Bloody Suppression

The number of gathered townspeople had reached seven or eight hundred, several times that of the First Platoon, but with nothing more than the cold steel used for chopping wood and tilling fields, or antique firearms from the last century, they could only ever hope to deal with local sheriffs and police.

Compared to the aristocrats and office-bound bureaucrats of the Terran Empire's core worlds, the people of the colonies had forged a resilient, fearless, and unyielding character through their struggle against nature.

Information was scarce here; the might of power armor and the federal government's policy of slaughtering revolutionary factions were still unknown to the ignorant folk of this backwater.

"So, you are a 'revolutionary'? And your only demand is for Rune Town to break away from the federal government's control, or to gain more autonomy?" Warfield's face twitched; he did not want to open fire on civilians.

The representative of Rune Town shook his head: "We are not revolutionaries. We only want freedom."

"Listen, I sympathize with your plight, but as a Marine on the government payroll, I have sworn to protect every federal citizen, and I will also eliminate any rebels who intend to split the Federation," Warfield said.

"I grant you a final warning with the last of my mercy and patience: drop your weapons, or we will open fire. Think of your family and friends, and you will know how foolish your actions are!"

At that moment, under the orders of Second Lieutenant Warfield, the First Platoon formed four side-by-side, closed hollow squares, with each squad acting as a face and each platoon as a unit. In the center were soldiers carrying rocket launchers and heavy machine gunners; in the medieval era of Earth, this formation was used to counter cavalry, but now, the commander of this unit used it to deal with being surrounded.

Suddenly, with a shout, the crowd surged toward the First Platoon. They seemed convinced that the federal military would not dare bear the stigma of a civilian massacre by opening fire, completely forgetting that they could now be classified as armed thugs and terrorists.

Right in Augustus's squad, Tom Omo, who had never seen such a massive spectacle, trembled so violently that the person next to him thought he was about to fire.

"Don't piss your pants, Omo," said Kurt Josephine, the rifleman standing beside him.

"You're the one pissing your pants, you bastard!" Omo tried to bolster his courage with the profanity he had learned from Harnack, but his speech lacked confidence and lacked resonance, making him sound more like a lamb bleating fiercely.

"Josephine, enough," Augustus said.

Another dozen seconds passed, and among the townspeople still walking toward the center of the square, the closest were less than two hundred yards from Augustus. At this range, with the aid of the helmet's auto-targeting system, even Raynor wouldn't miss.

"Hell, what are they doing? This isn't a protest march, and we aren't police with wooden sticks and tasers," Raynor said over the channel. "Do they really think we'll just turn around and run? Maybe that would work on a sheriff, but if we did that, it'd be our heads on the chopping block when we got back."

"Enough, get back! We really will open fire!" As the moving crowd drew closer, Zander Marks's voice grew increasingly shrill.

Nearly a thousand Rune Town residents armed with various weapons surrounded the central square, with over two hundred guns pointed at Augustus and his comrades. The Marines remained unmoved, raising their muzzles in unison to aim at the townspeople.

Now it was just a matter of which side would blink first, or who would fire the first shot.

Augustus gripped his Gauss Rifle firmly; if these people attacked him and his comrades regardless of the consequences, he would not hesitate to fire.

Both sides fell silent, the atmosphere in the central square so tense it felt as if it were about to solidify.

Suddenly, Augustus realized those people were truly insane; several modified trucks charged from behind the streets and houses toward the Marines in the central square. The townspeople, as if they had rehearsed it, immediately scattered to both sides, clearing a path for the trucks.

The external frames of the truck cabs had been reinforced with sturdier Plasteel, with copper-red Plasteel pipes and plates welded onto the original, more fragile aluminum frames using fusion torches. On some of the more crudely and wildly modified trucks, the pipes and plates were simply lashed directly to the original frames with thick wire.

The ordinary glass windows must have been replaced as well, as there was always a pane or two that didn't quite fit the window frame.

These Plasteel pipes and plates were covered in deep red rust and brassy grease, as if they had just been scavenged from a junkyard, and every truck cab was bristling with a dozen spikes and blades fashioned from discarded metal strips.

The same design could be seen all over the trucks, with discordant, extra components forced together in total disregard for overall aesthetics or symmetry.

A spike stood upright on every axle; at first glance, these violent trucks looked like a pack of savage metal hedgehogs.

If that wasn't enough to make the Marines realize the danger of these monsters, the Kel-Morian Ripper railguns mounted on the hoods and the tops of the truck beds were proof enough that the opposition meant business.

Beside each railgun sat four or five operators wearing miner's hard hats or wide-brimmed caps, each holding a Kel-Morian standard-issue electromagnetic rifle.

There were three modified trucks in total, accelerating toward the central square from the east, west, and south.

After the modified trucks crossed the crowd, the townspeople followed behind them, charging forward and firing with their crude weapons. Some of them were clearly not touching a gun for the first time; they were accurate enough that two or three bullets even struck Augustus's power armor.

Augustus merely watched calmly as the small-caliber bullets bounced high off his chest plate, scraping away only a tiny bit of the silver-gray paint.

"Damn it, it's Kel-Morian hardware; this is exactly the kind of thing they'd pull," Warfield immediately issued orders over the comms channel.

"Fire! Soldiers, empty every round you have!"

"Shoot! Fire at your enemies!"

In an instant, everyone began pulling their triggers.

There was a modified truck directly in front of Augustus; if he didn't stop it, at its current speed, it would crash into the Marines' hollow square in a matter of seconds.

At the same time, the railguns on the trucks opened fire, though the operators were not accurate, and several shells landed wildly off-target. One railgun shell landed over a hundred yards from Augustus, the spreading pale blue pulse wave instantly leveling the ground at the impact site and blasting a crater dozens of feet wide.

In a flash, Augustus made what he deemed the most correct choice; he ignored the other parts of the armored vehicle and aimed solely at the front right tire. Augustus disengaged the capacitor safety and fired high-frequency bursts as fast as he could, the butt of the Gauss Rifle slamming heavily into his armored shoulder with every recoil.

At the same time, at least five others in the First Squad, including Augustus, did the same. Although the truck's mudguards had been modified, they could not withstand the Gauss Rifle, and the tire was blown out in an instant.

The truck immediately lost control but still plowed into the Marines; fortunately, Augustus and the others reacted quickly, having already begun to move and dodge while firing.

The tires of the other two trucks were blown out by other squads in the same manner. One of the trucks crashed into the Marines as they were breaking formation, the dozens-of-tons vehicle crushing a soldier who couldn't dodge in time before flipping over, a teeth-grinding screech of metal and desperate wails echoing over the comms channel.