The TAG made its way out onto the main road, its tracks grinding against the duramite roadway without damaging the superhard cement. Kaviel kept his eyes out for obstructions and other things that might cause them issues but saw none. The road was clear as they rumbled along towards the mustering point. Essentially just a large cleared area where troops, vehicles and VTOL aircraft could be gathered in one place before heading out. The Old man rolled out onto the large open patch of duramite and Kaviel checked the IFF to see where his escort was. The computer sorted through the signals till it located two in particular.
He read the screen, it listed off a series of numbers that identified the two vehicles he was to rendezvous with. The identifiers read as Hull#300-324-IFV542-2[Haggard Grinskal] and Hull#300-324-IFV542-3[Saile Onessa]. They were a pair of M3A2 Edward Infantry Fighting Vehicles, these particular IFVs also of Human design. They were armed with a 40mm Autocannon, 12.7mm coaxial heavy machine gun and 40mm automatic grenade launcher each. This wasn't exactly the same level of destructive armament that the Old man was wielding, but against light targets or infantry it would be perfectly deadly.
As a light escort, the two vehicles were not there to act as front-line combatants anyways. They were simply there to make sure he was able to complete his orders without the fear of an ambush. Kaviel directed Haggy to their escort over the internal comms and popped the top hatch before poking his upper body through it. Not something he would do in the contested zone, but behind friendly walls it was safe enough. That and he always liked to see the people he was trusting his life and the lives of his crew to before they potentially got into a dangerous situation.
The air was warm and the sun was fully over the horizon now, the warm rays illuminating the area brightly. He saw the two Edward IFVs sitting side by side like a pair of bodyguards near the far exit. Their respective commanders seemed to have the same idea as him, sitting with their upper bodies jutting from their vehicles.
As the Old Man Death ground to a halt in front of the two vehicles, he took note of the two soldiers in front of him. The left vehicle stood out to him immediately as its entire front was covered in the stylized white skull motif of a Grinskal. The savage carnivore features turning the somewhat dull blocky vehicle into a symbol of terror and power. The Human man atop the armoured vehicle saw him and gave a crisp salute that Kaviel returned with his uppermost arm.
The man lifted his headset and called out “Are you Staff Sergeant Kaviel?”
Kaviel had to partially remove his headset as well to hear the man and replied loudly so as to be heard over the growl of engines “Yesss. Pleasse sswitch to local channel four-hundred-point-ssix.” He waited a moment as the two men fiddled with their headsets and then looked back at him. “That’ss much better.” He said as he replaced his headset and the sound of power-hungry engines immediately lessened.
The other man spoke this time, a Slaaveth male. The vehicle he was situated atop was similar in structure to the first but differed in the style of its paint. It was painted a muted blue gray and had a pair of female Slaaveth painted across the front. They might have been very pretty, but Kaviel couldn't really tell, the scaled and frilled alien women looking a bit too different for him to judge. “You are a bit early.” The vehicle's commander gurgled to him.
Kaviel just shrugged with his three upper pairs of arms and replied “Better early than never I ssuppose. Ssergeant Gursshnik, Sssergeant Juliass, am I correct?” He asked them as he remembered the names the IFF had shown him.
The Human, Sergeant Julias gave a vigorous nod and said “Yes indeed. We got you covered. Though I must admit I am a bit apprehensive about our new orders. We are moving into a hot zone with minimal support and virtually no backup.”
Gurshnik seemed a bit less worried but raised his own point. “We are to cover your vehicle as you commence shelling of enemy fortified positions? Do you know if our deployment has a resupply planned or not?”
Kaviel’s antennae rose as his thoughts from before came back to the fore of his mind. “I don't know. I wass wondering the sssame thing asss it iss not sspecified in the ordersss. My guesss iss that no ressupply isss planned, or they would ssurely have mentioned it.”
The two other men exchanged glances and then saluted him again to which he responded appropriately. “Well, if there iss nothing more to disscusss then I ssugesst we head out forthwith.”
He got two affirmations in return and the men reentered their vehicles, their hatches closing with two metallic thuds. Kaviel hunkered back down into his command area, the hatch closing behind him with a meaty clank. He said “Haggy, we are green to go. Proceed to the targeted zone, take the safe route. We are ahead of schedule.
Over the comms he said “Kaviel to esscort, we are moving out. Pleasse fall in a defensssive formation, one in front, one trailing.” Sergeant Julias took the lead with Sergeant Gurshnik moving in behind them.
They all knew the location of their new orders and so Kaviel watched through the screens as Haggy followed the lead IFV out onto the main lane and towards the edge of the camp. It took only a minute of driving to reach the main gate checkpoint. Again he popped the top hatch, while not expressly required, it made for an easier interaction when the gate guards could see if you were really you.
Julias was checked and waved through before the TAG moved up to the checkpoint proper. The heavy assault gun came to a stop and the main guard walked close to inspect the vehicle quickly. Seemingly satisfied with their cursory examination they walked over to a spot underneath Kaviel’s position atop the armoured vehicle.
Kaviel noted their features, a Nerivith male, his short horns barely poking from the somewhat scruffy black hair covering his head. He pointed up at him and asked loudly “Order authorization code?” Kaviel handed a small card to the man, it was his electronic authorization ID badge and should tell the guard they he was who he said he was as well as his current license to leave the base with heavy armament.
The slender man checked it with his reader, the tablet flashing a few times before showing a small wall of green text. The man handed his card back and waved him through, the Old man started to move as Haggy spooled up the engine. Kaviel gave the guards a casual wave and salute that they returned. No sense in getting annoyed, they were just doing their jobs after all.
After all three of them had made it through the main checkpoint they headed out into the city proper. Well, what was left of it. The military encampment was stationed on the outer limits of Vastolnok, the city one of the primary manufacturing bases of Dreyvan II. Such was its importance that the Hegemony had elected to try and take the city with a ground invasion instead of just shelling it from orbit. The macro-cannons of any Yeown battleship would have easily reduced the city to ashen rubble. But the factories and foundries of Vastolnok were a critical recourse to the war effort, for both sides.
The HIS forces had made landfall in the early part of 775 PU and had proceeded to set up near the southern portion of the huge municipality. That had been over two years ago, the grueling ground war had reduced a large portion of the city to ruins, many of the manufactories that the Hegemony had originally captured now lay in shattered ruins from missile strikes and brief orbital bombardments.
Dreyvan II had originally held air superiority for the beginning part of the war, but this had quickly waned as existing fighters were shot down or disabled. The orbital coverage wasn't much better with both sides having dedicated defensive stations in position over their camps and the Union forces having a battery of Zackary cannons. While they were still subject to probing bombardments from time to time, the damage done by these were generally minimal as counter ordinance defense platforms were able to deflect or destroy a large percentage of incoming fire. The only thing that still threatened the camp were close range ballistic missile attacks, though they were rare now that the main defense cordon had been pushed more than fifteen kilometers away.
He looked around, the screens giving him a clear view over the surrounding area. They were driving through the city proper now, this far from the front line many buildings still stood tall, if damaged. Most had blown out windows and chipped facades, their once bright faces now streaked with ash and grime. Their garish paint jobs cracked and sullied by the fallout of a protracted war.
Many of the structures here were residential in nature and still housed refugees who refused to flee completely. As they ground by one of the buildings, a three-story apartment complex with a faded yellow exterior, a small figure waved to them from a porch. It was a young Human boy, dirty and slightly disheveled looking, the small boy nevertheless waved to them excitedly. Kaviel could see the excitement on the boy's face and felt compelled to give the TAG’s horn a blast. He hissed quietly in amusement as the boy jumped first in surprise and then waved more excitedly.
It was a wholesome reminder of why he was here. He wasn't here to protect some government claim or obscure corporate structure, he was here to protect people. The Hegemony had showed on multiple occasions its chilling lack of regard for sapient life. He thought of the attacks on Sabith and the destruction of the Goldbard system. Cowards attacking civilian targets, the attacks had killed tens of thousands of innocents that had been defenseless.
The fact that they had been defenseless was a sore point in his mind, the Union should have known the levels the traitors would stoop to. There had even been murmurs of an attack on Gorlich station. He wasn't sure if they were true or not, surely not even the rebels would stoop to the point of attacking a neutral zone. That would be almost unthinkable in its cruelty as the megastation was home to thousands of young families that had fled the war after the destruction of their homes. The station had been declared a neutral zone for the rehabilitation of refugees left destitute by the wanton destruction of the rebellion.
Such thoughts would serve no purpose but to darken his already tenuous positive outlook. He checked their position again, they were well to the east of the main bulk of the fighting. Many of the reports coming in on the local network were from dug in defensive positions and anti-air SAM sites. It seemed as though the eastern edge of the front was quiet at the moment. Some minor skirmishing and light contact all across the front, but no concentrated attacks or armoured pushes for the last ten hours at least. If he could have frowned he would have, instead his antennae twitched in consternation. That wasn't like the rebels to leave them so untouched for so long. Kaviel didn't like it, it felt too much like a buildup. The rebels were likely gearing up for a large offensive push, and they would be right in front of it.
Turning to his command screen he messaged his escort. ‘Stay alert, something feels wrong.’ The blue text looked like some prophetic declaration of suffering. He shook his head slightly, unable to blink as he observed the surrounding area. The screens showed a more and more dilapidated vision of hell on the ground around them. Crushed buildings, burnt out vehicles waiting to be salvaged, and cratered debris that had once been fortified positions.
They were close to their objective point now, they were to set up about one and a half kilometers from the current front line and connect to command post alpha-thirty-kilo in sector eighteen. The post was commanded by a grizzled Human that Kaviel had worked with before. One Captain David Melisner, the man had a reputation for holding his ground under fire, and it was well deserved. His position was one of only two on the entire eastern front that had not been abandoned a single time over the duration of the fighting. It was seen as a hardpoint and lynchpin of the eastern defensive line.
To his left he saw the flashes of muzzle fire, bright tracers from an anti-air emplacement reaching towards the sky far above. He couldn't see what they were shooting at however, it could have been an enemy bomber, cruise missile or extremely unfortunate cloud drifter, the large flying creatures big enough to set off radar alarms.
It would not really matter what it was, if it was a bomber or cruise missile, they wouldn't be wasting their precious munitions on two light vehicles and a single artillery piece. ‘Probably.’ He said to himself with a bit less confidence than he liked. Nothing he could do about it either way, the TAG wasn’t equipped to deal with air targets and neither were the Ewards IFVs escorting them.
He was jostled slightly in his crash couch as the TAG rolled over the remains of a collapsed building that had strewn itself across the street. This close to the main bulk of the fighting, many of the once colorful structures of Vastolnok had been reduced to so much rubble and debris. He had two of his lower arms gripping hand rungs to stabilize him against the rough ride however so it ultimately didn't bother him. He wondered briefly to himself how the Humans got anything done with only two arms and two legs. He almost shuddered, his antennae twitching in discomfort as he thought of only having four limbs. What a terrible fate of evolution, and not just the Humans, most of the other races of the Union had only four limbs as well. At least the Skorp had a handy number of limbs, still not enough, but ten was much better than four.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
He checked their surroundings again, ever vigilant for signs of enemy combatants or worse, incoming smart munitions like the Astral Wrath IPM system. Such munitions could be stopped by the active protection systems of the Edwards IFVs, but he really didn't want to take that chance. No sense tempting the Mother’s Fates after all. He had always wondered why the top brass and command folks didn't see the good sense of mounting such protective systems to mobile artillery and the like. Surely they were just as worthy of the protection as more front line units? It must have been some sort of ranxshit cost saving measures.
Haggy spoke out over the internal comms “Nearing mission location Commander. Ssould I put it in ssiege mode as ssoon ass we sstop?” he asked.
Having gone over this many times before Kaviel gave the smallest of sighs, the small sound covered by the rumble of the vehicle's powerful engine. “Yess, pleasse do.” switching to the local area communications network he found the local defense net and reported in. “Ssector command, thiss isss Sstaff Ssergeant Kaviel, reporting in for heavy sssupport role in ssector ssseven.”
He waited a second for a response and then a slightly stifled voice crackled through. The tell-tale gurgling accent of a Slaaveth spoke “Receiving you Staff Sergeant, please confirm Hull number please.”
Kaviel replied immediately and from memory “Hull#300-324-FAR441-1.”
After a few seconds the voice returned. “Identity confirmed, Go ahead with fire support. Will call, handle Old Man. Thanks for coming, we have a series of targets for you already, Fire mission target enemy positions as marked. Sending you the coordinates now. Please confirm receipt.”
Kaviel checked the screens in front of him, after a moment the secondary command screen flared as it received new targeting data. “Fire mission received, thank you Ssector Command.” The link was severed without any ceremony, not that he cared at all. They were in a warzone, not at some military ceremony after all.
He loaded the coords as well as the data into the targeting computer of the TAG, the mission called for a double strike on a fortified position, four kilometers away, two HE rounds. Turning to Joana and Fredrick he commanded “Load high explosive, follow with another high explosive then wait for orders.” They went to work without question, the actions and responses drilled into them by many such missions over the last few years. He kept his attention on them in his peripherals while also maintaining his watch on the main screen. His two hundred and seventy degree field vision making the task doable if a bit strenuous.
After a minute, the meaty thud of metal on metal reached his tympanal organs, followed shortly by the deeper thud of the breach closing shut. Frederick announced over comms “High explosive loaded!”
Without hesitation Kaviel depressed the firing trigger on his gunner's station. A tremendous noise filled the cabin of the vehicle, less a noise and more a wall of pure force, it rocked the Thunderscream Assault Gun back on its tracks. Even the vehicle’s sixty-eight-ton weight was not enough to fully dampen the main gun's behemoth recoil. With a sense of awe that always followed the first firing of the main gun, Kaviel watched on the scanners as the huge two-hundred-and-eighty-millimeter mortar rocketed through the air, seemingly as graceful as a julips in flight.
After no more than a few seconds he got a confirmation on his screen, target was hit, negligible drift on the shell. He saw that Joana was already busy hauling another of the heavy projectiles out of the ammo stowage. She wrestled it onto the railed ammo cart and then ran it to the breach while Freddy extracted the spent propellant cap from the previous shot. From there it was a simple matter to shove the new shell as far in as it would go and then close the breach.
Freddy again relayed “High explosive loaded!”
Taking the barest fraction to double check that their firing angle had not shifted, he depressed the trigger again. The same wall of force slammed through him, his armoured body more than capable of standing up to the force of the blast. The shell sailed up, up and up in a mighty arc before dipping below the line of sight in the far distance. A flash of light and plume of barely visible smoke lifted from the distant detonation on the screens and he nodded to himself. He knew it was another successful hit even before the confirmation came in moments later. This was why he existed, to deal out the Union’s punishment on those who would cause chaos and despair.
“Two confirmed hitss, both good!” he hissed loudly to the others. Kaviel checked his orders again, their next target was a big one. A fortified structure that was housing not one, but three heavy gun installations. High explosives were acceptable but thermobarics were recommended, that way the structure and any underlying infrastructure would be destroyed by the extreme low pressure detonation. “Next load, thermobaric!” he ordered while adjusting the vehicles targeting parameters. Their new fire mission required the traversing of the vehicle's hull and Haggy immediately complied to the new direction upon receiving the new bearing, the vehicle shuddering slightly as it ground the rubble under its tracks to powder.
After a moment they had their new firing position locked and Kaviel input the coordinates into the firing computer. While it was possible to aim the massive gun manually, it was generally not necessary while the vehicle was powered. He thanked the Mother for that, he had trained with the manual cranking mechanism before and it was a massive pain in the carapace to be blunt.
The new firing solution finished its adjustments to the main gun and he waited till Freddy confirmed the gun was armed and ready. Taking a minor note of their position, he pressed the trigger. That all too familiar pressure washed through the fighting compartment making his vision swim for a bare moment. He watched the shell on the outer feed as it rocketed up and away, falling slowly in a titanic arc that saw it disappear into the distance under a row of shattered towers. A second later a series of bright flashes lit the horizon and he twitched his antennae in satisfaction. That had looked like a direct hit with secondary munitions cooking off, generally a giveaway that a fighting position had been wiped out.
The breach of the mortar launcher groaned slightly as Freddy and Joana opened it, the smell of burnt propellant wafted through the hull and was quickly pulled out by the vents. In the case of a biological or chemical attack the vents could be sealed, but they were very useful in keeping the fighting compartment breathable in the meantime. The large spent casing was discarded back into an empty ammo rack as Freddy and Joana readied themselves for another order.
Kaviel looked through their orders, they had two more firing orders to finish before they went to standby status. Looking at them he selected the closer of the two, a prefabricated bunker had been pulled into a crossroads the night before, the Spine Spitter heavy machine guns inside were keeping the local sector from advancing on it. A single anti-fortification shell should sort it out. One again, the cabin shook as Haggy adjusted their position slightly.
“Load Armour Piercing!” He said with a slight hiss over his headset, true to their training, Freddy and Joana immediately complied. The heavy shell was slightly more angular than the high explosive variants they had used so far. As a bunker buster round it was designed to pierce either three hundred and seventy-five millimeters of face-hardened steel or about two and a quarter meters of reinforced duracrete. From the report he was reading of the bunker, it seemed to be a hardened steel cage faced with thick slabs of duracrete. It wouldn't stand up to a direct hit from the TAG.
The thunk of the breach closing was like a death bell tolling for the souls of the rebels sheltering inside the distant fortress. With a sense of determination Kaviel fired the main gun, this time the vehicle was pressed down instead of back. The high firing angle of the shot slamming the recoil into the ground under the TAG’s wide tracks.
This time he had a live feed from an officer on the front. The webbed hands of a Slaaveth gripped a Jule2000 laser rifle and the picture showed a large squat box sitting in the middle of a desolate crossroads. The buildings to either side had given up entirely, their shattered remains forming slight mounds of rubble that the rebels had piled into improvised bulwarks and trench lines. The prefab bunker dominated the square, as he watched the feed a stream of tracers from the mounted heavy machine guns lashed out across the Union lines. The suppressive fire didn't seem to hit anything, but it did its job and kept the friendly troops pinned while the rebels set up their heavier guns.
As he watched, a dark mass smashed into the roof of the bunker suddenly. The feed jerked as the roof of the structure was lifted off by an explosion, the fire and smoke exiting from every single opening in the structure. Rubble was catapulted dozens of meters into the air, some of it raining down on the Union lines. The Hegemony forces fared much worse, with the loss of their cover dozens of them were mowed down by retaliatory fire from the freshly motivated Union troops. The picture rose as the officer attached to it stood and ordered a charge.
Kaviel shifted his antennae till they brushed the roof of the cabin, it was a clean hit. To see the Old Man’s handiwork inspire such instant courage was uplifting. “Direct hit!” He exclaimed. “That filled in their burrowss for ssure.” He chuckled.
The local comms fizzed slightly as another voice spoke “That was a hell of a shot Sergeant! God damn it was beautiful!” Kaviel started slightly then perked up as he realised it was Julias, one of the IFV commanders.
“Thank you Juliasss, I can’t take all the credit, the Old Man did mosst of the hard work after all.” Kaviel responded.
The other man chuckled over the mic and was quiet for a minute as Kaviel turned back to his last firing mission. Julias spoke again and said “Well, it doesn't matter anyways. You are the one I'm giving my thanks to, you have saved our boys out there countless times. I just hope I get the opportunity to return the favor one of these days Staff Sergeant.”
Kaviel nodded even though the other man couldn't see him “Thank you. I hope the day doessn't come anytime ssoon. If you need to protect me it meansss something hass gone terribly wrong.” He said. The comms stayed silent. He piled his focus back onto the task at hand.
Their last preselected mission was on an extensive system of trench works that spanned an open field between two large structures. While a high explosive shell would do damage, it likely would not provide enough of an opening for friendly forces to push the gap.
He widened the call and sent a signal to sector command. “Sector command, this is Old Man. Current firing ssolution iss Unssatisssfactory. Recommend switching to incendiary round.”
The same gurgling Slaaveth voice replied “I read you. Hold for a moment please.” He hissed in annoyance, he knew he was right. But of course any change in orders had to be approved through command. That was the biggest gripe Kaviel had with the way the Union did things, there was always somebody in charge and they didn't always like to listen to reason. He could only hope that the current idiot in charge was smart enough to see the point of his recommendation.
An incendiary shell would clear the trenches without damaging them very much, thus leaving the Union forces free to move up and occupy them. This would be a much better solution than just blasting the fuck out of them, though it would likely have the same effect in the short term.
Haggy spoke up as Kaviel was still waiting on a response. “It would be nice if we could operate with a bit more autonomy.”
Kaviel let out a long exhale and agreed “Yess it would. Though I undersstand why they don’t. Can you imagine the anarchy if everyone wass able to do what they thought wass the besst way? Chaoss.” He finished.
Haggy turned away slightly, seemingly thinking it over. This time it was Joana who spoke. “I am fine taking orderss asss long as they are well defined.”
Kaviel waved a few arms for silence as his headset cracked to life again. It was the Slaaveth again “Sector command to Old Man, your suggestion has been taken into consideration. You may change to incendiary ammo. Good luck.”
The link cut without another word. Generally they would at least give him an opportunity to respond, but it seemed like they must have had other more pressing matters than them. Whatever it was it likely wouldn't affect their mission too much. He turned to get a fuller view of the others and said “New orderss, load incendiary.”
Freddy and Joana compiled, reaching for a blue tipped shell with white warnings scrawled across its black lower portion. Kaviel hated incendiaries almost as much as he hated nuclear weapons. They caused unnecessary suffering in his opinion, though he couldn't argue with their effectiveness. They got the job done, and right now he had a job that needed doing.
The firing computer calculated a steep arc and set the shell to airburst twenty meters over the target ensuring maximum spread on the compound. All he had to do was pull the trigger and it would be out of his hands. Such a small action, no effort at all really.
Kaviel pressed the trigger, the main gun screamed as the rocket assisted mortar soared up into the sky. He turned to Haggy and said “Move uss fifty metersss easst, it would be embarrasssing to get counter fired if they are paying attention.”
The vehicle rumbled as it moved slowly over the rubble to a new firing position. The risk of counter battery fire was omnipresent, they had been counter fired upon several times before. So far the heavy armour of the TAG had held up, but why risk it? Their escort followed them, staying close.
Kaviel checked their communications with the local area network again as they stopped, still quiet. This was the worst part of the war on Dreyvan II, the waiting. He could deal with the fast pace of coordinated fire missions, but the one thing he had always struggled with was downtime.
The communicator flashed at him signaling another good hit. They were to remain on standby but transition four hundred meters to the north. His antennae lowered at that, they would put them right behind the main push. If the secessionists counter-pushed then they would be right in their path. Then again, it made sense to have them there as it would lower the time to call in support.
‘Orders were orders after all.’ he told himself while letting out a mildly strained hissing sigh. He motioned to Freddy and Joana that they were getting ready to move. “Haggy, ssector command wantss usss to move four hundred meters north, to the marked location. Let me tell our esscort and then move out.”
Haggy’s antennae rose as they responded “We are moving closser?”
Freddy replied “Lookss like it. Ready when you are commander.”