The Zerglings had already reached the city walls, which provided only a meager defense against the swarming tide. While the stone fortifications were a barrier, they were hardly an impassable one. Despite the soldiers on the battlements firing down continuously, the Zerglings began to use their talons to gouge through the stone.
"They've breached the wall! Stop them!"
A group of human soldiers was the first to reach the rupture. They raised their lasguns, aiming into the dark gap where the stone had crumbled. Beneath the foundations, the ground churned as the swarming insects tunneled through, gushing out from the breach like a flood of serrated limbs.
"Fire!"
A continuous barrage of las-bolts slammed into the opening, briefly plugging the gap with a pile of twitching carcasses. But the sheer momentum of the Swarm was too much; the creatures simply climbed over their dead, breaking through the barrage.
Suddenly, an Ogryn appeared from behind the human ranks. The three-meter-tall subhuman—thick-necked, muscular, and not particularly bright—lumbered forward carrying an oversized, heavy flamer.
"Burn it! Burn 'em all!"
A roaring gout of promethium shot from the nozzle, incinerating the first dozen Zerglings and forcing the breach into a temporary stalemate. However, this small victory was only possible because the main force had yet to arrive. These were merely the vanguards; behind them, a vast tide of Zerglings surged forward, followed by the towering, slow-moving forms of Hydralisks.
"Grenades! Toss 'em now!"
Soldiers hurled frag grenades into the mass of chitin. The explosions scattered limbs and ichor, but the Swarm didn't even flinch. It felt like a classic confrontation—the desperate defense of humanity against the relentless hunger of the Zerg. But this was only the beginning. Once the Hydralisks reached the front lines, the soldiers would have to contend with armor-piercing spines as thick as a man's forearm.
"Where did these monsters come from?" a human officer shouted over the din. "Why are they attacking now?"
"They may be parasitic organisms from some cosmic entity," the voice of the T'au commander crackled through the vox. "We have speculated about such encounters before."
A moment later, the first T'au reinforcements arrived.
"We are here, Gue'vesa."
The Fire Caste warriors entered the fray, their sleek, ochre-colored combat suits looking starkly out of place against the gothic, war-torn backdrop of the town. Hovering around them were dozens of Drones, their small AIs providing cover and scanning for targets. The T'au rail-rifles barked, their high-velocity slugs shredding Zerglings with ease—though, in truth, the Zergling's armor was so fragile that such high-tech weaponry was almost overkill.
"Suppress them! Do not let them enter the city!" the T'au Commander ordered from within his Crisis Battlesuit. He unleashed a volley from his burst cannons, shattering a wave of Zerglings that had managed to leap over the rubble. "Stay behind cover! Fire in disciplined volleys!"
The human officer immediately asked, "Vash'ya, how is the refugee relocation progressing?"
"Most have reached the underground shelters," the Commander replied. "But we must hold. If we fall, the Swarm will overrun the bunkers."
The officer looked out at the horizon. The sea of purple was so thick it seemed to swallow the landscape. "Can we even hold against this many?"
"Do not despair, Gue'vesa. I have sent a distress signal to the nearest sept world. They will not abandon us."
The T'au were not like the Imperium; they did not treat lives as mere currency. Even though this world had only recently embraced the Greater Good, the T'au would defend it to the last. However, their technology on this fringe world was not yet at its peak. Without the heaviest Riptide or Ghostkeel suits, the Fire Caste was struggling to maintain the perimeter against the sheer biological weight of the Zerg.
"The enemy's attack is fierce," one warrior noted.
"Our defense is solid," the Commander countered. "Bring up the Hammerheads!"
In this agricultural world, the T'au had maintained a surprising amount of heavy armor. Hammerhead Gunships and Devilfish troop carriers began to prowl the streets, turning the narrow avenues into kill zones. A coordinated barrage of railgun slugs, Seeker missiles, and pulse fire created a wall of death that the Zerglings simply could not cross. Drones hovered on either side of the tanks, acting as mobile turrets to suppress any creature that got too close.
Cerebrate Zasz watched the resistance with cool calculation. The Overmind had taught him long ago: when the enemy's heavy firepower stops the frontline, change the angle of attack.
A second wave of Leviathan airdrop pods began to fall—not on the walls, but directly into the heart of the town. The T'au Commander watched in horror as the sky filled with meteor-like streaks.
"They're landing inside the perimeter!"
The pods smashed into buildings and plazas. Instead of Zerglings, out crawled the heavy, armored forms of Roaches.
The Devilfish carriers immediately swiveled their burst cannons, spraying the Roaches with a hail of fire. But the Roaches' thick, rounded chitinous carapaces were designed for exactly this. Many of the pulse rounds simply ricocheted off their oily shells.
"Are you kidding me?" the Overmind chuckled to himself while observing the link. "Using pulse carbines against Roaches? You're underestimating their armor!"
To a Roach, a pulse round was a mere scratch. Only the Hammerhead's heavy railgun was truly effective, its slugs punching through multiple Roaches in a single line of fire.
"The railgun is impressive," the Overmind noted, "but how do you handle a brawl?"
Just as the T'au tried to reposition their heavy guns, the ground beneath them erupted. Roaches—having burrowed beneath the streets—burst upward directly under a Hammerhead Gunship. The tank driver, completely lacking in close-combat experience, panicked as the heavy biological units slammed into the vehicle's hull.
Fire Caste warriors nearby tried to assist, pepper-potting the Roaches with rifle fire, but the creatures ignored them. They tore at the Hammerhead's armor with massive, acidic claws. Within seconds, the pride of the T'au motor pool was a pile of burning scrap, its driver impaled by a jagged chitinous limb.