Some regular crew members, positioned on the wall alongside the soldiers earlier, fired the cannons sporadically. Because they didn't have as extensive training in weaponry like plasma rifles and kinetic rifles, or even cold weapons for that matter, George figured he wouldn't waste some soldiers' good aim by having them rotate and fire a cannon. So he quickly had the four regular crew taught how to aim and fire it and had them position themselves accordingly to wait for his order. Of course, the basic training wasn't really enough for them to be absolute killers on the battlefield, but he would have to hope the cannons themselves would be able to do the heavy lifting.
This fight will take a while, he thought to himself, watching the enemy slowly advance even under heavy fire.
Meanwhile, on the bridge of the H.C Heart...
Ridge and the others had already made their way over to the large mining outpost, and using the ship's scanners, found the enemy slowly approaching. Clearly, they were going to attempt something akin to a sneak attack. Unfortunately for them, the battleship disturbed their plans. Before they could even make a single noise, Ridge ordered the ship to fire one of the mini cannons at the front of the ship. These guns were usually used for missile defense and high-precision strikes on surfaces; because of their precision compared to the regular heavy cannons, he used them instead to mitigate environmental damage surrounding the outpost and accurately take the targets down.
A couple of soldiers and a few crew members stood on the wall watching the mini cannon fire down from the battleship. This only lasted five minutes before the scanners confirmed the targets were eliminated. Ridge, being as cautious as he was, sent out a message to the two soldiers guarding the outpost to check it out, just to be sure.
He didn't stay to confirm; anything still living would be easily taken care of now with the soldiers below. Instead, the ship quickly shot off into the south, precisely where the second outpost was. In total, the crew working out there numbered around twelve; there were also four people still operating the trailblazers and paving a long road. Ridge opted to leave the trailblazers alone for now and take only around eight people to operate the weapons on the battleship; it was also more a matter of convenience since the trailblazers' current position wasn't suitable for the battleship to pick them up.
Generally speaking, the ship needed around thirty or forty members of the crew to help operate the guns at full capacity, but their current numbers would have to do. In his opinion, it should be more than enough once they picked up the extra eight.
The problem facing them now was the distance; even with the battleship flying over everything, it would take half an hour to an hour depending on if they pushed the ship's thrusters. He didn't hesitate to make the call.
Turning to berkay, "Push the ion thrusters as hard as you can; we don't want to leave the base stranded while we're out here galavanting around," he ordered.
"Pushing engines now, sir," Berkay replied, directing the pilots to push it.
Sitting in the chair, Ridge felt the force pushing him back into his chair, head against the chair; he watched as they sped across the planet to the small outpost.
Back at the base, George had begun to fire his own weapon continuously, joining the extra reserve soldiers in patching up any spots that needed to be patched up. Mostly, whenever a group needed to reload, he took it upon himself, with the others, to fill the gap.
Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, the enemy was still advancing; in fact, they had begun to use the bodies of the deceased as shields, which was especially effective against the machine gunner, since the kinetic guns didn't have as high a penetrating effect as the plasma rounds. It had been at least ten minutes of fighting since Ridge had left with the battleship; George could only trust in Ridge and whatever plan he had cooked up.
400 meters, then 340; the push was relenting, and when they shot down one, another came to replace them just as quickly. Frustration was evident on his face; George began thinking to himself while shooting to maybe come up with some kind of strategy or solution. He got a ping on his comms that broke his contemplation.
Accepting it, he heard the officers from the strategy room: "Captain! Bad news, they're splitting up their forces to attack from the north; we count at least twenty."
"What are the enemy reinforcements looking like? Is it sporadic or never-ending?" he asked, acknowledging the threat they would soon have to face in the north.
"Never-ending. We don't have the programs needed to automatically count the numbers, but so far the stream of red dots we're seeing hasn't come to a stop. They don't seem to be targeting the north as heavily, still reinforcing the east, though," The officer replied hastily.
"Understood, keep an eye out, and notify me if something else happens," He said before cutting off comms.
Reloading, he walked over to the ledge of the wall and shouted down at the construction crew sweating despite it being relatively cool out.
"We're gonna need you to halt construction for now; no matter how hard you push, you won't complete it today. The enemy is coming from the north, and we don't have the numbers to split off at the moment. We only have one cannon there, so two of you will have to attempt your very best to man it and repel the invasion!"
Hearing him, the crew members and engineers understood what was needed of them and stopped what they were doing. Luckily, because the engineers themselves had built the cannons, they knew exactly how to operate them.
Before George returned to fire down at the alien scum, he saw nine more soldiers coming from the southern gate, apparently just returning. Waving them down, he ordered them to quickly make their way over to the northern wall to help out. At the very least, it would stabilize morale to have some soldiers stationed over there.
The nine returning men, despite being exhausted, made their way over to the northern wall, but not before being stopped; one of the men in reserve had tossed them five plasma rifles. The remainder of what the base had in the armory. Nodding in gratitude, they quickly reached their positions and waited.
Within the strategy room, the officers were both keeping a close eye on the situation, and once the enemies were five minutes out and guaranteed to attack the northern section, they sent out a message to George.
George, being busy laying down fire, quickly forwarded the message to the north, and it was received by one of the soldiers that had just gotten there.
The estimated five minutes passed quickly. The engineers were the first to spot the enemy and immediately opened fire with the cannon. Hearing it from the east, George knew they had begun the assault; on their side, the enemy continued to narrow the distance. They were now one hundred meters away. At a much closer distance, the plasma rounds had also become more effective, sometimes killing three or four with one shot.
As the fight became longer and longer, the eastern cannons became much more accurate, and the crew members were able to fire out more and more rounds as they got used to operating them. It was a development George was glad to see; as the operators got better, they started targeting large crowds more precisely, and the kinetic rounds from the cannons absolutely plowed through them. Killing twenty, maybe even thirty at a time, giving the others on the wall much relief.
Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes; they had been holding almost an hour. George quickly noticed that the soldiers were on their last shots of plasma rounds. Furrowing his brow, he received a message from the north.
'The situation is settled; the enemy was apparently surprised by our defences in the north and had quickly been obliterated with the help of the engineers operating the cannon.'
A piece of good news, typing out a message fast, he sent out the order to have them join the eastern wall. Luckily, the five plasma rifles they had didn't seem to be used much, so they still had some spare ammo, most likely.
During this time, the battleship had managed to push itself to the outpost within thirty minutes and was already on the way back after picking up more people. Ridge constantly kept his eye on the scanner and also his panel. Yayha and Caroline both had been sending updates to him. The first few he got were all positive: "We are holding them back," to "The northern wall was attacked, but the enemy got obliterated." Soon, though, the messages became "Running out of ammo," or "The aliens are getting closer and closer, using bodies as shields."
Anxiously, he had the crew push the ship to its absolute limit, hoping to get there faster and prevent a total collapse. By now, they were likely running out of ammo, he thought grimly.
They would be there soon; once there, he planned on first helping the defenders out and relieving them of some of the pressure, then they would fly directly to the base, seemingly producing large amounts of cannon fodder to destroy it and stop the attack altogether.