The moment the battle erupted, Osiris was escorted backward behind a more secure cover by two Hellfire soldiers. He did not panic; his gaze quickly swept across the battlefield as his brain calmly analyzed the situation.
"Their targets are the personnel at the cave mouth! The swarm was attracted by potential energy leaks from the starship or the commotion from the previous reconnaissance!" Osiris's voice entered every team member's ears clearly via the communicators. "Do not get bogged down! Maine, the three of you immediately execute bounding overwatch to fall back to the main defensive line! The Ironclads will push forward to hold the line and clear a path for retreat with their firepower! Reynolds, concentrate fire on the dense sectors of the swarm to slow down their momentum!"
His directives were precise and timely, instantly organizing the slightly chaotic rhythm of the battlefield.
Maine's trio executed the commands without a shred of hesitation. Continuing to lay down fire, they rapidly retreated toward the main defensive line. Dorio's precise semi-automatic fire continuously picked off the Stingbats attempting to close in, while Rebecca utilized her heavy cannon to lay down a deathly barrage behind them.
"Valerie! The left flank is yours!" Rebecca shouted during a reload window.
"On it!" Under Valerie's control, the Ironclad mech took heavy strides to slide laterally to the left. Its shield deflected a clustered dive-bomb from the Stingbats, while the rapid-fire cannon on its right arm opened fire violently, riddling several Stingbats attempting to flank them from the side into sieves.
Asuka also raised the compact plasma pistol issued to her. Possessing excellent dynamic vision, though her marksmanship was not on par with a professional soldier, she still successfully shot down two Stingbats attempting to ambush a Hellfire soldier from a tricky angle.
"Watch your heads!" she periodically issued crisp warnings.
Under the dense suppressing fire and Osiris's effective coordination, Maine, Dorio, and Rebecca successfully retreated behind the main defensive line. The first wave of the Stingbat swarm was successfully contained, leaving dozens of mangled and broken carcasses at the entrance of the passage. However, more Stingbats continued to circle above the cave mouth and deep within the passage, emitting unreconciled shrieks, evidently possessing no intention of giving up.
"There are too many of them, forcing our way through isn't going to cut it!" Sergeant Reynolds stated, breathing heavily as he swapped in a fresh energy magazine.
Osiris looked at the swarm that was still massing, then threw a glance toward that cave mouth which sat within arm's reach yet felt separated by a chasm. The starship was inside, its access hatch open, its operational state unknown. They could absolutely not afford to be delayed here.
His gaze swept across the terrain of the cave mouth, and he rapidly made a decision: "Maine, utilize demolition tactics to create chaos and divert their attention."
Maine grasped the intent immediately. "A feint?"
"Correct," Osiris nodded. "Jake, Valerie—direct your two Ironclads to deliver saturation bombardment to the area above the rock walls on both sides of the cave mouth, where the swarm's nest is suspected to be! Create a collapse and trigger a panic! The rest of you, prepare smoke grenades. Once the bombardment commences, hurl smoke forward to cover the assault team as they re-enter the cave mouth! The objective this time is not reconnaissance; it is to directly enter the cave where the starship is located and seal the entrance!"
It was a bold and highly efficient tactic: leveraging the heavy firepower of the Ironclads to engineer chaos, utilizing smoke to obscure vision, and then deploying a small elite force to rapidly breach and secure the objective.
"Understood!"
"Copy that!"
Without any hesitation, the commands were swiftly executed.
Jake and Valerie maneuvered their Ironclads, adjusting their weapon vectors to aim at the upper regions of the rock wall indicated by Osiris, where the Stingbats were massing heavily. The machine guns and rapid-fire cannons roared once more. Shells slammed into the rock face like hail, triggering a succession of detonations and deafening cracks of fracturing stone!
A massive volume of rubble mixed with the severed limbs of the Stingbats plummeted from above. The swarm was instantly thrown into a massive panic and state of disarray, their shrieks turning agonizing and disorganized.
Simultaneously, several smoke grenades were hurled forward by the Hellfire squad, rolling to the front of the passage. The thick white smoke diffused rapidly, obscuring the field of view across the cave mouth sector.
"Assault team, on me!" Maine growled in a low tone. Alongside Dorio and two Hellfire elites who had volunteered to move out, he plunged back into the smoke without a shred of hesitation, their trajectory locked straight onto the cave mouth where the extraterrestrial starship was concealed.
Standing behind cover, Osiris watched the vector of the cave mouth enveloped by smoke and detonations, the expression beneath his mask remaining as serene as ever. The second phase of the plan had been initiated; whether they could successfully seize that Predator starship would depend entirely on this critical assault.
The thick white smoke billowed within the passage, effectively obscuring the vision of the Stingbat swarm, but it also reduced the visibility of the assault team to a minimum. Relying on memory and tactical hand signals, Maine, Dorio, and the two Hellfire elites advanced through the smoke where visibility was under five meters, driving toward the cave mouth with difficult yet definitive strides.
"Watch your step! Maintain formation!" Maine's low tone echoed through the team channel, drowning out the muffled external detonations and the chaotic shrieks of the Stingbats. He could feel the vibrations of the ground beneath his feet—the aftershocks brought about by the Ironclads' continuous bombardment of the rock face.
Dorio positioned herself on his flank, her rifle muzzle continuously tracking the vectors where a threat might manifest. Her breathing was steady, but her gaze beneath her visor was as sharp as an eagle's. The two Hellfire soldiers handled vigilance for the rear, periodically firing short bursts into regions within the smoke where movement was suspected, dispersing the stray Stingbats that managed to breach the network of fire.
Finally, they broke through the densest sector of the smoke, and the silhouette of the cave mouth, partially obscured by vegetation, materialized indistinctly at the edge of the vapor. Above the cave entrance, the saturation bombardment of the Ironclads had yielded its effect; massive chunks of rock and the remnants of Stingbats were still raining down sporadically, forcing the majority of the swarm to think twice before attempting a dive-bomb.
"Now is the time! Into the cave!" Maine growled in a low tone, and the four-man team dashed into the gloomy cave mouth like arrows loosed from a bowstring.
The interior of the cave was not completely pitch-black. Bioluminescent fungi emitting faint blue or pale green glows were sparsely distributed across the cave walls and ground, providing a weak source of light. The air abruptly became humid and stagnant, carrying a heavy, bizarre odor resembling a mixture of ozone and metal—a stark contrast to the crisp scent of the Pandoran jungle outside.
"Clear!"
"Left side secure!"
"Right side clear!"
Following a brief, rapid sweep, the team confirmed that the perimeter near the cave entrance was temporarily devoid of threats. Maine immediately reported via the communicator: "Cave mouth secured. Interior is safe; entry is clear."
Shortly thereafter, while the Ironclads piloted by Valerie and Jake utilized their firepower to temporarily suppress the remaining Stingbats and used their massive hulls to block the majority of the cave opening, Osiris rapidly entered the cave under the escort of the remaining team members. Asuka followed closely behind him, curiously taking in this bizarre space while keeping her plasma pistol gripped tight.
The interior of the cave was far more spacious than it appeared from the exterior, resembling a hollowed-out subterranean hall. And resting quietly deep within that hall was the Predator starship.