunkers or activate personal EMP shielding immediately. In the end the Theanorians would be the only ones with working electronics until those on the ships moved in to reinforce their comrades already in the city. Artillery began to rumble in the distance. The 5th had arrived late and had begun shelling the hell out of the Cironians. Smaller guns pounded their positions into the dust while the MOAC began sinking ships in the harbor with singular shots.

The massive MOAC round detonated as it impacted with a Cironian Destroyer. The resulting explosion roared as it rocked the land and sea, the flash from the explosion temporarily turning night to day. The Theanorians began their retreat from the city. For the most part the battle in Theanor-City was over.