The fuckers where pouring heavy fire into his position, luckily the drone took out the machine gunner, which gave him a small respite. He ordered the drone back into stealth mode. With some luck the enemy contacts would think 2 or more where around the area.
As a reflex, he threw some grenades into their positions, which exploded as soon as they hit the ground. He moved away and ran a to a new location the drone had marked on his helmet hud. Once relocated he had a couple of seconds to observe the situation. From Group 1 it semeed there were around 20 in total, with 10 already dead and the vehicle incapacitated from the explosion. But there seemed to be a recon group from the enemy. He estimated 10 extra enemies. All in all he was up against 20 pirates give or take. His first couple of ‘nades had killed 2 enemies and the drone downed 2 extra enemies. Which still let him at a very unfavorable engagement.
The drone showed a possible sniper relocating. He would not let them cut his escape, he took aim and took him out while he was moving, two good shots hit the would be sniper on the torso, he was dead when he hit the ground.
‘Fuck, where did these fuckers come from?’
As soon as he shot, he began to move out. Suddenly a couple of shots hit nearby, missing him by a couple of feet. The drone located the shooters, he finished his sprint to his next cover and snap aimed at one of the shooters hitting him on the head. He saw how blue xenos blood painted the tree besided his target. But as soon as he finished his first shot he took cover again, more shots coming his way. According to the drone 5 more enemies were on hot pursuit.
‘Doable, still have 4 more ‘nades, need to time it right for -‘
The drone shot again, he sprinted out of there and threw a ‘nade where he was staning, which was set up to detonate in 3 seconds. As soon as he exited shots went his way, but thankfully his augmented reflexes were good enough to evade most of the shots. The rest of the shots hit his armor, which was quite durable and took the impacts, but was displayed as yellow on his left leg in his hud visor, he couldn’t afford to take more shots like that.
The drone fired again, taking down 1 enemy who was almost on top of him, he was being cornered. Thankfully he still had a few tricks up his sleeve. The two pirate hunters who were near him died when they gave pursuit and the ‘nade detonated at their feet. The drone went back into stealth and gave a warning of low ammunition.
‘How many of these fuckers are there?’
He continued to move torwards his unit’s defensive position. He could not mantain this engagement for too long, not unless it was a last resort or he was surrounded. His armor was good but he didnt wanna test just how good it was or when it stopped self repairing major damage.
With more shots coming his way he jumped to a good cover postion. While jumping he threw a flashbang to blind his enemies. As soon as he touched the ground, he spun on himself and took aim where the shots were coming from. He saw 2 aliens that were in somewhat of a cover position blinded by the flash. Two head shots and he quickly took care of them after which he continued on the move.
‘Only 300 more meters and they will walk right into the ambush. According to the drone the rest of the patrols abandoned the stealth approach and are converging on my location. Just as planned’
He grinned and kept running. All in all around 40 contacts were chasing him according to the drone, with 2 vehicles coming in hot. He knew heavy weapons and anti armored rockets were present in his new unit, so it wasnt too much of a worry. But still these fuckers were armored and had very elite troops for normal pirates.
Another 100 meters to go, the pursuers were more careful now, he had the chance to stop and take 2 more by surprise before the enemy armored vehicles came forward. He didnt have his anti tank weapon here, it was back there with his squad. He had packed lightly after all there were no reports of enemy armor in the AO.
‘You are getting careless old man. Never trust intel, should have learend that by now’
In the last sprint he looked at the enemy vehicle, he recognized the design as a Zaalik Armoed Personnel Carrier (APC) but it was modified somewhat with lighter armor and it hovered for the jungle environement.
He continued his approach to the ambush and gave to clicks with his radio. That was the signal. As soon as he passed through a clearing he took cover behind some of the trees. He saw 2 of his new unit nearby. The killzone was set. Both of them had some nasty looking rocket launchers. He signaled at least 2 APC coming and the aproximate direction. Both the xenos nodded and waited.
He saw the pirates come into view. There were at least 40 of them, more had come from the main base. This was good. The assault on the pirate base should begin soon. The enemy began to spread out, when both APC appeared 3 rocket launchers fired at them, all 3 hitting and destroying them in an instant. Then all hell broke loose.
He got into position and began returning fire, the initial volley had killed at least 15 pirates with at least 3 wounded from the explosion. He saw some Xuulian trying to radio in for help or backup, but he sniped him before the foul xenos could open his mouth.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The battle was turning one sided pretty quickly, the enemy was trapped in a more or less open area and their rush to find what they believed to be 2 enemies quickly turned into their doom. Classic bait tactics that always proved usefull when engaging against semi professional enemies. The problem came when his drone shot again.
‘Fuck, how the fuck they got so close?’
The professional troops he encountered before must have sensed the ambush. The few of them who were left were flanking his unit, luckily his drone had found them and took 1 of the enemy out. He spun but before he could do anything Xocarion appeared out of thin air, killing the 2 enemy scouts in an instant. He was glad he wasnt the only recon expert in there.
After killing the recon patrol and finishing up the stragglers they all regrouped. Heax and Marsqa were discussing some plans. As soon as they saw him and Xocarion approach they grinned.
‘Shit that’s never good when it’s coming form a superior officer’
They told him the plan. He would team up with Xocarion, head on to scout and create a distraction while the main force was approaching. Meanwhile the rest of the unit would act as a QRF in case things got too hot for them but would leave the recon and distraction to both of them. To him it was a good enough plan, pretty straight forward and he could work with the blue one given he had good stealth tech and know how.
“Alright, seems solid enough for me sir. May I recommend planting explosives on the dead pirate leaders that are here? Should help us find out if the enemy is still out there and when they pass through this area, sir.”
As he said this, the three xenos looked at him a bit dumbfolded. He knew he used dirty tactics, but he had learned long ago that not using them while facing a numerically superior force meant casualties on his side. After a couple of seconds Heax spoke
“It is true then, you do wage war in a different way Logan. This pirate scum does not deserve sympathy. Very well, we will follow your suggestion.”
After that he went on his way, Xocarion following close by.
“Do the terrans not have rules of engagement?”
“Yeah we do, but sometimes they are more like suggestions if you wanna live. Either way, the people we hunted sometimes didnt deserve any rules.”
Xocarion went quiet with that, but then went back to focus on the mission.
“I saw you have some type of drone with you. Will you be able to scan a path ahead of us with no patrols? I think we should deal with small patrols, but avoid big ones if possible. Also maybe the drone will help us find a nice spot to blow up.”
“How did you - Never mind. Yes, it’ll help us, if we end up finding bigger patrols we can mark them and send their coordinates to the boys, they can handle them alright. But according to scans there shouldn’t been too many patrols around. They spend somewhat close to 100 men in this attack.”
Xocarion nodded and then kept a few meters behind him. They understood each other decently and with some practice he thought they could make a decent team. He grinned.
‘Who would have guessed you would team up with a xeno, I bet they are all laughing their asses off in Valhalla’
-----
They moved carefully around the area, until they detected a small patrol, 3 pirates all in all. They set up positions, he ordered the drone to take out the one all the way in the back. Then he signaled to Xocarion to take the one up front. He took aim to the one on the middle. In less than 1 second they had 3 dead pirates.
‘Its been easy, small patrols like this are easy to take out, this one makes 5 patrols taken out in less than 1 hour’
They had been making steady progress torwards the pirate base and they were a mere 300 meters away from it. They did a big contour of the base, they should have a distraction somewhat opposite to where the incoming reinforcements will show up after all.
So far the pirate camp was a mess, they were getting ready but lacked good leaders, they began setting up positions and he could see through the drone they were worried since all, or most of, their patrols were missing. But something didnt fit. Somehow there were more men than before. That meant a big underground location. Which was a shit thing to clear. He estimated the enemy to be around 300 to 500 men in total. He was certain their reinforcements could take them, but not withouth some serious losses. That was why he knew they needed the distraction.
“You seen anything that we could use?” Xocarion asked quietly.
“I think they must have an underground hangar. We need to locate it and put a couple of charges in there. Fortunately the drone might have located it. We will need to infiltrate inside, it will be though, glad you have your special stealth suit”
Xocarion smiled. “Lead the way Logan”
They continued to move torwards the base, he looked at his hud watch, the main assault would begin in 30 minutes. That did not leave too much margin for the infil, but they could make it work. With all the chaos and extra patrols being sent out, each time better prepared and bigger, it was easier to distract the enemy watching the entrance, especially if it came from a position where no contact had been made thus far.
They saw 5 guards near the building which the drone identified as the entrance to the hangar. The drone was pretty high up now, and showed a tactical view of the situation, always telling him if enemy patrols were approaching. But so far they had been lucky, nothing, no patrols nor enemy tanks coming their way.
They took positions and then took out the pirates set up on the roofs, there were three of them, but they took them down in less than 2 seconds. That left the 2 near the entrance, which they killed pretty quickly. As they moved in closer, 2 unlucky pirates exited the building and couldn’t say a word as they got sprayed with shots from both Xocarion’s and his weapon.
He had noticed Xocarion also used hard rounds, unlike the energy weapons most aliens used. Guess it always helped with stealth. But the design of the xenos armor was somewhat new to himself, it was a slick, clean design; who seemed somewhat durable but flexible and was always adapting to its surroundings. He had seen the better stealth mode, which made Xocarion basically invisible withouth the speed restrictions that his own suit gave him. He would need to discuss a bit more with Xocarion once they went back to base.
They proceeded forward quietly, his drone still up there providing overwatch. They left the bodies where they were. No need to alert the enemy that they were already inside. They approached the door. He checked the drone one last time before entering. No contacts, no enemies on approach. They were clear.
He gave a hand signal, they stopped. He located himself one step away from the door ready to open it. Xocarion tapped his shoulder twice, and then, he went in.