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While the Covenant assault force had been slogging it’s way towards the hangar, you’d routinely checked in on the Lieutenant’s progress as he prepared the hangar for a significant defensive action. And you had to admit, the marines certainly knew their stuff when it came to establishing a defensive position, even in what was unfamiliar and nominally hostile terrain. In under ten minutes, the lieutenant had devised a defensive network that could probably have held against a force three times the size of the incoming aliens.
The corridor into the hangar had been mined. That much was obvious. But while you saw almost a dozen devices lying in wait, all but three of them had been deactivated. It didn’t take a genius to see what the lieutenant’s game was. He planned to leave enough mines active for the Covenant to think that any they set off had been the full extent of the defenses, only to activate the remaining mines once they were through to cut off their escape.
But in order to fully sell the gambit, there had to be somewhere for the Covenant to take cover inside the hangar, and some bait to lure them in. The former had been handled by leaving much of the existing cover in place, and even adding to it by laying out a few more of those portable energy shields that the Covenant liked to use as mobile cover. Unsurprisingly, this cover had also been mined, creating a minefield that the Covenant would willingly walk into, and stand right on top of the explosives.
As for the bait, that was handled by a squad of marines on the central “island” in the middle of the hangar, where some portable barricades and supply crates had been flown in to really sell the “human command hub” look. Hell, they’d even laid out a few body bags and stuffed them enough to give the impression of a corpse being inside.
But these marines weren’t alone. In the time it’d taken the Covenant to arrive, the lieutenant had nearly doubled the number of troops aboard the ship. On the first floor, another squad of marines lay in wait behind cover on the opposite side of the hangar, ready to fire down the back wall and to prevent a Covenant assault on the exposed troops on the island. But the majority of the defenders were on the floor above. Three squads of marines, with machine guns, flame throwers, and rocket launchers all waited for the Covenant to enter the hangar. And when given the signal, they’d lay into the Covenant troops from above. Assuming that any survived the mines. And to really add to the fun, a Pelican in a gunship configuration hung in the void just outside of the hangar, ready to both provide fire support and reinforcements.
All in all, it was a very well laid out defense. And all that remained was for the Covenant to walk right into it.
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