Kel-Morian Labor Auxiliary

Augustus ordered his men to advance in their designated four-man fire teams, then gripped his Gauss Rifle and began to charge alongside the marines ahead of him.

Before him, at least several hundred 4th Brigade marines in silver-gray armor were sprinting forward in unison.

Several Avenger fighters of the Confederacy Air Force streaked across the sky a few hundred feet above them; within seconds, the missiles slung beneath their wings descended in dense trails of smoke onto the distant Kel-Morian positions, igniting a series of blinding orange-red flashes.

Just to Augustus's front-left, an artillery emplacement was still firing; several electromagnetic shells landed in the middle of a platoon ahead of him, sending up bloody, mangled limbs and helmets still attached to skin and bone.

But as Augustus stepped over a fallen marine, a deafening explosion erupted from the direction of the incoming fire. Under the concentrated strike of the Confederate bomber wing, the Kel-Morian artillery position was silenced instantly.

Because the warnings issued by Terran Confederacy scouts and reconnaissance aircraft had not been relayed to the 4th Brigade commander in time, everyone had assumed they were merely advancing toward an undefended town.

Many had even naively believed that at their destination, the town of Vellino, the local residents would have already boiled water, leaving them only to enjoy the local delicacies. They expected to sleep the entire afternoon away in comfortable wooden houses before launching an attack at dawn the next day.

What they did not expect was that Vellino was occupied by a group of crazed Kel-Morians.

The marine command structure was somewhat chaotic at first, but soon, every battalion and company knew which positions they were meant to seize or which brother units and friendly forces they were to provide cover for.

"Where are those sons of bitches? Don't let me catch them!" Raynor asked while running in the First Squad's communication channel.

"I'm going to smash their heads in!" Ward roared over the comms.

"What's going on? The mission briefing clearly stated there shouldn't be any Kel-Morian troops here," Omo said.

"But there are now, Tom," Augustus said. "Follow me, follow your team leaders. There are two battalions, nearly a thousand men, ahead of us. By the time they storm the heights, we just need to walk up and congratulate them."

"Don't push too far ahead; it won't do you or any of your comrades any good. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Squad Leader!"

"No problem, boss," came the affirmative replies over the comms.

The soldiers of the First Squad followed closely behind their squad leader. As it turned out, Augustus was right; long before their squad had finished trekking through the jungle, a battalion of the 4th Brigade's vanguard had already launched an assault on Hill Z-103. By the time they reached the foot of the hill, the red and blue flags of the Confederacy were already flying.

Second Lieutenant Reagan was nearby at the time, with the Second Squad of the Third Platoon. The Third Platoon soon finished assembling at the base of the hill, and under the platoon leader's orders, the unit bypassed Hill Z-103 and headed northeast toward Vellino.

By this time, the several positions the Kel-Morians had established on the heights had already been captured by the Confederate marines, and a portion of the Kel-Morian forces had retreated from the hill at the last moment, fleeing toward the town behind it. Augustus's mission now shifted to pursuing these retreating enemy forces.

The Third Platoon followed a ten-foot-wide country gravel road into Vellino. Along the way, they didn't see a single Kel-Morian, though they did catch up to one marine squad and platoon after another.

Augustus only saw a few Kel-Morian corpses; this was his first time seeing regular Kel-Morian troops outside of the holographic projections in boot camp.

Unlike the standardized CMC-200 Power Armor of the Confederate military, just as these Kel-Morians used whatever materials they could find to build heavy combat vehicles and tanks, almost no two sets of their armor or weapons were exactly alike.

Among these Kel-Morians, only the tallest, strongest, and most battle-hardened wore power armor that closely resembled the CMC Power Armor. At first glance, the Kel-Morian power armor looked no different from Augustus's own, save for a layer of black paint applied over the original finish.

The Kel-Morian style of savage modification covered almost every inch of the armor. For instance, the one before Augustus had sharp copper spikes driven into every part of his suit, two sharpened Turaxis Hunter Daggers welded directly onto his shoulder pauldrons, and chaotic graffiti painted in white across the black plating.

The only thing Augustus could recognize was the unique emblem of the Kel-Morian Rippers he had learned about in boot camp—a spiked hexagonal warhammer smashing through a window with glass shards flying everywhere. The rest were even more bizarre, featuring animals and symbols of unknown meaning; Augustus guessed these were the crests of the Kel-Morian warrior's family or guild.

Augustus knew that anyone qualified to wear power armor was at the very least a veteran elite or a foreman-level member of a Kel-Morian guild.

As for the other Kel-Morian fighters, their equipment was far more meager. More than half of the soldiers wore only blue-green woolen uniforms and used smaller Kel-Morian Electromagnetic Rifles as their weapons. Some wore overalls and jumpsuits; such multi-pocketed uniforms clearly resembled work clothes rather than military attire.

Others had slightly more luxurious gear, wearing rounded helmets with a central ridge and goggles, with the two capital letters "KM" printed vertically on the helmets.

In addition to their uniforms, these soldiers wore crude armor fashioned from kinetic plating and thick leather padding. This armor was far inferior to the powered CMC series of the Confederacy and offered very little coverage; the better sets covered the shins and forearms, while the worse ones only protected the torso and thighs.

These soldiers made up a much larger proportion of the Kel-Morian forces than the Ripper power-armor wearers. Before they picked up weapons to fight the Confederate army, they had been nothing more than miners from the various guild pits and factories.

After the Guild Wars broke out, these men were conscripted by the guild government. This was the Kel-Morian Labor Auxiliary, composed of miners who lacked armor but possessed a tenacious and stubborn will.

Augustus's squad pushed forward, seeing more corpses along the way, including some Confederate soldiers killed by landmines. The fighting in Vellino had subsided, and charred houses were visible everywhere. Confederate soldiers were dragging Kel-Morian bodies to the town center, loading them onto trucks to be transported elsewhere for burial.

That afternoon, Augustus and his squad squeezed into a civilian house they had been assigned to rest and prepare for the general offensive at dawn the next day. Every house was packed with sweat-drenched marines, while many others had to set up tents in the town.

No one knew where the original inhabitants of Vellino had gone.