'We've got runners!'
Hamilton smiled grimly as he looked at the target icons being marked on his tacmap. A group, can hardly call it a unit, of tanks and light armoured vehicles was making a break for it out of the base. With his aircraft situated in a circle around the base, he had little reason to worry that the enemy would escape.
SOARING EAGLE called for the destruction of no less than 85% of the enemy unit. They were at 93% already. The mission would end as soon as they left the base.
Usually he would have been satisfied with that, but the loss of so many craft on their first mission with the Demons stung. 100% or not at all, he thought.
'Kill the fuckers. Every single one of them. Then I want this base swept. Not one left alive.' Eyes narrowed, he set about the grim work of digging out any enemy survivors.
#
Hotston winced as he listened in on Hog 1's comm channel, the losses hitting home even though the crews were respawning, running straight to their next aircraft. None of that mattered as he heard their screams of pain, their pleas for help.
'Okay 49ers, this is it. Our target is just over this rise. Unless they're incredibly stupid, or we're massively lucky, they'll be ready for us.
'What they won't be ready for is us in these marvellous suits. We've been asked to open a breach in enemy lines that is 500m wide. A breach. What we're going to do is tear these fuckers a new arsehole!'
His people cheered at that, especially when he pumped his fist in the air. It was a moment of pure bravado and cliché, but it worked.
'Targets are marked, Hottie,' said Windsor, 'enemy are still facing the Spanish attack.' Which, Hotston knew, meant that the NAC troops had their backs to them. They hadn't had time to turn their trenches, and probably thought that the air attack was by Spanish forces. Being rear echelon troops, they most likely hadn't expected a Hover-borne division of Spanish troops to be dropped on one of their depots before launching an attack on them.
'Staging positions.' He watched as his three platoons, over 100 men and women that he knew by name, cared for, spread themselves ten metres apart. The ground continued to vibrate as Spanish artillery pounded the enemy positions over the rise.
'Move out.' They stepped off, slowly walking up the incline, moving even slower as they crested it. The enemy were utterly oblivious. Spanish artillery was raking the NAC positions, forcing the enemy to keep their heads down, pinning them in place.
Hotston laid his sights onto a NAC mortar jeep that was firing shell after shell at the advancing Spanish forces. Squeezing the trigger, he sent a burst of grenades into its thinner rear armour. In three hits he reduced the jeep to a burning wreck.
He watched as Windsor laid her heavier 20mm cannon onto a self-propelled gun that was trying to switch position. Bracing herself, she leaned forward and then let rip with a three-round burst of her own.
'Hotshot shells!' She yelled as each of her shots on he'd through the side armour before detonating within the SPG. All of the hatches blew off as one, white-hot flames roaring out of them before being replaced with the usual orange flames and thick, roiling smoke.
Stood where he was, Hotston smiled in grim satisfaction as, five hundred metres to either side of him, his people engaged the NAC troops in their ad-hoc emplacements. It was a massacre.
'Enemy reinforcements coming up!' Hotston jumped, startled by the sudden warning. Looking at his tacmap he smiled once again as saw he'd placed the company's battle bots perfectly. The enemy reinforcements were being hammered by the bots, ambushed by an enemy that shouldn't have been there.
'They came from objective 2-1 sir.' Lieutenant Max Thomas, the commander of 2nd Platoon popped up on his command channel, 'permission to engage.'
2-1 was just over seven hundred metres away, and had been identified as a reinforcement point. The objective that they were currently attacking was a refit and repair station. Destroying it would prevent the NAC forces from
Changing their original weapons choices. Taking it would mean that the 49ers could change their load outs at will.
'Platoon 2, advance and support the bots. Task the bots to push forward. You will be carrying out a SEIZE AND HOLD mission. Out.
'Platoon 3, push into current objective and meet up with the Spanish. Out. Platoon 1, with me.'
He'd spotted an anomaly on a drone feed, a contact that blinked on and off, never quite identified.
'Be on the lookout, I suspect a stealthed enemy unit 200m in the region of the old barn,' he marked the position on Platoon 1's maps. As usual this was a unit that shouldn't have been in the region.
'Contact!' Roared Windsor as she let rip with her cannon, the heavy shells splashing around a group of enemy soldiers that had appeared from the direction of the barn. 'Fuckers are stealthed, switch to manual sights!'
Surprise fuckers, thought Hotston as his people popped switched off their HUDs and started to fire at their enemies the old fashioned way, over iron sights. It was rare these days, soldiers preferring to use as much technology as was available, but he'd insisted that his people learn to shoot the old way. Any advantage they could take to earn more live and keep the ones they already had.
A pair of enemy soldiers bounded forward, straight into his sights. His WEAPON tore them to pieces, killing them in an explosion of gore and shattered limbs.
'Push forward! They're trying to withdraw!' Hotston quickened his pace, trying to maintain contact with the enemy and kill as many as possible.
'Lieutenant Thomas, expect a force of stealth-capable knackers to start reinforcing at your position in five minutes if you haven't seized it.'
'Roger that. Hold timer is three minutes and counting.'
'Understood, we'll finish here and push over to you to assist.' If the timer reached five minutes before any enemy troops could remain in the hold position for one minute, the reinforcement position would be lost, forcing the enemy troops to spawn at the next nearest reinforcement position which, in this sector was over five kilometres away.
'Platoon 3, how are you doing?'
'Objective is ours sir, we've lost Lieutenant Dane until respawn, this is Sergeant Mac.' The speaker was breathless, the fight for the objective obviously having been hard at the end.
'Roger just. Re-configure for anti-armour, then move to 2-1. Platoon 1', his people, 'move to the base's boundary, then I want squad one to reconfigure for anti-mech, squads two and three to reconfigure to heavy weapons. One mortar with each.'
'Bagsy the mortar!' cried Windsor, chuckles filling the comms channel as the others reacted to her exuberance. It's good to have my people laughing, even in the middle of a battle, he thought.
As soon as his tacmap showed that he was in the boundary of their primary objective, he called up a sub-menu. The task of second and third squad would be to provide support to squad three as it hunted any enemy mechs that might appear in the area. That meant they had to have a punch heavy enough to not only deal with enemy infantry, but also lightly armoured support vehicles. Third platoon would deal with any heavier armoured vehicles.
All-in-all, his force was now configured to take on any challengers. Knowing what sort of forces, they should be facing gave them an advantage over the enemy, who would be rushing any forces that they had in the region into combat. That meant first, second and third-line units. Not having worked together properly, this being a rear-line position, would add confusion, challenges over who had command, and indecision over the right course of action.
Their casualties are going to be high he thought, lips tight as he and his people started to push for Cordoba. Safe in the knowledge that the 5th Armoured would be able to push through the gap they made whilst they kept the enemy forces in the region focussed upon the infantry unit rampaging through their rear.
#
Devon's Demons marched slowly through the suburbs of Cordoba. Civilian vehicles cluttered the road where NPCs had abandoned them, traffic backed up for miles around.
Spanish artillery had also pro
bably had something to do with it, and Devon shook her head at their willingness to engage enemy units in such an indiscriminate manner.
'Spanish high command confirm that the NACs are using militia. They've ordered us to fire on sight if we see any units we deem to be enemy personnel.' Kirton sounded glum, exactly as she felt. Hotston had described the battle for the hilltop against French militia, the young girl still haunting his dreams.
Opening a channel to her entire command, she took a deep breath, 'All units, Spanish high command have confirmed that the NACs have mobilised the militia. Terms of Engagement are to shoot on sight. I'd rather we didn't kill people we don't have to. Use your external speakers to order them to drop their weapons and leave the area peacefully. If, after that, then you are free to engage.'
Silence greeted her. There was no need to acknowledge such an unpalatable order.
'Contact! Light recon armoured fighting vehicle. Five hundred metres, by the pink house.' She watched as Kirton dropped a target tag onto the vehicle.
'Drones picking up anything else?' Impatient for an answer, she decided that she would see for herself, calling up the tacmap that the drones were busy building for her unit as they soared above the suburbs of the city.
She took a montage view of all of the feeds, noticing a figure running from one house to another through the small gardens before ducking into another house. The row the house occupied ran horizontally in front of them at a distance of roughly 600m.
Switching the drone to infra-red, she frowned as she saw a number of the houses in the row were hotter than others. That could mean citizens clustering together for mutual support, or could it mean squads of militia drawing a line in the sand.
When she saw a group of figures hurrying towards the row of houses, her heart sank. This time it was plain to see that they were armed. One of them struggling to carry a rocket launcher of some sort.
'All Demons, be aware, enemy has dug-in at this position,' she slashed a line that roughly followed that taken by the row of houses. Following her own previous order, she dropped a drone so that it was directly opposite one of the houses, opened the external speakers that it carried, then spoke.
'This is iMajor Devon, commander of the mech force approaching your position. We are allies, and intend on pushing the enemy NAC forces from your country. Drop your weapons and leave the vicinity, we do not wish to harm you, or your families. You have five minutes.' She was just closing the channel when there was a flash from the house, and the drone marked as destroyed the next second.
'Mtube, drop one shell upon this target on my mark. Kirton, kill the recon on my mark. Three, two, one. Mark.' She didn't need to know that Kirton had killed the recon vehicle, it was dead as soon as she gave him an order to open fire. Instead, she watched as Mtube's shell punched through the roof of the house, closely followed by a blast that blew the top floor to flinders.
No other figures appeared from the enemy lines, and she curses as tracers and pulser shots raced up towards the drones. 'All Demons halt. Send your bots forward to engage the enemy militia.'
Bots were horrible weapons of physical and psychological warfare, and she prayed that just the presence of them would make the militia see sense and withdraw. Then again, they've probably been promised the most horrible consequences for their families.
As the 'bots neared the enemy positions the houses lit up with fire as the militia opened up. The AI of the bots didn't make them easy targets however, and they reacted just as any other soldier would. They were just able to take more and heavier hits, and didn't have a sense of fear to hold them back. They weren't technically self-aware either. Just very, very efficient at doing what they did.
'Fucking idiots! Knobkerries, one round, each of the houses in this row. Fire at will.' The result was devastating. Mtube's artillery tubes dropped a mix of high explosive, phosphorous and gas shells. Houses shattered, burst into flames, bodies and debris flung in a wide radius. Figures started to run from the houses, flames licking over them before they dropped to the ground.
'Gunner, find me their reinforcement point. We've got to stop them from getting back into the fight. All mechs, advance.'
The Bitch strode along the road, past the small housing units that lead to the larger older city, and the berg beneath it. In order to claim to have captured the city, the Spanish only needed to hold the upper parts of the city. Rooting out NAC troops from the berg would take weeks, possibly even months of fighting, but as soon as the upper city was taken, they could call upon every citizen of fighting age, meaning that the NAC troops would be utterly surrounded by over a million hostile militia. Surrender was a given.
Moving through the smoke of the burning recon vehicle, she looked at the charred corpse of the driver as it hung from the hatch. The man or woman would have died in agony, and she hoped that this death wouldn't be one that they remembered.
Smoke rose from the row of houses the enemy militia were in, and she glanced down at her display to see if what the drones were sending. There was still movement within the ruins. No matter how much ordnance you dropped on people, some always survived to continue the fight.
'Angels, push forward and engage the militia. They had their chance. Wipe them out. We'll provide support.'
'Got the reinforcement point boss. And there's a shit load of enemy soldiers forming up around it. All militia from what I can see. Marking.' Kirton tagged an installation roughly three hundred metres to their north, behind the row of houses.
'Knobkerries, fire at will upon the reinforcement point. Katana, push through and take the point.' Mtube's people were firing even before she had finished speaking and she winced as she saw the shells splash down into the enemy milling around the reinforcement point. These weren't seasoned troops, or even recruits fresh out of boot camp, they were civilians thrust into a war they hadn't expected to fight. Bodies, and pieces of bodies littered the ground as shell after shell landed amongst them.
Her stomach twisted as she saw yet more troops appear at the reinforcement point, only to have shells smash them into bloody pulp. Unless she and her people seized that point, the militia troops would be forced to die time after time until they were killed permanently. Not on my fucking watch.
'Suzuki, they're starting to respawn, how are you doing?'
#
Suzuki replied to Devon's request as quickly as he could, smashing his Shinobi through a wall as he did so, 'Nearly there. Moving as quickly as we can.'
A militia member stepped out from behind a corner, levelling an RPG at him. A quick burst from his anti-personnel light machine gun scythed the woman down. No sooner had she fallen, then another militia member stepped out and picked up the RPG. She too died in a hail of lead.
'Move up, these people have a fucking death wish!' He stamped onto the remains of the two militia, crushing the RPG in the process and denying any of their comrades the chance to use it.
As they rounded the corner of a building that had been blocking their line of sight to the reinforcement point he finally saw Mtube's bombardment.
Oh my God, those people! He thought, burping as his stomach threatened to expel his breakfast over the inside of his cockpit at the carnage before them. Shells continued to land, detonating amongst militia as they spawned, killing them before they even had a chance to realise that they were alive again. Human remains were splashed over hundreds of square metres.
'Mtube, we're entering the reinforcement zone. Shift fire to my mark.' He stepped into the zone's outer boundary, sighing as a time appeared and started to count down. The shells raining down on the zone shifted as he'd requested, moving towards the centre. Shrapnel from the shells, as well as shards of bone, would still reach him and his people, but do little damage. It would also continue to kill any militia that managed to get away from the bombardment.
#
'Cease fire Knobkerry, cease fire! Objective taken!' Devon sighed in relief as Suzuki broadcast the good news. Pulling up a sub-menu, she sobbed a
s she saw the casualty estimate. Over 2000 militia deaths had been caused in the space of less than 7 minutes.
'Area secured. Good job people. Push through to the reinforcement point.' Smoke rose from houses and vehicles all around them. Bodies littered the ground and dazed militia staggered around, hands on their heads in the universal signal for surrender. 'Leave the militia. If any engage, remove them, but leave any others. Confirm.'
Hearing all of her people respond, to the affirmative she started to task them with new targets. She sighed, they had a long day of fighting ahead of them.
#
Hotston hated Fighting in Built Up Areas (FIBUA). Combat was room-to-room, hand-to-hand and downright nasty. Placing his hand on well before him, he sent a sonic pulse through into the next room, using the return to build up a picture of what lay behind it.
His HUD painted the outlines of the men and women holding the room. All of them had weapons, 'Three assault rifles, one RPG, two light machine guns. All facing this wall. Guess they know we're here.'
There were a few grim chuckles from the men and women with him. Gone were the well-polished battle suits and untarnished paint. Instead, his people were covered in the scrapes, scuffs and scars of hard-fighting. Those who had their visors raised looked worn out, their eyes narrowed.
'We're going through the wall. Save your charges. Winnie, if you would be so kind.'
'Oh, this is going to be fun!' Windsor took a couple of steps before dropping into a runner's stating position. Before Hotston had time to give the order, she surged forward, tucking her shoulder so that it hit the wall. Plaster exploded, filling the air with powder as she blasted through, Hotston right on her heels.
The enemy were reeling from the surprise of having a gorilla in a battle suit blast through a wall they thought they were probably safe behind. Hotston didn't give them a chance to recover. Laying his sights over the nearest he opened fire with his suit's integral shotgun, a mix of buckshot and slug tearing through the enemy militia, killing her instantly, the slug carrying through and killing one of her comrades.
Devon's Demons: A Permadeath LitRPG LitFPS Novel Page 10