CoDominium/Awesome

The Battle of Sparta City. The corrupt Grand Senator sponsoring the Helot rebellion arranges for an entire CoDominimum Line Marine Regiment to be dropped on a city that has been completely emptied of troops to be sent to the fighting front against the Helots. They have tanks, APCs, satellite recon, and several battalions of troops, and the only thing the Spartans have to oppose them with are a hundred or so Royal Guards with only small arms, the Sparta City PD, and the unorganized militia levy -- i.e., 'citizens with sporting rifles and shotguns'. Meanwhile, the entire Minetown slums are simultaneously rising up in a giant riot, being full of Helot sympathizers. And yet the Spartans successfully hold the line all night.

Marine Captain Laubenthal: Gods, if these are militia we're fighting, I'd hate to see their best. They just don't give up.

- Also a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming in that what ultimately decides the battle is the first mass mutiny of Line Marines in history, as the grunts on the front realize that they are shooting the wrong people.

Marine Captain Laubenthal: All right, tell first platoon to-
(a horde of Minetowners enter the scene and hit the Spartan formation that Laubenthal's company has just broken from their flank, deliberately butchering the fallen Spartans)
Captain Laubenthal: The last bloody straw. Damned if I'll see good soldiers murdered. (deep breath) It appears that we're out of touch with HQ, Sergeant. A Company, open fire, selective! Drive off those jackals and rescue the Spartans.
Sergeant Sandeli: Sir?
Captain Laubenthal: You heard me, Sergeant.
Sergeant Sandeli: Fucking A, sir! Carruthers! New targets! Clean house! (beat) Sir, I hope you never get that motherfucking radio working again.

- By the time the regimental XO finally realizes he needs to relieve his CO and call for a cease-fire, five other companies will have defected to join Laubenthal's. That many Line Marines switching sides mid-battle is directly lampshaded as never having happened before in galactic history.
- Even the Spartan Boy and Girl Scouts contribute to the battle - not that anyone was depraved enough to put children on the firing line, but with the city's communications net completely knocked out by the CD and Helot electronic warfare specialists the militia coordinated their movements by using the children as bicycle couriers... and also by putting everyone with a Scouting merit badge in Morse on the rooftops with flashlights.
This happens concurrently with an entire squadron of Federation Navy ships doing the same. When the mutiny of Colonel Ciotti's troops leads him to call in orbital fire support from Captain Donovic onbaord the battlecruiser his regiment arrived on to break the deadlock, the other Federation Navy elements immediately react to the idea of using orbital kinetic weapon strikes within city limits. Captain Donovic having already 'detained' the commodore in command of the Sparta system to prevent him from interfering, the highest-ranking captain of the local fleet detachment orders the cruiser and several destroyers under his command to immediately clear for action against a much larger warship.

Captain Donovic: Newell, you've lost your mind! Are you going to fire on me? We need unity in the Fleet, not this!
Fleet Captain Newell: Exactly, Captain Donovic. And you're going to achieve unity by bombarding an independent planet against the direct orders of the system commanders? Ever think that our families are down there on Sparta where you've helped start a God damned war?!? [...]
Captain Donovic: You know, there's never been a fleet action like this, four smaller ships against a battlecruiser. I think we can take you, Newell.
Fleet Captain Newell: Plus the space station. All units, prepare for general engagement.
Captain Donovic: ... but we'd be hurt pretty bad. And what the hell, we might not win. Robbie, secure from general quarters. Captain Newell, you'll understand if I decline your invitation to join you aboard your ship, but I agree we'll need to continue this conversation without so many eavesdroppers. Colonel Ciotti, I regret that your request for fire support has been overruled by the acting system commander. I fear you're on your own. Good luck.

Julio McTiernan is a teenaged boy working as a waiter in his parents' restaurant in Sparta City, whose sole military experience is the Spartan equivalent of JROTC training. When a pair of Helot terrorists attempt a drive-by shooting, one of the soldiers eating lunch there manages to kill both of them with his sidearm. However, the last man has just enough time to throw a grenade...

The oblong grenade clattered to the brick not far from him, spinning on its side like a top. Fragmentation model, he realized; that was part of ephebe training too. Lined with coils of notched steel wire, kill-radius of fifteen meters.

It detonated less than a second after he dove onto it and flattened himself to the ground.

- By the grace of God, he lived. However, he's in the hospital for the remainder of the narrative.
- As a minor CMOA of their own, later on the rest of the McTiernan family - including his 13-year-old sister - all report with the general militia muster for the Battle of Sparta City.

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