[b]Destiny Ascendant Hangar[/b]

Kindal didn't take it too kindly when Raldyr called him simply by his name. That privilige is reserved only for other Gashathi and trusted  high servitors. He frowned under the mask and turned towards the alien who adressed him. "Watch your mouth alien. Address me by my formal title if you wish to speak to me again." Kindal's voice was upset, but he tried to keep his calm after this blatant breach of culture. The Kronsemar husks shifted their poses slightly, readying for an imminenet gunfight. Kindal noticed it, and waved them off with a hand before they opened fire by accident.

He turned his attention towards Muriel and bowed the slightest. "Excuse my guardians, for they are loyal followers of the faith and would not see it tarnished by first conatct." He glanced over to Raldyr and the Fleet-master before continuing. "I would only delay the inevitable by hiding my true intentions and masking myself as a neutral party towards the ground forces. Let us hasten this meeting by playing with open cards." 

Maybe this ruse will throw them off. Thought these "covenant" aliens had ground forces on the planet, the other two did not. Which is why their inquiry about his goals was all the more interesting. The voice of Matt suddenly filled his earpiece. [i]"Overseer, 11 massive ships just exited subspace travel and are deploying forces on the ground. They seem to be Covenant warships."[/i]

This little diplomatic must have been a trap! So perfectly alligned with their arrival and discovery of the Sanctuary. It was most likely a ruse to divert their attention from the incoming fleet. Kindal ran through a dozen possible scenarios in his head on how to handle the situation, but he couldn't find a universally good solution. If they started a firefight, there would likely be no survivors in the hangar. Nevertheless he turned towards the fleet master and readied his staff for combat.

"You fiend!" Kindal pointed with both of his left arms on Rah. "This is all the doing of you infidiels! If you seek to deny us from our ancestral legacy! You are not worthy of the Sanctuary's contents!" Kindal turned his head towards Muriel. "If you've any knowledge of this plan, speak up now and find safe haven from my force! Deny me from the vault of those who hold our sacred dogma and find yourself smithen!" Tension visibly rose in tha atmosphere as the Kronsemar husks readied their weapons to fire on the first signal of hostility. If anything, this meeting has gone horribly wrong, throwing the carefully crafted plan of the Overseer out of the window. He was ready to fight a lost battle in the hangar, but he made a last ditch attempt at salavging the situation. "Muriel and Raldyr, you and your races have not yet sinned in the eyes of the gods, so speak your cause and find your words rewarded. If you are found innocent, only one enemy remains in this hangar." Now it's time to pray nobody pulls the trigger before words leave mouth.
[hr]

[b]AURORA
Palace Entrance[/b]

"Push the offensive, the enemy is breaking!" Nyugen's voice filled the helmets of all his troops as they opened fire on the remaining enemy soldiers. A couple of meters ahead, the Vulkar was wrecking havoc. The closest tank unleashed it's full payload at the Vulkhar, but they only managed to crack the impromptu shield of the beast. Now that teh Vulkhar was on the offensive it charged at the enemy tanks and started punding them relentlessly. A punch or two is all it took for the tanks to give up as tons of flesh crushed them into oblivion. Their shots pinged off the cracked shield or sizzled away as they hit the Vulkar's thought body armor. They could've killed the beast if they had distance at their side, but close quarters was their demise.

During this impressive show of raw power by the Vulkhar, the Covenant forces began charging through the field and taking out a few tanks themselves as they ran isnide the vault. Some of the Vixar took aim, but Nyugen quickly tagged the aliens as neutrals on the HUD "Focus fire on the Palace guards, we can deal with them later." 

It didn't take long for the few tanks to be destroyed either by the Vulkhar or by well placed AT missiles of the Vixar infantry. The last of the vault defenders finally fled the battlefield, and left the grizzly scene. Dust and smoke thrown into the air creating a thick fog that could be hardly seen through covered the area around the ruins. The Vulkhar was methodically compressing the tank wrecks into balls of scrap metal in front of the vault. Nyugen signaled for his team to regroup and meet up in front of the entrance.

As they passed by the Vulkhar, Nyugen looked up at the beast, noticing the wounds that the turrets and tanks caused in it. "You did well Misha. You'll get a treat one we get back to the Gem." [i]Misha[/i] grunted something inadubile as a response and continued to work on her masterfully compressed junkball. The rest of Bravo Squad gathered up in front of the open entrance and took up defensive formation. Miracolously, nobody died but a dozen troopers got injured in the firefight either by shrapnel or grazing shots from the turrets. 

"Bravo-1, come in, this is Alpha-1!" Nyugen received the feed and gestured for his soldiers to form a tigther circle. If Alpha needed to say something, that must've meant that something was going horribly wrong. "This is Nyugen, speka up Alpha-1" "Sir, we have Covenant vessels approaching the AO at high speeds." Nyugen tried to look up and spot the vessels, but the sand from the battlefield and the smoke erupting from the burning houses of the town prevented him from seeing the ships. "How many Alpha-1?" It took a few seconds to get a reply. "A lot sir, I can't count it. We've got hundreds of small ships, big ships and all in-between descending from orbit. White 2 and 3 are already on their way out back to base with their escorts. What are your orders sir?"

Nyugen opened the tactical map and examined the town and it's surroundings in search of tactical locations to look for in case the approaching forces were hostile. After a quick scan of the town, it seemed like the only defendable place was the vault itself. Nyugen knew he'd be scolded for threatening the Snactuary, but he had no other option. He opened the channel once again, speaking to all of the Vixar forces. "This is Commandant Nyugen, all forces retreat inside the vault! We'll try to crack the sanctuary and find our missing aliens." With that, Nyugen signaled for his own troops to get inside to safety. 

In less than a minute, the other squads came running towards the vault's entrance. The Covenant ships were already close, so they wasted no time with the formalities and hussled their asses inside the relative safety of the compund. The last Vixar on the outside waved at Misha who was now playing with her ball of scrap metal. "Come on big girl, get inside quickly before you get shot." With an upset grunt, Misha grabbed her metal ball and crawled into the depths of the vault. At last, all the Vixar forces were inside the confines of the vault and moving deeper into the structure to seek out the Sanctuary and the Covenant forces looking for it.