'Well, you did give us a damned bloody nose,' Hotston didn't mind sharing that information. It would have been plain to the enemy pilot just how much damage he and his force were causing the Demons. It also showed that Hotston respected him. Giving him that knowledge, would make it easier to break to him in the long run. Build up trust, after trust. Break down the psychological barriers.
'I'll get Hoffmeister. He'll help you get cleaned up, and our medics will sort you out. After that, you can visit your man if you like. His legs have been fixed, and the doctors say that there will be no lasting damage.'
Al Man didn't speak, merely nodded, but a large tear slid from one puffed up eye. Feeling dirty, Hotston left the room.
#
An hour later, he, Devon and the command cadre were reviewing the information that Al Man and Ahmed had divulged. Al Man was the wingman of a Janissary ace, piloting another Ghalfiqi called Hand of Justice. Four other wing mates called Sword of Justice, Holy Justice, Justice for All, and Dragon's Flight made up the rest of the ace's unit. In support they had another five companies of mechs.
Each company was led by one of the wing mates when they weren't out with the Hand of Justice. The size of the force made Hotston's balls shrink. He'd realised that they were outnumbered by the conventional forces in the area, that was a given considering the battering that the Spanish had suffered, and the forces required to mount a successful operation. But to know that a small army of aces and elite troops had been solely tasked with their destruction was still a bitter pill to swallow.
'Well, we can't let the buggers think they've got the upper-hand, even if they plainly have,' sighed Hotston as he lowered the datasheet to the table.
'Agreed,' said Hoffmeister, 'I believe Kirton's got an idea.'
'Yes, there's a bridge on the A-4 Despeñaperros road. The enemy have been using it to bring in supplies. If we hit that, they'll have to take other, less direct routes which we can also hit.' Kirton called up a satellite image of the bridge. Spanning a valley, it also crossed another arterial route. It was clear that destroying the bridge would impede enemy operations, and put them on the back foot. It would also be a slap in the Murad Janissaries' collective faces. Which would almost certainly be hurting from the loss they'd recently suffered.
'I'd like to volunteer,' Hoffmeister said, 'I'll take ten people with me. Any more and it'll turn into an all-out attack. This needs to be as sneaky as possible. We'll place mini-nukes along these points.' He quickly marked the areas, 'Which will bring the bridge down nicely across the other route as well. We'll then exfil along this route, laying smart mines as we go, so that any traffic backed up comes under attack. Should be sufficient chaos for us to get out of there.'
Hotston smiled at the gorilla, understanding man's need to strike back at the enemy. The war had become personal for many of his people, and the knowledge that the knackers were preventing them from fighting the real enemy back in the U.K, was galling.
'Right, let's thrash this out and see if we can't find any glaring errors.' Ordering a round of coffees and sandwiches, he and the others set to.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
'Right people. Let's do this nice and easy. Keep Stealth activated at all times. No comms bar hand signals. In, blow it, out. Okay?' Hoffmeister smiled as he received a round of thumbs up from the men and women under his command. From now, until the end of the mission, not a word would be said unless absolutely necessary. Please God, don't let it be necessary.
He'd gone for a mixed squad. All of them had the SAPPER skill and were able to place and wire explosives. He'd also brought along a medic, a scout, and a heavy gunner to cover their retreat if needed. Most of them were Gorillas, mainly because they were people he mixed with when not on missions, My kind. The fact that he was unconsciously biased towards normal humans in the way that they were biased towards him didn't even cross his mind.
Making the signal for 'Advance', then 'v formation', he slowly started to make his way towards the bridge. They'd decided that they would approach it from the road below the bridge, as there was far too much traffic on the main bridge to allow them to get close enough.
Even the lower road was busy, especially considering that it was 3am in the morning. Every five minutes or a so, a group of transports would lumber past, fumes belching out of the dirty carbon-fuel engines the NACs forces still used. Above, sentries patrolled. He'd spent thirty minutes mapping their movements, tagging each and every one. It was clear from the way they carried their weapons, to the casual waves that they gave each other, that they were absolutely bored out of their minds.
Idiots, they're losing people not too far away and they still think that the war doesn't apply to them.
To be fair to the troops guarding the bridge, they probably weren't the best troops out there and guarding a bridge was probably the best place that their superiors thought they'd do the least harm to themselves and their comrades.
Still, mustn't complain, makes my job easier.
Reaching the edge of the road, he gave the signal to wait as lights slowly approached them. Dropping down into the dirt alongside the road, they lay as still as possible whilst the trucks lumbered by. As soon as they were gone, he was up and running across the tarmac, stopping only when he reached the first support. All of his people knew exactly what they had to do so there was no need to speak.
Grappling hooks were fired into the belly of the bridge, attached to mechanical risers, and sappers sent flying up into the air like comic-book heroes. Chinning a command menu up, Hoffmeister set a countdown, wanting to have the mini-nuke set within ten minutes. He took a knee, scanning the area to make sure that no-one had decided to wander on down to make a quick check of the lower road.
He could understand why there were guards on the top of the bridge. The road on that led to a large tunnelled section, and the NAC high command had probably marked that as being more important than the bridge itself. The troops here were acting as a buffer for any troops that they had guarding the tunnels.
Looking up, he watched as the sappers fired more hooks to the next support, swinging through the air. He grinned, imagining them calling out like Tarzan as they did so. Everything was done in near silence and he grunted in satisfaction at the pace they were maintaining. If they kept it up they'd be finished in the next couple of minutes. All that remained then was to get sufficiently far away and detonate the explosives.
There was a rumble, felt more than heard. The dust on the ground was vibrating. Something large, and very heavy was approaching. Maximising the gain on his audio pickup, he cursed as he recognised the throaty growl of a Mark V Jackal Heavy Battle Tank. An absolute beast of a tank, it was one of the few armoured fighting vehicles that could more than hold its own in a toe-to-toe fight with a mech. It also had the ability to carry a full platoon of infantry.
Hurriedly he took out his own grappling hook, attached it to the launcher and fired up. The passive and active sensors of a Jackal would easily have picked him up this close, stealthed or not. Clutching the trigger on the riser he launched himself into the air, throwing all caution to the wind in a desperate attempt to get as high as possible.
The Jackal roared into sight, the double tracks chewing apart the road surface. It was huge. He'd never seen one up close, but had watched many videos of them being used in the pacification of South Africa. Moving slowly right now, it looked deceptively easy to get away from if you ignored the twin 105mm auto cannon, the two 50mm lasers and numerous pulsers and machine guns. However, powered by six jet engines, it could still max an impressive 60mph over rough terrain, its weight crushing all but the biggest obstacles into fine powder.
Nodding to a sapper who was hanging next to him, Hoffmeister watched as the Jackal continued up the rise of the hill, before turning onto the road that would lead back to the bridge.
Shit! They'll sense us! There was nothing for it, he opened up his comms channel, 'Hoffmeister to all sappers, prime and drop, prime and drop!' Unable to wait f
or an acknowledgement he switched his riser to 'descend' and plummeted back to earth as quickly as he could, the roar of the Jackal getting closer by the second as the driver opened her up on the straight.
Oooooof! Slamming into the ground knocked the breath from him. Ignoring the red mist that descended as he desperately tried to get his breath back, he counted every sapper as they landed around him. All here. Move, he signalled, running as quickly as he could from the bridge.
'Firing.' That was the sniper, Corporal Sheena, 'Guard spotted you. They know we're here. Firing.' Her voice was flat, totally void of inflection, completely in the zone.
Fucking hell, he thought as a series of flares were launched high into the air with a series of firecracker-like explosions. A bullet cracked past his head, punching into a rock just beyond him, 'Bit more covering fire please, Sheena,' he grunted.
'Apologies,' she sounded anything but sorry, 'fucker's tucked in nice and ... got him. Shit me, just levelled up too.'
'You can fart about with that sort of shit later. Kill some more of them. We're 500 metres from you and closing fast.'
The plan was that the sniper would provide covering fire. The enemy would be able to work out where she was firing from and start to advance on that position. Which was exactly what Hoffmeister wanted. As soon as they reached Sheena they were going to drop smart-mines and withdraw. The idea was that the mines would make the enemy reticent to follow, as well as tying them down, giving Hoffmeister and his people time to get even further away.
#
'Well it was a good plan at the time,' Sheena said as her .50inch rifle blew another enemy soldier apart, 'Moving.'
Hoffmeister covered her, sending a short burst at a tagged soldier, grinning as his shorts ripped through his target, killing him with a headshot.
'Moving.' He jumped up and ran past the line of sappers behind him continuing for another ten metres. They were conducting what was referred to as a fighting withdrawal. One group would engage the enemy, whilst the other group bounded behind them and took up position. That group would then engage the enemy whilst the original group ran through and past them. It was effective, but very, very, tiring.
STAMINA CRITICAL - 5% TO ALL SKILLS PER ADDITIONAL STAMINA POINT LOST
'Stimming!' Hoffmeister chinned the command key and gasped as his body was pumped full of chemicals. His stamina bar left straight up to the maximum, all tiredness washed away by a glorious warmth that filled his body. Reaching into his pack he dropped a smart mine, selecting a machine gun this time. 'Inventory check, how many mines we got left?'
He groaned as he saw that they were down to only ten mines between them. It wasn't enough. With the enemy so close behind them, they were having to deploy them quicker than planned. A whistling sent him diving to the ground as shells from the Jackal burst, sending shrapnel and earth flying through the air. The shockwave rolled over him, driving the air out of his body in a pained grunt.
'How much bloody further!' called out one of the Sappers.
'Fifty metres. Fuck it. Everyone up and run!' Ignoring the pain that seemed to be bone-deep he pushed himself back up to his feet and started to run again. They had to be at least 1 kilometre away from the explosion if they didn't want their armour to be affected by the electro-magnetic pulse from the explosions. The nukes might be small, reducing the amount of explosive required to bring down the bridge, but they still sent out a pulse that would render their suits blind.
'Wonder how many points we'll get for that bloody Jackal!' said another, chuckling even as he panted with the exertion.
We'll soon bloody well find out, thought Hoffmeister as his HUD indicated that they'd entered the blast's safe zone. Raising the hand that held the remote detonator, he pressed a meaty thumb down hard, opening up a screen to see what was happening behind him.
Nothing happened for a split second, his bowels turning to ice as he thought that they'd failed. Then there was a series of bright, white lights, silently rippling along the supports that they'd rigged. He kept running as again nothing happened. Then, every so slowly, the supports started to collapse, getting faster and faster as they did so until they seemed to be racing each other to the ground, the rest of the bridge crashing down after them. Then the shockwave hit. Even at over a thousand metres' distance it punched any Sapper that wasn't lying down off their feet.
MISSION - SUDDEN STRIKE COMPLETED +1000DP
MISSION - JACKAL HUNTER COMPLETE - +5000DP
His comms channel filled with whoops of excitement, Hoffmeister grinned. Those points would see many of his people getting the promotions they deserved, which would also see them getting more pay. Not that there was any real way for them to progress in the unit. Normally if someone was promoted there would be a reshuffling of positions, some would be transferred to other units that were lacking NCOs and officers etc. No, the 49ers were quickly looking like they were going to end up like the Bears. Officer-heavy, with rank not really meaning much at all. Still. Money. Their families would benefit at least.
Fed up of running, he stopped and turned to face their pursuers. They'd been caught by the EMP and were moving slowly, relying on hydraulics rather than servos to move now. Easy pickings. Switched weapons, choosing his shotgun and slapping a large combat blade onto it. 'Charge!'
The other sappers echoed his war cry, falling on the enemy. Racing up to a soldier that held their hands up, pleading for their life, he roared, slashing down with the combat blade, keying the chain blade, shuddering as it whirred into action and cut through flesh, bode and tendons with ease. He kept cutting until the blade was halfway across the enemy's chest, shredding the heart, before kicking the corpse free.
Another NAC soldier was nearby, grappling with one of the sappers. Levelling his shotgun, he blasted the beleaguered enemy soldier, blowing their legs clean off with a shot aimed to make sure he didn't hurt the sapper. Stepping up to the now screaming solder, he placed his blade against the soldier's faceplate, keyed the chain blade and thrust it straight into the soldier's face.
'Hard core man, fucking hard core,' whispered the sapper as Hoffmeister pulled his blade free.
'Don't you fucking forget it,' Hoffmeister said as he scanned the area. There wasn't a NAC soldier in sight, the area littered with corpses, 'Good job people, loot the bodies for supplies, leave some presents behind and let's get moving. We've a long way to go.'
#
'Nuclear explosion confirmed! Sensors are going off the limit!' called out a script in the bases's command centre, the shout jolting Hotston out of a doze.
'Get it up onto the main screen please.' He leaned back, trying to calm his frantically beating heart as the huge screen came to life just in time to show the bridge collapsing. 'What in God's name was that huge thing on the bridge just before it collapsed?' He asked.
'Jackal sir, Heavy Battle Tank.'
'Good God. Okay, zoom out, let's see if our people are still alive.' He didn't realise that he was holding his breath until he saw the strobe lights of his people as they dashed away from the region of the bridge, breathing out with a rush.
'Well, looks like Hoffmeister's well and truly kicked the knackers in their namesakes,' chuckled Devon as she leaned forward, a hand on Hotston's shoulder. 'What's that though, five kay in front of them?' She didn't wait for answer, leaning forward and using a console to zoom in on the larger screen.
'Shit. That's a unit of mechs.' Hotston scrubbed a hand across his face, 'And we're far too far away to help.'
Leaning back, he looked up at Devon hoping that she would be able to come up with an idea as to how to rescue the sappers. She looked back at him, mouth turned downward, a frown creasing her brow, 'They're on their own. We won't get there in time.'
Feeling sick to the pit of his stomach, Hotston turned back to the main screen, determined to be with his people in mind and spirit, if not physically.
#
If Hoffmeister had known how Hotston was feeling, he would most certainly have thought it
a waste of time. Seeing the third member of his section blown to pieces by heavy machine guns, he cursed, tightened his grip on his rifle and fired a burst of grenades at the SUV responsible.
The grenades were small. They were dwarfs in comparison to the giant 40mm that grenades launchers of the past used. These 10mm grenades contained five times the punch, for a lot less mass. The first grenade hit the SUV's front offside wheel, blowing it clean off, the SUV's BPs taking a very sudden dip. Even as it started to skid to a halt, the second and third grenades were landing. The second hit the driver and front gunner's position, the explosion blasting them to smithereens, whilst the third was redundant hitting the top gunner's weapon shield just before the SUV's BPs hit 0 and the vehicle exploded.
'Fuckers.' He checked his level limit. He was just 1000DP away from achieving the next level, 1st Lieutenant. Hit that and he'd be an officer, with all the perks that came with it, 'Means fuck all if I'm stuck pounding the dirt out here though.' He said to himself. There was no point in an increased pay cheque and extra living benefits if he couldn't cash them in.
'That's the last of them sergeant.' He scanned the area to make sure. Pyres dotted the landscape where they'd destroyed a Rapid Pursuit Platoon. Five SUVSs and another 10 motorbikes burned over a 500m expanse. It was, he felt, both depressing and beautiful at the same time. War often is.
He chinned his comms channel, 'Listen up, we're going to change direction, take a 90 degree turn here,' his hand moved through the air, sketching out the route on the virtual map that appeared on their HUDSs, 'and then head to this village. There's been sod-all activity in that direction, so hopefully we've got a gap we can exploit. Stim up, empty your catheters, and be ready to move in five.'
Following his own advice, he grimaced as he purged his piss-bag, the suit forcing the liquid out in a sudden pulse of stinking fluid. Stims and the rations they ate whilst wearing the suits meant that any waste usually stank to hell and high water. He was particularly interested to not that the urine was a pale green in colour. God, I need to get some proper R&R. Get some real bloody food in me, and have a proper sleep.
Devon's Demons: A Permadeath LitRPG LitFPS Novel Page 6